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GERLING |
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 On this page:
*Gerling interview
*Gerling Discography (all available on Whammo)
*Gerling Audio (listen to any song from BadBlood!!!)
*Gerling Australian Tour dates
GERLING- THE WHAMMO INTERVIEW - AUGUST 18, 2003
They’ve been the most exciting act to emerge from Sydney’s pub circuit over the last decade but Gerling’s love for experimentation has prolonged the process of defining a distinctive sound. BadBlood!!! finally presents the band as a stylized, cohesive combo of immeasurable quality. Punk may have been designed to kill disco but the deranged fusions on BadBlood!!! seem to represent the birth and death of both genres; a bizarre juggling act that is somehow translated by speakers as a commercially viable, cleverly produced body of work. To be approachable and experimental at the same time is a rare achievement and for that reason alone BadBlood!!! is a welcome contradiction that deserves the praise of critics and the public alike. With an imminent tour and Japanese release, the Sydney trio have a busy year ahead. Luckily, Darren (vocals/guitar) found time to chat to Whammo…
Whammo: Bad Blood!!!. I love it.
Darren: Well, thank you.
Whammo: I guess everyone says they like it but I must say it’s my favourite album at the moment. I liked the Who’s Ya Daddy? EP as well, which I described as being ‘like Prince on Special K’…that’s meant to be a compliment Darren.
Darren: (laughs)
Whammo: You’ve gone for an electro-clash cross punk kind of sound, which I don’t think I’ve ever heard before.
Darren: It’s closer to us getting a Gerling sound which is crossing what we do live - with my singing - and what we do with our instruments. We programmed all the beats on the album but it does sound like rock. It’s kind of like a lo-fi, shitty N.E.R.D or The Neptunes; like how they did the In Search Of album. They programmed that but then released it again, playing all the sounds live. I guess it’s like an indie/punk version of that. I think it does give it a unique kind of sound.
Whammo: It’s very stylized. Each song, regardless of genre, isn’t a huge departure from the next. It flows very well.
Darren: The last record for us was totally ambitious and we didn’t even care how we were going to do it live or stylistically. We just wanted to use the excitement of having our own studio and the ability to do any genre of music we liked in this shitty little hole in Redfern (Sydney). We really did achieve that but on the other hand it was a bit confusing to a lot of people and we just wanted to make everything a bit more obvious; to call it BadBlood!!! and not a long-winded, whacked-out, acid-tripping kind of vibe; to make the artwork a bleeding disco ball with smashed glass and a bit of red paint; punk killing disco. What we set out to achieve is exactly how you just described it. We wanted to make the whole thing make sense.
Whammo: I think if you heard the album once and then heard any of those songs on the radio, you’d immediately recognize it as Gerling.
Darren: That’s cool.
Whammo: The other major foundation is also strong on this album and that’s the songwriting. It’s got a few potential hits, like the first song, Blood On The Microphone Pt 1. The chorus on that is f**king awesome. It rocks.
Darren: I woke up one night and wrote the lyrics and knew exactly how I wanted everything to sound. I went into the studio the next day and put down the skeleton. In the chorus there’s weird samples, slowed down strings, one glichy thing through distortion, then I cut up the vocals through the Logic program, Bourke put down that killer bass line, I sang that high note ‘the-mic-ro-phone’ which is kind of Bowie-ish and we put in a few clap sounds. It’s probably my favourite Gerling song at the moment. I think it really sums up what we were trying to do with this record.
Whammo: I almost thought of The Strokes when I heard In The City.
Darren: We wanted to do more of a Kraut-rock/beat-poetry thing. I thought I was just doing a Gerling rap through a distortion pedal and then everyone’s saying it sounds like The Strokes. Don’t get me wrong, I see it as a compliment because I think The Strokes write good pop music but I don’t remember The Strokes using strings or harpsichords in their songs. All those horn sections are live and we thought it was giving it more of a Lou Reed Transformer kind of feel.
Whammo: This album is world class. What are you doing to get it to the rest of the world?
Darren: At the moment it’s all getting sorted out. In Japan, Sony are going to put it out again and they were really fantastic with our last record. I don’t know about the rest of the world. America’s never put anything out. I do think it should be released overseas. It’s got a universal sound to it.
Whammo: If you’re getting any grief, just let me know and I’ll go over there and sort em out for you.
Darren: (laughs)
Whammo: I’m over this shit: I WANT GERLING TO BE BIG OVERSEAS!! I’ll do anything. I’ll dance naked in one of your clips if you like.
Darren: Okay, maybe that would open a lot of doors for us, G.
Whammo: Didn’t you have a gig at the Fuji festival in Japan a couple of years ago?
Darren: Yeah, that was amazing. Imagine one of the smaller stages, maybe a Boiler Room sized venue (Big Day Out). It was packed and that was our first gig in Japan. We were going: ‘what the f**k’s gone right in Japan for us?’.
Whammo: (laughs) A great surprise.
Darren: We were the first act on and there were all these massive bands playing. I was freaking out. There was this local band that played first that nobody gave a shit about. So we went back-stage to do our thing, looked out just as we were going to play and the whole thing was packed. There was such a roar when we came on and we were thinking ‘man, what’s going on- this is excellent’. It’s a great memory and we’ve got a really good record coming out in Japan, so hopefully it will all work out over there. There’s a lot of good interest and a lot of the ultra-cool magazines are getting into us.
Whammo: You’ve still got the trademark Gerling guitar-sound, which is really how you started: two guitars and drums. It’s nice that you’ve retained that.
