Witch Hats' coolly chaotic live show, mixed with their surreal and violent lyrical tales, is one of many facets that make the Melbourne band one of the country's most interesting (and irreverent) exports. Having recently returned from a sojourn in the US, where their swaggeringly brutal new EP was recorded, and finished a national tour with buddies The Drones (the frontman of whom, according to Witch Hats, "eats a whole block of cheese minutes before each show"), vocalist/guitarist Kris Buscombe sits down to tell yourGigs some stories from the road.
yourGigs (yG): How the hell did you hook up with Greg Ashley?
Kris Buscombe (KB): Greg's got a MySpace account and as tends to happen from time to time, they get hacked by entertaining losers selling crap ... We kept getting weird spammy messages from Greg asking us to buy him a mobile phone. After a few weeks of spam building up, getting in the way of messages from our mums, we decided to write back asking he remove us from his mailing list and to sort his own shit out with the phone. He was all like, "Let me give you a brief outline and description of my recording space in Oakland." To save time reading any more messages we just booked ourselves in and that's what happened 100 percent truthfully.
yG: Spin us a yarn from the Creamery and your recording sessions there.
KB: It all happened pretty quickly, it was two days of playing live in a large concrete room with huge natural reverb. There was a funny stage with a Van Halen "LEAD SINGER" runway out from the middle which served as an inspirational reminder we were there to make a bloated, drugged out spontaneous record.
On the roof of the Creamery there are old stables from when the place actually operated as a fully functioning milk factory. Most of the equipment has been taken away as you don't need to hold onto things like udder pumps if you ain't squeezing the cows for juice. I say most, because despite not being a functioning dairy factory any more, a few cows still wander the grassy meadow out back. In between takes I would spend time talking to the families on one of the numerous "feed the living cow" tours, getting a feel of American life and its fatty people.
It was during one of these breaks I met Michael, a youngish guy who demanded I step aside from the microphone and let him sing. I was really upset at first as I only started this band so one day I could sing a song in a milk factory but quickly realised his voice was much better than mine.
yG: How did Ashley influence the sound of Solarium?
KB: We'd talked about trying to record Funhouse (an album by Pink). We were going to hire a big PA and mic everything up, then stick microphones all over the room but ended up skipping the PA bit and spending that part of the budget on drugs instead. I can't recall many regrets.
Apart from having a place for us to record he didn't really influence the sound much. He usually records bands in a different way. We were kind of boisterous and pushed him around to do it our way. I never asked what he thought of the sound of it, he probably hates it!
yG: Was it a conscious decision to go for a harsher, more raw sound than your previous releases?
KB: Very conscious, I like our recordings in the past for their hard rocking slick aesthetic but realised it's probably better we try and perfect a rougher recording style due to the shabby nature of the music itself. For a first effort it's pretty good but I think the next album will be the payoff song and recording wise. In hindsight this EP will look like an interesting transitional artefact.
yG: What important life or musical lessons do you feel you've brought home with you after your time in the States?
KB: I found few answers in America but thousands of new questions like, "Why do people in Waco, Texas leak fluid from their mouths when you ask directions to the Mount Carmel Center?" and "Why is it easier to break someone's arm than forgive a fully operational robot?" or "Why is Wesley Snipes presented as an actor to Australians via amazing films, yet in America he is their most treasured vacuum salesman?"
Solarium Down the Causeway is out now through Z-Man Records. See the gig guide for details on the EP launches.
Aimee-Lee Curran
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