Ears’ upcoming show ‘War Paint,’ depicts the facade that people display as he mimics natural expressions underneath layers of shapes and colours to bend images as a fabrication of true entity. I sat down with Ears in his humble kitchen, sipping on my green tea, as he wrote attentively into my mac answering the questions I had asked. It seemed more easier and less restrained than recording him and typing in his answers – his welcoming charm brought me to a comfortable familiarity of home.

++

+ What are the ideas behind the pieces you have up for showcase in your exhibition Warpaint? Why is it called Warpaint?

> The theme for my current work is based on the layers of protection that guard us. To be blunt, I have often marveled at the superficial nature of Sydney and how caught up we are with fashion and image. The daily  rituals we go through to properly present ourselves to the world seem to me an act of fear, much like war paint is used as a layer of protection to instill an impression of awe on the battle field, so is make up and clothing a layer of protection we fight with ourselves.

In my paintings I’m generally drawn towards warped and dark images, I seem to need a twist on reality to feel excited by an image, and I guess these methods of obscuring and decorating the truth are similar to the fashion focussed kids and there art of image making.

+ In an interview I see you describe your signature man as a ‘morbid picture of you,’ would that mean you’d describe yourself as a somber, vain person?

> Um.. I’m a fairly ambitious, active and positive person.. so I guess my work is the opposite of how I would come across. But below the surface I guess I’m pretty serious, and that’s what seems to come out in my paintings.

As a question based on impulsive judgement of his work from the surface, somber and vain are the last few words I’d describe Ears in. From the suburb Jannali, in southern Sydney, his paintings reflect him in an authentic state of true being. He doesn’t feel the need to dress up accordingly or to follow the latest trends, overt vanity and fabrication are the least little things of his character. He dresses the way he wants and he is the way he wants to be symbolic of his hometown, organic and sincere, to the wholesome expressions and pigments evident in his line of work. “I grew up in Jannali, a place with lots of trees and fresh air. I have always been a drawer and I became obsessed with painting in high school, probably because it was the only subject I was any good at – not very academic, so I haven’t really lost that obsession since.”

With his obsession still intact, Ears’s inspiration to stay motivated is to keep in mind his goal, “to keep growing and learning. I’m never really satisfied. Although, I have a lot to learn and that’s how it will always be. The moment you feel you’ve finished growing and you settle into a way of working that is static – its all over. It can be a challenge to keep experimenting and taking risks when you have people asking you to paint what they already know you for, I have been very lucky that each time I push myself into new visual territory and make changes in my way of painting people still buy it.. so i can keep paying rent and on it goes. Its a fine line between being too self indulgent and keeping in line with your public identity as an artist.”

+ Have you started to use any sort of new materials with you work?

> I am using a towel to wipe away at washes and i like the effect it has of conveying movement. I guess thats not what you mean by my material but its I my new favorite tool. Im finding the towel is great for blending too..

+ How do you figure out what colours to use and how to place them in your work?

I’m not a well educated colourist at all, but basically I have a bent towards using warm colours and earthy tones as a dominant element. Recently I painted a really quick loose piece with spray paint that had bright pink and yellow in it, not my usual colours at all, the painting was a gift for a guy who did a free tattoo for me and when Ben Frost saw the piece he said he liked it because the colours were gutsy and he preferred it to my usual soft warm palette.

So with the body of work I’m currently working on, I have aimed to push myself outside the comfort zone and have been experimenting with colour a lot more and using black as a neutralizer. The way I approach colour is just playful, I grab whatever bucket of paint is nearest and go for it… I suppose I try to avoid using straight primary colours too much and often. I am drawn to pastels as an alternative.

+ What’s the proudest piece you’ve ever done and why?

That would change fairly often, I generally like something recent as a favorite. At the moment I’m loving two pieces from my Warpaint series, the ‘high priest’ and ‘the games keeper.’ Both are examples of where I want to go with my work. They both shy away from being line based and move into a more painterly approach, I like it when I can suggest someone’s features more loosely without defining them too clearly – less lines, more tonal work.

