Gerling go back to basics

By MIKE HOULAHAN

Australian band Gerling found touring to promote their last album was a bit of a nightmare.

Quite apart from having to answer endless questions about its title - the artwork for When Young Terrorists Face The Sun had been printed just before September 11, 2001, and there was no going back - the Sydney three-piece were always going to struggle to gather up the stars who contributed vocals to the record.

One of the appealing things about Gerling was that these shabby young rockers with ideas of merging punk and techno had managed to entice the likes of United States rapper Kool Keith and Kylie Minogue to sing on their record, eliciting some delightfully out-there performances.

"It was funny, that whole Kylie thing," Gerling guitarist/keyboard player Burke Reid says.

"It wasn't much talked about beforehand and when the record came out it was well down the list of things we wanted to highlight about it, but everyone wanted to know about it.

"The rest of the record wasn't anything like that track, and we had the same idea and did a similar thing with the Kool Keith stuff, which was pretty ramshackle - we sent him the song and it sounded like he had a big whack of drugs, went into the studio, coughed up some lines, laughed through half the song, and then sent it back.

"We had to cut it all up and make verses and stuff for it."

After spending months talking about their guests, Gerling decided that for Bad Blood!!! they wanted people to be talking about the hosts of the party. To that end Reid, singer/guitarist Darren Cross and drummer Paul Towner retreated to their Sydney studio and set about assembling an album they could play live, without requiring any taped vocals.

"There was quite a lot of difference between the last record and us live," Reid says.

"This one we made a more conscious effort to capture what we do on stage - we are chaotic and abrasive live, and we wanted to put that down on tape."

That chaotic atmosphere permeated Gerling's studio - which their website reveals as being a suitably ramshackle establishment.

Many bands write new music in jam sessions, whereas Gerling start with one idea and then build layers of sounds on top, Reid says. Mix in three band members with strong ideas and opinions and lock them together in a room, and prepare for heated debate.

"It's not really fancy or anything: hopefully we give off the illusion that it's much more complicated than it really is," Reid says.

"We don't have much of a studio, we've just got some really basic things, but it's where we went every day and just worked away.

"It kind of became like a clubhouse. When you're making music you can't go into a hospital ward or something, you need an environment you feel comfortable in and which can spur ideas onwards."

In Gerling's case, they also needed someone who could keep their inspiration in check. They drafted in highly regarded rock producer Magoo - who has worked with Pacifier and many other noted bands - to act as a "handbrake" and keep Gerling focused.

"He's good in the sense that he's not a traditional producer: he's really into screwing up stuff and experimenting. That's exactly where we're at," Reid says.

"We learned a lot off Magoo, and he really brought to light ideas we had that at the time we didn't know how to do. Hopefully next time around we'll be able to mix it ourselves."

Discovering how things work has been a vital component to Gerling's music-making. For example, much of the charm of When Young Terrorists Face The Sun came from the fact that Gerling made it using computers which at the time they had just unpacked from the box and were teaching themselves how to use.

They still have a pleasingly naive attitude to electronics, which for Bad Blood!!! has been matched with swathes of rough guitars.

The end result is madly mixed up and totally Gerling. "You've got to bear in mind where we were on the last record, which was more into that 'polished' dance sound," Reid says.

"I don't really think the things we were doing were as slick as what other people were coming out with. We used really dirty samples and stuff like that.

"This time around, after having done so much touring and stuff, the headspace we were in was that we wanted everything to sound like it had gone through a blender.

"Sometimes you can work too hard on a song.

"We listened to what we were doing and asked, 'Hey, does this need to go through the carwash or not, or should it be the way it is?"'

BDO Performance

* What: Big Day Out, Ericsson Stadium, today

* Who: Gerling, rockers from Sydney

* Where & when: Essential Stage, 6.15-7pm

* nzherald.co.nz will feature updates throughout the day from the Big Day Out beginning at 12pm on Friday.

Herald Feature: Big Day Out


Related links and information

- NZPA