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SLEEPY JACKSON |
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 On this page:
*The Sleepy Jackson Interview (with Malcolm Clark, Drums/Piano)
*The Sleepy Jackson Discography (titles available from Whammo)
*The Sleepy Jackson Tour dates
WHAMMO'S 2003 ARTIST OF THE YEAR - THE SLEEPY JACKSON - THE WHAMMO INTERVIEW - DECEMBER 11, 2003
Maybe there's an unhealthy nationalist slant to my interest in The Sleepy Jackson's success on the world stage, but I can't help it: I'm proud to finally see an Australian act in international critics' Top 10 lists. It's more worthy than the combined chart success of our renowned pop exports and beats the hell out an image forged by Crocodile Dundee and Steve Irwin. This is real talent, developed in the isolated city of Perth, where bands are sprouting like seedlings and out-gunning acts from the more traditional strongholds of larger cities like Melbourne or the great brown town of Brisbane. Luke Steele, the mad scientist behind the majority of Sleepies' tunes has finally found a worthy ally in Malcolm Clark (drums/piano) who seems to complement Steele's frenetic creativity and, unlike any other past members, has actually survived the gruelling tour schedules and studio sessions. Ben Nightingale (guitar) has recently joined a long list of defunct members, although - to be fair - his tenure was always intended to be temporary. But the constantly evolving nature of this group may be an accidental key to their success; the constant state of flux always keeps the media, fans and members on edge. Unlike other acts, The Sleepies have no shame and never pretend to hide any negatives; their blunt honesty is as refreshing as their music and a shock to journalists like myself, who are so accustomed to bullshit that we accept it as the norm. Here's a treat for fans of The Sleepy Jackson: a relaxed chat with Malcolm Clark, who - after three interviews with Whammo - is becoming a familiar face. That blunt honesty we associate with The Sleepy Jackson is proudly on display as we explore the past 12, eventful months of their career and look forward to an exciting 2004 that promises to build on the success of their much-lauded debut LP Lovers.
Whammo: I think the last time I chatted to you guys was down at my home turf at the Rustic Cafe in Surry Hills.
Malcolm: I remember that. Was it me and Luke?
Whammo: Yeah. You seemed very tired, which I thought was well justified by the amount of work you'd been doing.
Malcolm: Yeah, it's been full-on. Can you remember what month it was?
Whammo: I remember you'd just come back from overseas and were about to head off again. From what I saw, from tour schedules, you kept getting more gigs added as you travelled.
Malcolm: I've got a list here. There's just over a 100 shows. Yeah, starting from February, it's every single month through to December. There's Europe, then America, then back to England, back to The States, Europe and then more shows in The States.
Whammo: I saw a few mixed reviews before you went overseas but if there was ever any problem at all with the live show, it was probably a result of the amount of changes to personnel and the fact that you keep having to go through the process of gelling as a band. Is that fair to say?
Malcolm: Yeah, it's true. Even with this line-up it's taken this whole year. The new guys came in March. All these shows (overseas) were done with a new band, so we had to get our shit together. We try shit and sometimes it doesn't work. It hasn't happened lately, but in the early stages with Luke, if he got pissed off, that was it: the show was ruined.
Whammo: I think you've got to take the good with the bad if you're doing something that's different to formulas.
Malcolm: Some people just don't get what we're doing, you know? You've got to respect that and everyone's entitled to their opinion. It doesn't bother us at all. We haven't had any bad reviews lately. Even back then, it didn't worry us anyway, because at the end of the day we're doing what we love doing and we get a chance to travel around the world, so people can say what they want (laughs).
Whammo: I was thinking about the way you've been caught up with this momentum and it must be a pretty amazing experience.
Malcolm: Totally. This time last year, we knew we were going overseas, but we had no idea we were going to do a hundred shows!
Whammo: You've got a new single coming out soonish.
Malcolm: Come To This is going to be the next single. We'll be in Sydney next week to do the filmclip for it with Justin, Jed's brother; Jed from The Mess Hall.
Whammo: Cool. The Mess Hall played a great late set the other day at Homebake.
Malcolm: Did you catch our set?
Whammo: Yeah.
Malcolm: Some people were a bit funny about us not doing certain songs.