+ Where are you currently making images? Can tell us about your space?

> I have a new studio on Parramatta Rd. With a great group of artists! Sharing with Phibs, Max Berry, Bennett, Birdhat, Creon, Numskull and Beastman. We have a great warehouse space above a print business and there is lots of space.. we call it the Wasteland.

+ Would you ever leave Sydney to refine your career. Would you come back?

> I have been asked to join a new gallery affiliated with the Charlatan Art Prize based in Brooklyn NYC, and am excited by the opportunity to show overseas for sure. I will always come back, Australia is home.

In an age where we’re constantly on the go, with a need to progress as super fast as we can, we skim through the most remarkable things that pass us day-by-day and judge only by the surface – we sprinkle bullshit to help us make it in this war we have with ourselves. Ears paints in a way that we can respond to freely, with the appreciation of indispensable thoughts and feelings we struggle to hold on to and embrace because of us worrying too much about what we need and how we look. His blending of natural colours and sketchy lines remind us that it’s nice to stop the clitter clatter of feet, and to tune in to the true whispers of reality. So, why ears, why not feet? “I like listening more than walking.” Touche.

++

Ears exhibition opens Saturday September 11, 6pm at LO-FI Collective 383 Bourke St, Darlinghurst.

Except, of course, for the park, where once upon a time, I would happily munch upon a home-made sandwich and flick through a magazine in the pleasant grassy sunshine before reluctantly plodding back to the office. The park has been fenced off for renovations for, well, I don’t know how long, but it feels like at least 100 years now, and it turns out I’m not the only one eagerly (hungrily, even) awaiting the big reveal. The folks at Sydney arts collective Token Imagination are getting so excited about it they decided to create Oh Alfred!, a major installation event for this year’s Art and About, to celebrate the park’s reopening. I had a chat with Jess Cook, artist, founder of Token Imagination and fairy godmother behind Prince Alfred’s fenciful facelift.

Jess lives and works in Surry Hills, and like all of the artists now involved in the project she dreamt up, she has a real love for Prince Alfred Park and found the closure of it for such a long time pretty frustrating. “Walking along Chalmers and Cleveland street one day I just thought ‘we can do something better here’, because there were just all of these crappy signs up and people were tagging on them and it just wasn’t making anyone feel good about the redevelopment of the park. So I just thought, ‘OK, well, what can we do to make it look pretty?’ And then I was like, oh, oh, the fence!!”

The fence in question, which for many months has been your standard repellant wire and mesh affair designed for the sole purpose of keeping people out, will be transformed over the next three weeks into an object of beauty and curiosity; a rainbow tapestry of fabrics and whimsical objects woven into the wire, inviting passers-by to stop and take a closer look. “I love the idea of people driving past and seeing this mass of colour, and also watching it grow. The whole park will be opening up in October, so it is really about heralding that arrival and getting people excited.”

All of the key artists involved with Oh Alfred! come from different artistic backgrounds, from costume design, to recycled “rubbish art”, to cuprocking (Sydney’s original fence-art craze). Cuprocking inventor Andy Uprock is working on the Oh Alfred! fence too – but this time instead of plastic cups he’s using chains to spell out text. Another local artist, Jonathan James, is a print maker and is making 3D letters which can be moved around, for people passing by to create their own messages with. Jess’s artistic background is in poetry and theatre, which is reflected in this communicative, story-telling side of the work. “I’m inspired by language, and even though Token Imagination has been involved in large-scale art installations over the last three years, poetry and wordplay is always an element. I think it can move across different artforms and I’m interested in taking poetry out of its usual context.”

