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Wolfmother.
 Andrew Stockdale, guitarist and singer for Sydney's Wolfmother, is in the middle of fixing his amp with nails and glue after it was crushed somehow on the way back from a recent trip with labelmates Cut Copy that took in London, New York and Texas (for South By Southwest). He'll have to make a decent job of it too, since the band is hitting the road shortly before heading to Japan for a brief tour, after which they will headline another tour of the nation.
At first listen to Wolfmother's definitive seventies heavy rock sound (after all, their music immediately sounds like Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple rolled into one) a question does go begging: with such a familiar sound, embedded in a particular time, aren't they just ripping off said bands?
"People who say that, maybe they're just kind of looking at things on the surface level, not really seeing beyond the references, not seeing that there really is an interesting band with a good synergy and there's something lyrically and musically there's others elements that are of great interest," Stockdale replies.
"You know, we make the music, we put it out there, and people just react to it, they either like it or they don't and people are entitled to their opinion but I don't think it's right or wrong."
He pauses, thoughtfully. "I don't know, it's hard for me to say. I think for every band, when they start everyone throws a whole bunch of references at them but essentially you either like the music or you don't, regardless of the references. The most important thing for a band is also to be able to have a good sense of rhythm, a good sense of natural time; I've seen a lot of bands play and the songs don't get going; the rhythm doesn't sort of happen. When you see a band that's got a good groove I think that's the most important thing for a band. And you can't manufacture that."
While it's easy to make lazy claims that the band pilfers from the past, Stockdale insists that the band's formative years were anything but creatively stable. "It wasn't intentional 'cause at the start we all sort of played anything; like, I might play drums or bass or keyboard. Chris [Ross, bass and keys] might sing, or I would sing. We used to have a whole different set up. About four years ago we had a jam and it was just guitar, bass, drums; just stripped back to the bare minimum, and it got very heavy and full on and we were a bit blown away. It was only when we got back together a year ago and started playing that that dynamic sort of set in. So it did take us a while to sort of realise the best thing for each one of us to do together, like for me to sing and Chris to do bass and keyboard. I guess it all happened in an organic way where we tried everything and we've found the right set up now, just through trial and error I guess."
With hopes of getting a full album out in the next few months Stockdale is confident and up front about the future of the band. "We all enjoy making music, so we all just try and keep it at that and try and continue to make music and make recordings; that's the main objective. It's a great way to live, I never expected this to happen to me. I think you just gotta find out who you are, find your path and it's like trying to put a square into a triangle: you can try other things and just ram it in and it never works and then all of a sudden you meet a couple of people and something happens and it just seems to have its own momentum."
Blake Lewis
 | Wolfmother play at the Adelaide UniBar on Thurs 14 April. |
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