Eddy Current Suppression Ring
"I feel alright about it," declares Eddy Current Suppression Ring guitarist Mikey Young of the band's third album, 'Rush To Relax'. "I feel better about it at this stage than I did the other two." "I just feel like we've done a better job of presenting sonically what we sound like," he elaborates, believing that it shows great diversity with a better clutch of songs. Their ascension to the ranks of buzzworthy band has been a surprise to many, not least the band themselves, with anticipation for the new album red hot. "I'd be a liar if I didn't realise that things were a lot bigger than they used to be, and maybe when we put an album out then maybe there's expectation," Young says. "It doesn't really feel any different; I think we've done a pretty good job of not letting outside influence get in and are still doing our own thing, and that's all that counts." 'Rush To Relax' finds the Melbourne four-piece exploring their own limits - the songs are longer than they've ever been, with grooves and rhythms that are allowed to ride out rather than be constrained within short bursts of great garage rock. "It's a closer representation of how we're jamming, and how we write songs," explains Young. "We've always written long song, and practised them, and they've gone for ten minutes and then we've whittled it down to three minutes. I think this time we left songs not quite as written - not writing a part and seeing how we do it. It can be good to leave a little spontaneity to happen." As for how the songs come into being in the first place, Young explains that "I'll either start something or I'll come up with an idea for a riff and we'll start from that. Brendan [Huntley, vocals]'s generally got a big fat book of lyric notes that he's written over a few months so he'll just listen to what I'm playing and decide what lyrics fit that mode the best. It usually comes together really quick: we'll jam on something for ten minutes and look at each other and agree that it was cool or just go 'it was alright' and never think of it again. It's really surprisingly easy for us to write songs." The nature of Young's guitar parts have changed as well - they're even leaner than before, and he believes that the sparseness found on 'Rush To Relax' has been a slow evolution. "It's easy to create dynamics and tension in the songs by playing less notes, as there's only so much noise I can make out of one guitar so I'm better off stripping back and letting the dynamics work." One of the most noticeable things about Eddy Current Suppression Ring is that nothing stands out, from Brendan Suppression's vocals down. It's all about the cohesion of the four working parts coming together. Amazingly, the band are able to pull it together so well unbelievably quickly, with their third album recorded in a mere six hours in a rehearsal room. "When we played it back I was quite surprised about how clear it was and that our performance was as good as it could be. None of us expected to get that result out of what we made that day." The band's popularity is such that things aren't like they used to be - no longer are they playing art spaces (although they tried to get an art space for the launch in Adelaide, but things fell apart before the tour announcement). These days, Eddy Current Suppression Ring are playing increasingly larger venues - their five years of graft will culminate in a show at the Palace in Melbourne. "It has reached the stage where we have to play 'real' gigs where everyone can get in, and I think as long as we balance that out with some small secret warehouse parties or house parties a couple of times a year then we'll stay sane." But the Palace? That's a pretty big venue. "I'm freaking out; I don't know if we'll be able to pull it off," Young admits. "I guess if we can play late at Meredith we should be able to handle it. We've done a pretty good job of just keeping everybody happy in some kind of way. We haven't copped a big backlash while getting big, and I know that there's going to be certain kind of people who don't like going to be a big gig because it's not the same and I understand that playing the Palace is not going to be the same as seeing us at the Tote or the North Melbourne Town Hall three years ago, and as a person who goes to watch bands I prefer to see a band in intimate settings." Still, Young reckons that as long as the band remain honest about what they're doing and don't say ridiculous stuff in the press then no one has a reason to suddenly turn on them. A good thing to, as the band's continuing rise in popularity - particularly in their home town of Melbourne - looks in no danger any time soon. Perhaps they'll take over the world. "Nah," he wagers. "We're too unambitious to take over the world. Maybe if we actually tried it would wreck everything. Every decision we made that I thought would bring the backlash seems to have worked for us so I guess we should just keep doing what we're doing." Eddy Current Suppression Ring play at Jive on Thursday 25 March. 'Rush To Relax' is out now through Shock.  |
Issue 489
Features