Whammo: Do people really want to go to a live show and hear the album? They can do that at home. Surely you want something different when you see a band live.
Malcolm: I've always been like that and my old man has always said the same thing. I think there's more people out there that like to hear the songs a bit more f**ked up as opposed to people who want to hear the album. Majority rules. People will suss out what kind of a band we are pretty soon. When we first went to England they freaked out because they'd heard the album. This was with Justin and Rod in the band and it was even crazier, completely nuts. Justin, who is in The End Of Fashion now; he's f**king nuts; 10 times worse than Luke. He used to run around doing all sorts of crazy shit. We still played allright but it was so different to the recorded stuff that you could barely tell the songs.
Whammo: Come To This is one of my favourite tracks on the album and I think it's probably the best representation of the country-edged tunes.
Malcolm: I really like that. The only thing I don't like about that song - and it was done during the Silverchair tour - is that there's a part in the middle done on piano, which was done while we were away and I've never really liked that for some reason. It's the way Jonathan mixed it. I just don't like that f**king piano part! (laughs)
Whammo: I love how you guys actually say something when you don't like a part of the music. You don't just take it. I guess that's the only way things can get better.
Malcolm: That's it.
Whammo: I'm interested to know if you've been scribbling away on some new stuff.
Malcolm: Oh yeah! We've got some f**king awesome songs. Luke's been going completely nuts. He's been doing most of his songwriting on acoustic guitar because we've been on the road and if he doesn't get these songs down soon, he's probably going to explode. He's got some really nice new ones. A lot of the stuff on the first album was demo'd at his house in Perth and he likes playing around with heaps of different weird shit on his computer, but all of these (new) songs have been written on guitar and they've got really nice melodies, so it'd be great to get them down straight away. We're going to do some demos next week and get him to just play guitar and then we'll just overdub heaps of shit. The place where we're recording is called Kingdom Studios in Perth in this old freemason's hall. The guy who owns it has been collecting instruments for years and there's Moogs, Pianos, old Hammonds, Rhodes; similar to what we had for Lovers but on a bigger scale. It's a good way to suss this room out and if it works and there's a good vibe in there, then hopefully we can record the album there as well.
Whammo: You must have been salivating when you saw the amount of instruments.
Malcolm: Oh man, this guys insane. He's got about 10 Vox's and all these different guitars. He's basically an instrument collector. He can pull in a pretty nice sound as well, as an engineer, so it might all work out perfectly. If it's not the right place to record the album, we've got a chance to go in there and record a whole pile of demos, so we can't really lose.
Whammo: I know the whole Lovers thing hasn't subsided yet, nor should it, but I get the feeling that you guys would rather be prolific than not.
Malcolm: We're really keen to get the other album done as soon as possible because Lovers took too long. I love the album and I love the way it's been mixed and produced, but if you had of heard the songs before they were f**ked around with, I think they've been messed around with too much before they were mastered. I think you just work on something too long and sometimes you f**k it up. If it's not broken, don't fix it.
Whammo: I'm going through the same thing at the moment. It's like being a painter; you've got to know when to walk away from the canvas.
Malcolm: You've got to know when to stop. That's the really hard bit.
Whammo: One of the strengths of the band is the quality of your b-sides.
Malcolm: Ah, you like the b-sides?
Whammo: Big time.
Malcolm: We're actually going to do a couple more when we get back to Sydney next week.
Whammo: It's great because it gives you a forum for alternative mixes and makes the singles more collectable.
Malcolm: That's what I like about the other b-sides. We went into Velvet (Studios) for a day and just f**ked around. That's what I was talking about before: spur of the moment stuff can be gold and if you don't touch it - just leave it - it becomes something. But we're really keen to get cracking on this next album; that's why we're going to take these demo sessions pretty seriously. We're using Pro-Tools for that, so hopefully we'll be able to keep some of the stuff.
Whammo: When you were talking to Richard Kingsmill on the Aus-Music Show (Triple J) last year, you indicated that there might be dramatically different sounds for each album, even different genres, but last time we met, you were playing with the idea of retaining the country edge. How are you feeling now?