The interactive element, and community participation generally, is a really important aspect of works by Token Imagination. For Oh Alfred!, artists have held working bees in nearby schools and the Northcott Towers Community Centre over the past month, getting kids and grown-ups together to create fabric rosettes and abstract shapes from wire and ribbon, to thread into the fence. “We wanted their contribution to be seamless with that of the artists, so it’s about them feeling like they are really part of the artwork.” The kids from Cleveland St Intensive English high school that backs onto Prince Alfred Park have created a banner saying “Welcome To Our Backyard”. Nawwww how cute is that!

The installation process itself is all about community interaction too, and everyone is invited to turn up over the next couple of weeks to join in and make your mark. Despite the not-so-pretty weather over the weekend, the first piece of the tapestry was woven into the fence on Saturday, and all of the bits and pieces of decoration will be added to that over the next three weeks, so that as Jess explains,  “it will literally be growing on the fence”. Being able to watch something like this change and progress, and having the opportunity to be a part of the fun as it happens, is the true beauty of this kind of art.

“The public artist plays a really important role of providing some visual relief from the expected, and being able to pop a bit of fun into people’s day. It’s not every day that you walk along and see a construction fence beautifully decorated with weaving and interactive artwork. I think the impermanency makes it all the more potent.”  She’s right, obviously – it’s about being there and connecting with what is happening at a specific place and time, about being transported out of the humdrum everyday taken-for-grantedness of our urban environment without actually leaving, to be surprised and cheered by what appears in our own backyard, to take the opportunity that presents itself, and have some fun with it.

So if you live nearby or you’re just into crafty activities, head along this Saturday and do just that: get involved, have some fun, and take the opportunity to weave a little bit of yourself into the picture.

+ +

Oh Alfred! installation is happening on Saturdays in the next few weeks at the Cleveland St and Chalmers St sides of Prince Alfred Park, Strawberry Hills. For more info check the Oh Alfred! blog.

Enter: Joe Hardy, who seems to have felt the same way, and who solved the problem by turning his North Shore back yard into a venue. It’s called The Gate, and I asked him some questions about it, because what a rad idea, and what a cool guy for making it happen, right?

++

+ What are the biggest problems with venues in Sydney?

> This is an interesting question to ponder. First, let me say I’ve got a lot of respect for the operators of conventional venues, and I’ve spent a lot of time enjoying their hard work!

Obviously venues in Sydney come in all shapes and sizes, so their problems vary depending on the scale of their operation. I do think financial viability is one of the biggest concerns for nearly all small-to-medium size live music outlets at the moment. Whatever you might attribute this to, I think now is probably a good time as ever to be experimenting with different approaches to running viable music venues, especially seeing the primary income model the live music industry relies on at the moment (sale of alcohol) seems to be biting us in the bum right now.

+ What other cities have solved these problems and how?

> I’m not entirely sure there’s one “big” solution I’ve seen for these problems! For some venues, the answer is to cut costs, but that just means that quality is lowered and less risks are taken, which probably also means that less people turn up to shows and so on….

I think every city is different, both in terms of problems faced and solutions invented – I think even across different parts of Sydney we’ve seen different reactions and counter-reactions to the challenges the live music scene faces. The warehouse scene in the inner west is one key example – that whole DIY culture has thrived as emerging bands have struggled to find gigs in normal venues, but then it also seems to be facing its own new wave of challenges as well.

+ Tell me a bit more about this little venue you’ve set up.

> The venue’s called The Gate and it operates in our backyard in Ryde, on Lane Cove Road. As soon as we moved into the house it seemed like the yard was purpose-built to accommodate live music – it has a huge stage landscaped into the yard, and is perfectly sized and structured to comfortably host a crowd. Not to mention it looks really cool!

We’ve decided to host live shows as an experiment to see whether there’s an interest in Ryde accommodating a more prominent creative culture. As a fan of music, to be able to support it in any kind of way is something that I look for any opportunity to do, so this just seemed like a great thing to try.

