Newspaper Page Text
March 18, 1992
Flagpole Magazine
Page 11
The Verlaines Fly South
The Verlaines are one of New Zealands'
premiere alternative bands. Their new re
lease for Slash Records, Ready to Fly, is a
gem to listen to. Filled with emotion and
lovely melodic pop tunes, this power trio,
made up of Graeme Downes (guitars, vo
cals, keyboards), Gregg Cairns (drums),
and Mike Stoodley (bass), is about to em
bark on a full spread American tour. The
Verlaines have six mesmerizing recordings
to date from their first EP, Ten 0‘Clock in the
Afternoon on New Zealands' Flying Nun
label to Some Enchanted Evening (Flying
Nun-Homestead). Tne band frequently jux
taposes lush keyboards and jangly guitars
against horns and strings while some com
positions range from a cabaret ballad to all
out rock. The band is touring as a three
piece, though, and will play the 40 Watt on
Thursday night, March 19. Previous to their
arrival in Georgia, the Verlaines began their
American tour in Dallas and then topped off
in Austin, TX at SXSW. The band took their
name from a 19th century poet, Paul Verlaine.
Downes has a PhD in music as well. Graeme
Downes called from L.A. after flying for 23
hours...
Graeme Downes: SXSW is where we
starting pretty much. It’s a good place to
start a tour.
Flagpole: Ready to Fly seemed like a long
process for you.
GD: Sorta was. We had done the demos like
in 1990 and it took from then until the middle
of '91 to sort of do all the track full of stuff and
then we got the record recorded in the
middle of last year. So, yeah, it's been a
while in the making, I suppose. It took longer
than we would have liked.
FP: Are you touring with a horn section?
GD: No, unfortunately we’re not. Maybe
next time. It’s something I would like to do
sometime.
FP: The rock'n'roll credo seems to admire
those with no background what so ever in
music, especially underground, alternative,
you know. Does your knowledge and exper
tise in musical theory ever get in the way of
writing pop songs? Does it effect the way
you listen...
GD: Yeah, I’m sure it’s bound to. But I'm
quite sure at the same time it doesn’t detract
from most [rock’n’roll] qualities either. It’s
more of an attitude and approach to things
that I might mow something down pretty
effectively in terms of how it works theoreti
cally or how it doesn’t. It doesn’t mean that
the performances are from a stony-faced
academic, [laughs] I emphasize, it’s not, it’s
full blown emotional. It’s just different ways.
People with absolutely no education in mu
sic would often come up with the most
marvelous complexities.
FP: Because of this knowledge are you
pickier with how you put stuff together?
GD: Ah, yeah. I don’t tolerate sort of unnec
essary flair in the songs, you know what I
mean that aren’t serving a function or a
purpose. I try to be pretty economical when
I write.
FP: And your production team...
GD: It's the production team we’ve used on
the last two albums, really. Us producing
with Victor Grbic. He’s sort of the engineer
we use. Between him and us, we do the
production, the producing job ourselves as
well. This record is pretty much the same as
the last two it’s just that we’ve had more time
and more sophisticated studio to work with.
FP: And live the band must be really differ
ent without the horns...
u People with no
education in music would
come up with the most
marvelous complexities
GD: Yeah, it’s different. It's no less effective,
I don’t think.
FP: A lot louder...
GD: Of course! [laughs] That’s part cf the
thing, you know? Like that whole size of the
media, see, of a live performance doesn’t
necessarily translate straight onto a record.
I mean, if you want a guitar to sound big and
amazing usually you have to go to a sort of
extreme into the studio to recreate it like
overlay the same thing fifteen times [laughs].
Like trade-in the guitar until you get the big,
huge sound, to get the same sort of effect
you get in a live situation you sometimes
have to resort to different things. I like to use
other instruments for the different color. It
fills out the whole album to make it sound
nice all the way through it. It’s also the
thought of the one off chance you get to sort
of do the song perhaps as you’d really like
to but you don’t know why that it isn’t prac
tical to do live because you just can't take
that many different kinds of musicians with
you on tour. This record we’re pretty happy
that the band is still there and central to
doing all the songs that are on the record.
We don’t have any problems playing this
material live at all. I feel it comes off pretty
well, as well.
FP: Do you teach at all?
GD: I teach at the University sometimes, dc
the occasional lecture.
FP: Is the music community there [in New
Zealand] fairly supportive of each other?
GD: Yeah, pretty much. I don a bit of arrang
ing for people on occasion if they want it. I
just do it for the practice really [laughs]. I like
working on other people’s material, with
other people, help them with other outside
instruments as well.
FP: Would you ever add to the band for
tours?
GD: I like playing the three piece. It’s chal
lenging and pretty demanding. It’s a lot of
fun. Sometime in the future I hope to take
somebody else.
FP: Is there any kind of rivalry between
Australia/New Zealand bands?
GD: Not a lot, just a fair amount of antipathy
really, between the two [laughs]. Australian
music and New Zealand music doesn’t seem
to have a great deal in common from where
we look at it. I don’t know what it looks like to
people over here, does it look totally simi
lar?
FP: Most of the music from New Zealand is
lumped in that category of music the critics
call "Kiwipop."
GD: [laughs] Yeah. But they don’t lump it
together with Australia, do they?
FP: No, actually the music is seen as two
different types...
GD: That’s good, that’s right. We feel the
same way, really we don’t really think there’s
a great similarity at all.
FP: Any word on The Clean?
GD: Well, The Clean aren't really function
ing at the moment. Robert’s busy with The
Bats, David’s just got a new band together,
or a new rhythm section he can play with.
They’re really good. He has a solo album
coming out soon. David is also playing with
Snapper.
FP: Do you find in America that people here
are surprised to know there's a music scene
in New Zealand or do they expect you to still
be running around in loin cloths?
GD: [laughs] I don’t, I suppose some people
do. We tend to look at our music scene as
being pretty diverse, really. But the moment
we come here, it’s sort of where everyone
goes, “wow, it just has such a pertinent
identity," you know? [laughs] I guess we
sorta don’t fit. I don’t know what people
expect really.
FP: How much have you toured America
before?
GD: Last time we did just L.A. and San
Francisco and we did Boston, New York
and Philadelphia on the east coast. We
zoomed through Columbus, Chicago and
Indianapolis and a few other places. We
went up to Canada as well for a few gigs. We
didn’t get very far south at all.
Hillary Meister
Ever Vigilant...
And so do The Vigilantes Of Love. You will locate them playing for you
at The Flying Buffalo on Saturday, March 28th, a mighty fine place to
have a good time and that’s no lie. They will lay down the sounds and
have a good time: this is understood. All 32 tons of their invisible
equipment (stack amps and the like) will be there, too. Magic, that’s
what it is, and you will be apart of it if you attend. But with 32 tons of
equipment, don’t ask them to play a front porch party unless said
porch sits on a mighty thick slab: and we don t mean bacon. Actually,
they play nice quiet music, relegated for the senses of course,
amplified a wee bit, with all 32 tons of stuff set on the lowest volume
setting. Blue Cheer, anyone? (30.)
Now Open ^
Serving
cappucino
espresso
teas
salads
homemade pastries
sandwiches
ice cream
& other specialties
Mon-Fri 7am til 11pm
Sat and Sun 10am til 10pm
Fri. 20:
Lagerhead
Oily-O / Go-Devils
Closed for
SPRING BREAK
COMIN SOON
Magneto
Regina Strap
Behind Fred di Toronto's
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