Malcolm: Actually, I was talking to Luke about this yesterday. He wants to go nuts and do something that's really different. That's what's so unique about the guy: he's influenced by nearly everyone he knows and every band that he knows, but he doesn't copy anyone; he's totally unique. Even in his personality and the way he carries himself; he's just unique. That's what I really like about him. I want to keep the same type of vibe as Lovers because I really like it. It works, it's different but it's also got familiar sounds; all those analogue keyboards and the melodies. It almost sounds like you've heard it before but you can't quite pinpoint it.
Whammo: He seems to have that type of cut and paste, scrapbook creativity where he can use a multitude of ideas, but also has the ability to put them together cohesively.
Malcolm: And that's another thing about that album. You said 'cut and paste'? Well there's a lot of cut and paste drum tracks and stuff like that, but that was more Jonathan (Burnside), the producer. If Luke did it on his own it would have been a completely different album.
Whammo: Do you think it would have been a better album?
Malcolm: No, I don't think so.
Whammo: I guess there's a time to self-produce and then there’s a time to respect that there are people who have done it for years.
Malcolm: Luke definitely needs to work with a producer. He's got so many ideas. It's like what we were talking about before: he won't know when to walk away from the canvas. That was the good thing about working with Jonathan: he simplified everything. He'd put everything in front of you and say 'here it all is, now let's take shit out'. It's a tough question because it all depends on the producer. (laughs) We still haven't decided who it is. I'd love to do something else with Jonathan. He's a really great producer.
Whammo: Are you writing stuff as well?
Malcolm: Yeah, but over the top of what Luke does, so we keep the Sleepies vibe. The other guys - Jay and Ben - are really good songwriters as well. Some of their songs...well, you can tell straight away when you start playing them whether they are Sleepies songs. There's no hard feelings at all. We all enjoy what we're doing. We all listen and you can tell whether it will work in the band or not. When we demo we're just going to record everyone's songs so we'll end up with about 20 songs I reckon.
Whammo: Do you think the line-up is stable or do you think that instability is part of The Sleepy Jackson?
Malcolm: Well, instability has always been a part of this band but it's a really strong line-up. Myself and Jay are definitely not going anywhere. I don't think Luke's going to go anywhere (laughs).
Whammo: I had a feeling about that one.
Malcolm: (laughs) You should put that in a headline: 'SLEEPY JACKSON: LUKE STEELE LEAVES BAND'.
Whammo: I wish I could. Even better: 'MALCOLM KICKS LUKE OUT!' It could be a bit controversial.
Malcolm: (laughs) Just do it anyway! But to carry on...the three of us are definite. Ben Nightingale? Well we all really want him to stay. He was only going to play until Christmas. Then he decided he wanted to stay, so it's up in the air at the moment. We're trying to convince him to stay. We don't want another change and we’re all getting along really well. When we do interviews, we're starting to feed off each other.
Whammo: Having played a hundred shows with each other, the band must be very 'match-fit'.
Malcolm: Well, that's the thing. Any musician can play with another musician, as you would know, but it takes a long time to actually gel and play with someone else without having to think about what they're going to do next. I bumped into Davey Lane (not to be confused with solo performer, David Lane) from You Am I and he said 'I've got (bands) The Pictures and You Am I but if you're ever in the shit, I'd love to play with you guys' and I was like 'What? This is the guy I first thought of when Justin and Rod left and I'd thought 'as if David Lane is going to play with us!' He's a f**king awesome guitarist! That's the thing: there's heaps of really good guitarists. Jed from Mess Hall heard we were looking for a guitarist and said 'I want to audition'. In the beginning we were always thinking 'as if these guys would want to play with us'. We were just this ball of noise that rolled itself out of Perth. It was never anything big in Perth but it was a known band. 5 years ago I used to watch the band and it was this wall of Fender DeVille and you could barely hear the drums and you assumed that Luke was singing because he was shouting into a microphone. It was awesome (laughs).
Whammo: The Sleepies were a buzz band anyway: always strong on recordings.
Malcolm: Yeah, Luke's good in the studio. He's a different person in a studio. He doesn't make many mistakes. With some people, you do a guitar solo, f**k it up, do 4 or 5 takes and it starts to get really stale. There's no point doing it. The thing about Luke is that he'll nail shit in one take, constantly. But then he'll use the the extra time to do 7 different guitar sounds and effects or experiment with filter envelopes.
