Secret Birds: Asleep on the Dragon
What:
Secret Birds' Damon Black on the new album, Asleep On The Dragon
Who:
Damon Black talks to Sarah Werkmeister
Where:
The Club House, Empire Hotel, Cnr Ann and Brunswick Sts
When:
Thurs Nov 12, 8pm
How much:
$10 entry
Supports:
Slug Guts, White Cop, Manic Eyes, Swamplord DJs, Common People DJs, Shabba Rukes
On:
Valve
MySpace:
Here
Damon Black takes music somewhat seriously. His band, Secret Birds, has an ethos similar to that of American noisecore bands and the creation of the most mangled kinds of psych. They have just released their testament to unreality, Asleep on the Dragon. It's definitely not sunny afternoon listening, unless it's 40 degrees and the unbearable lethargic heat is shredding at your soul. Or if you're into medieval role-play. If you like Slint or have an affinity with Black Sabbath, you gotta hear this beast.
If you've not seen them live, the time is ripe because they're playing their last Brisbane show on the 12th of November. My friend just told me about this trippy Happy High Herb called "The Matrix", which to me, sounds like what SB are like live. Damon Black, a self-proclaimed musical dictator, tells us all about the migration patterns of Secret Birds:
Sarah Werkmeister: Where the hell did Secret Birds come from?
Damon Black: Well, I was in a band called On/Oxx and we had a certain style of playing which i enjoyed, but it wasn't totally what i wanted to do and there were many musical differences within the members of the band. Eventually I kinda got kicked out out. Now, this was a very traumatic event for me, so I decided it was time for me to start my own project, but instead of just starting a band, I decided I wanted to be a musical dictator. I played a few gigs by myself as Secret Birds and eventually ended up with Ross who's now in John Steel Singers deciding that he wanted to jam with me, so we became a two piece for a while - which gave us a bit more structure. It just went from there... people wanted tostart joining in. Sometimes we'll have 10+ people onstage.
SW: What are your influences?
DB: I have a lot of influences, but for the basic mode of Secret Birds , I like to think of two start points, which are Black Sabbath and Can. They are the touchstones for when I want to think conceptually about Secret Birds. And I think it's important to have a touchstone, a conceptual point for a band, especially one like us where it changes all the time. So I always come back to those two.
To me, Secret Birds can do any sort of sound that I want to. For example, the last gig we did; we came up with this song that, to me, sounds like The Wipers, who are quite far from doom or psych really. I don't wanna be constrained by that label even though I kinda like that label.
SW: What's it like to record a semi-improv band?
DB: It was kinda hard, because part of the reason it's improvised is because if you're in a situation where you've got a week or two weeks to work with somebody, you can't make things too complicated. You could try, but you're most likely to end up in a disastrous situation where everyone forgets the parts. There are a lot more complicated things that I've written, but most of the time - I can't get them out there.
When we went to record the album, I was also in the situation where Ross is in a much more successful band, so I can only get him occasionally. We started off recording the drums in the Old Museum, and all we could do in a sense was do what we did live, which was work on a really basic structure, repeat it, stretch it out and see where it would go. That laid down the parameters for the songs on the album. It was constraining in a way, but that's how it has been working in Secret Birds for most of the time.
The first song is probably the doomiest thing we've ever done, and it's long and static, and I wanted people to have to go through that to get to the rest of the album. I'm happy with the album, and I wanted it to be a statement of "this is what SB does".
SW: With your live performances you can go from having 2 people up on stage to 13... tell us about orchestration for that.
DB: It was a mess. I've got no idea what we sounded like. But trying to orchestrate that is soooo difficult. We've had three gigs at least at the Zoo where we've had more than 10 people up onstage. That sound guy hates me, and I don't blame him. At the I Used To Skate Once show, we got the most practice in, but it was very difficult. But everyone did a really good job and it came out really well. If you have a really good drummer, like Ross, then everything else can float on top of it and it doesn't have to be anywhere near as good, because if that drummer keeps the time, and rock music is about time, especially when you're doing heavy riff based stuff, then you're going to be fine. And if you have multiple drummers they have to be able to lock together and listen to one another, and that gets tricky when you have four or five.
SW: What about responses from people interstate?
DB: We played in Geelong, which was awesome. There were these really punk/crust/metal dudes who were kinda scary. They watched us and we played almost to an empty room, and I was walking out of the venue, and they were sitting outside, looking intimidating. One of them yelled out to me "Oi, come here!", I hesitated but I went over and politely said hello to him, and then he said to me "Oi, that was amazing! That was one of the best things I've seen" and he said we were the loudest band he'd ever seen in Geelong, which is bazaar, because Grey Daturas played just after us and they're a loud band.
I think we would have a better audience overseas than in Australia, so that's the plan. I'm moving to Japan fairly soon. I'm a really big fan of Japanese psychedelic music and I think the reception in Japan would be awesome.
Genre: Other
Release: Album
Keywords: Secret Birds, Asleep On The Dragon
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