Darren: Yeah, I guess it’s hard to not put that in because that’s what we are. Everyone’s saying that this record is so dark and I’m like ‘f**k, you should have seen us at the ‘Sando’ (Sandringham Hotel) 8 years ago’. The new record sounds like Joni Mitchell compared to that.
Whammo: (laughs)
Darren: We were crazy back then. There was a lot of teenage – and I hate to say it – angst. There was a lot of the usual confusion with growing up. We didn’t give a f**k about anyone. It was all about the music back then and I think that was punk as well. This new record is definitely more about what we are as people. We are a dark kind of people. People mistook a lot of the things we’ve done in the past as really, kind of…funny? I never really got that. I always thought that we were darker than we actually were. Now I think it’s more of a true reflection of what we are, where we want to go and what kind of music we want to make.
Whammo: I looked at Who’s Ya Daddy? as being fun but very sinister.
Darren: Totally. That song’s a good example. I think that song’s totally evil. It’s a weird song. It’s sinister but people don’t see that. I guess we’ve got to be a bit more extreme.
Whammo: So, what’s it like for you now? Is it a life of cruising the harbour, cocaine and super-models?
Darren: To be honest, I’ve been really flat-out with Gerling: all the artwork, t-shirts, badges, web-site, interviews. It’s a full-on, 9 to 5 sort of job and I’m always thinking of ways to improve Gerling. I haven’t really been partying for 2 ½ years. It could be changing. I’m ready for this tour and I’m ready to play some music that we’re really excited about and really love.
Whammo: There’s not much room for you exciting, quality-song-writing, fresh types of acts. You really need to just play boring, crap, depressing music and you’ll sell a lot of units.
Darren: I know. That’s what it’s all about. It’s still really confusing to me.
Whammo: All you can do is make good music and that’s exactly what you’re doing, so f**k em.
Darren: Totally.
Listen to any song on BadBlood!!! Just click on any title below...
Blood On The Microphone Pt 1
Blood On The Microphone Pt 2
Get Activated
In The City
Bad Blood
Whacked Light
New Wave Machine
Smash The Emergency Glass
We Got Venom
Who's Ya Daddy
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 GERLING
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In the last 12 months we've seen the electro-clash and garage-rock movements gain a stronghold on popular music culture but it would seem pure madness to glue those styles together. Luckily Gerling are completely mad. This twisted hybrid of guitars and electronics finally achieves what so many current acts are failing to produce: a completely new sound. The point of fusing opposing elements isn't to produce aural Siamese twins but sonically meld styles in the hope that a new music emerges. BadBlood!! combines rolling rock, squeezed through all manner of digital and analogue toys, presented to the listener as pop-sensible, catchy and revolutionary sounds. From the very first track, Blood On The Microphone Pt1, I was in Gerling's zone, experiencing flashbacks to the era when real bands began to emerge from the territories of electronic music; acts like Cabaret Voltaire and Nitzer Eb. The chorus is a killer; a huge wall of vocals and keys bending in unison. You'll find the two teasers released prior to BadBlood!!: Who's Ya Daddy (from the EP of the same name) and the first single Get Activated. In the City, another highlight, transports the listener on a chugging bass line through distorted vocals and ancient keyboard sounds. The Sydney 3-piece thrashed out their earlier gigs with guitars/drums (no bass!) and developed a unique guitar sound. That sound is now synonymous with Gerling and returns on Bad Blood!!! and Wacked Light. For those who most enjoy Gerling's own brand of acidic beats, We Got Venom will inspire you to worship your nearest disco ball. BadBlood!!! may be the end of Gerling's evolution; it seems to be a full stop (or should I say exclamation mark) at the end of several years-worth of intense audio research as the band have constantly moved boundaries and acted as musical clairvoyants, always hinting at the next possible trend. Now it seems that Gerling are beyond the role of reflecting music's fashions. With BadBlood!!! they signal their intentions to lead the charge into the future. Who knows what future sounds may emerge from Gerlog studios? Maybe even Gerling don't know.
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WHEN YOUNG TERRORISTS CHASE THE SUN
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 GERLING
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This is the album Gerling have been threatening to unleash for years. It's not a sequel to Children Of Telepathic Experiences, nor does it journey to the intense outer limits. It sits so erratically in between house, ambient, and hip-hip beats, and dare I say they may have been listening to the Avalanches before heading to the studio for track 12 (not at all a bad rendition by any means). It features the promo track, Deka, as well as "that radio song", The Deer In You, as well as the G-House Project featuring vocals by the ever enticing Kylie Minogue. Whatever your fetish, this is well worth a listen.
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CHILDREN OF TELEPATHIC EXPERIENCES (+BONUS NEW TRACK!)
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 GERLING
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After witnessing a festival performance, the Sydney Morning Herald described the three backpacked ones called Gerling like this: 'Musical moments don't come much better than Gerling's set, so the next ten hours of Australia's finest bands and dance acts was an ever-so-slight anti-climax.' This full-length album nails the band's rock-meets-electro dynamism onto disc in no uncertain terms.
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GERLING ON TOUR
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August
28....Wollongong Uni, NSW
29....Metro Theatre, Sydney
30....Holy Grail, Canberra
September
4.....Newcastle Uni, NSW
5.....Troccadero, Gold Coast
6.....Zoo, Brisbane
11....Bunbury WA
12....Margaret River WA
13....Perth Rosemount WA
14....Newport, Fremantle WA
18....Beachcombers,Toukley NSW
20....Kelts Bar, Blaxland NSW
26....Crest Hotel, Sylvania, NSW
27....Arena, Harbord Diggers NSW |
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