Whammo: So, you're back in Perth for a while. After so much travelling, it must be a little strange to get back there.
Malcolm: We went back for about 5 days last week, after we came back from The States. It is pretty weird, but it's also really nice. I've tried to spend my whole life getting out of there and now that I've gone to all these places, it's the best place to go back to because it's so tiny and clean and laid-back. We had all these goals and dreams but to make them happen we had to leave the place. Now that we're living our dream, we can go back there, sit on the porch and not have to worry about getting up and going to work tomorrow. Our work is playing music and it's a really cool job.
Whammo: I'm more than a bit jealous.
Malcolm: (laughs) The band's lucky, I'm lucky; but it's persistence as well. To say 'dream' sounds spacey and spiritual but I had an ideal picture in my mind for years. I thought 'that's what I want to do and I'm going to do it one day'. I didn't know how I was going to do it; it could have been this band or that band because I've played in 5 or 6 bands, thinking that they were all going to be the biggest band in the world (laughs). When it didn't happen, rather than getting upset and quitting, I just thought 'well, obviously that wasn't the band- I'll carry on until I find it'. Eventually it all came around in a big circle and it turned out to be...well, I never imagined it would be the Sleepies (laughs). It's weird. We've come so far but at the same time, this is just the beginning. There's such a big world out there. We always thought about selling albums in Australia, or even just Perth. Now our album is on shelves in all these weird places in The States and Europe. It's just mind-boggling (laughs). We were in Italy and we walked into a record shop and there's our f**king CD on the shelf! That shit doesn't happen to Perth bands! |
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 THE SLEEPY JACKSON
Add to basket. Normally ships within 10 days $4.95 (US $3.06) (UK £1.71)
cd single
I'd been reviewing a bunch of releases quietly when I pulled out my ace - The Sleepy Jackson's Come To This - and promptly yanked at the volume until the house was filled to the brim, accompanied by my own howling voice. Because this track is a sing along for me, even when I can't reach a note, even when I forget the words, even when my flat-mates scream at me to turn it down. No goddammit, this track is an old friend and you need to listen to old mates. Then, as per usual, I found myself in Sleepy B-side wonderland with another somehow-acceptably-trite ditty called Tonight You Will Change; more compelling art-house babbling in the form of You've Got No More Days Left; and a minimal dose of Steele and his guitar that benefits from raw, honest production (You Are So Cold). Many are beginning to actually believe that this band is the brightest hope for a stale and retro-obsessed music market and Come To This is a further reminder of the power of their songs.
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 THE SLEEPY JACKSON
Add to basket. Normally ships within 10 days $19.95 (US $12.34) (UK £6.89)
cd
Every time The Sleepy Jackson release new songs I cringe. As a musician and songwriter, nothing makes me more jealous than hearing fresh brilliance from songwriter Luke Steele. With Lovers this annoyingly gifted genius has done it again. After hearing the blissful beauty of Good Dancers I felt like selling my guitar; the raw energy of Vampire Racecourse made me consider giving up my own music and joining a covers band; the half-spoken lament of Rain Falls For Wind forced me to consider other pursuits like karate or perhaps jigsaw puzzles. My prospects were even worse: there were still another 9 songs to listen to. How depressing. Among the songs remaining I noticed This Day, previously included on the acclaimed Let Your Love Be Love EP along with the morbid but lush Fill Me With Apples. Lovers is an album that seduces you with whispers before berating you with thumping drums and finally ending the relationship with bitter prose. You can't trust this album or rely on it; Lovers will constantly surprise you but the most puzzling factor is the untouchable essence that escapes language; that certain 'something' that luckily exists within the music of some acts, yet is sadly missing from others. If I was asked to describe my favourite style of music, I would say that it must express sadness, power and beauty simultaneously. The Sleepy Jackson's Lovers, regardless of its meandering path through many genres, epitomizes that sound.
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THE SLEEPY JACKSON: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL TOUR
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Australia/New Zealand:
January
23....Big Day Out, Sydney
24....Big Day Out, Sydney
26....Big Day Out, Melbourne
30....Big Day Out, Adelaide
February
1.....Big Day Out, Perth
England:
February
11....Nme Awards Show, The Astoria |
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