The venue is non-profit – at this stage I don’t get paid for the work I do in running or promoting the event, but I’m happy to do this if the event is successful in its goals. The only people that get paid are tech suppliers, sound and lighting operators and the bands, the latter of which get all revenue after costs. And those costs are massively reduced because of a local church I’m a part of, who offered to provide a lot of the PA equipment for free just because they wanted to help out in some way.

I don’t think I have the energy or money to do this forever without having some kind of financial return, but getting paid is not within the immediate future of the event I don’t think. Again, so long as it’s helping the scene thrive then I’m cool with that!

+ Don’t you think the North Shore is a bit of a dead zone? Is it hard getting people to travel over the bridge – or is your venue for Northies only?

> Yes, the North Shore is a bit of a dead zone without a doubt, and for the most part I think the locals kind of accept that for what it is. Most people that do enjoy live music, clubs or other nightlife activity accept that to get any of those things they’ll need to travel to access those things, but at the same time I know that a lot of people wished that there were at least some outlets for a creative culture locally.

With regards to travelling “over the bridge”: I’m hoping that The Gate is unique and novel enough that people from all over Sydney will see it as something that’s worth travelling to, but at the same time I think it’s understandable that not everyone wants to travel out here. That will really depend on the acts we book and the ongoing reputation of our production standards.

So in a nutshell no the venue definitely isn’t just for “Northies”, but I’m definitely hoping we can find the right people in the area that want to support live music and give them something really enjoyable.

+ What have been the main challenges?

> Logistics, by far. The big challenge was making sure this was going to be an event on par with – or even superior to – an inner city small venue, and hopefully we’ve achieved that while making sure events are feasible.

+ Do you think the laws in Sydney are stifling the creative scene?

> Yes and no. Like I said before: if Sydney’s creative scene predominantly operates on one kind of business model and that model begins to fail, of course you will see the scene suffer. But I think that’s just an opportunity to exercise creative thinking and come up with new ways that will work, rather than whinge about how the old ways aren’t cutting it anymore.

+ How have you gone about compliance, licensing, etc?

> As far as interaction with council goes, Ryde seems to be a pretty good place to operate. I was having a conversation with someone working in television production and they were talking about how nearly all of the on-location suburban shooting happens in Ryde, because the council is notably relaxed about these things compared to other suburbs.

I found this to be the case when I sat down with Ryde City Council – basically their opinion of the event was that they were happy for it to exist providing they weren’t getting complaints. Given our neighbourhood has been communicated with, and they largely seem on-board and even enthusiastic about the idea, I don’t think this is going to be a problem.

The event is run like a backyard party supported by donations: we have a guest list that people register for via the website, and as a result we think we’re within rights to class the event as BYO and be within legal rights for that. We’re still constantly trying to ensure we have a complete understanding of what our rights and responsibilities are with this though.

+ Tell me about some of the bands you’ve asked to play, and how have they reacted to the location?

> Overall I’m really pleased with how positive bands and management have been with the concept. To secure people’s confidence we’ve taken a lot of time to ensure that we have a watertight model for operation, especially with regards to making sure the bands get paid – I think that has done a good job in selling the concept. As well as that, we’ve tried to prove that we’re not just mucking around with amateur gear and that we want to do things properly, so that’s helped as well.

One of the comments we’ve had so far from bands is just how enjoyable the venue is to play. We really have tried hard to make sure we’ve got a quality backline and production aesthetic, and I think so far the bands have felt this has really paid off. There’s no way having a crappy 8 channel PA with two foldbacks and a couple of coloured lights is good enough – both bands and punters want the “real deal” and hopefully we’re providing that.

+ Did some particular place inspire you to do this?

> No specific place, no. That being said, I’m sure every DIY venue that I’ve been to or read about has affected my thinking on all of this in some way.

+ What are the plans for the future?

> For the immediate term, I just want to host great gigs and learn the lessons we need to learn. I’d like to build a base of supporters, and then maybe eventually look at moving somewhere that might be more sustainable for the longterm. I’m not for a second under the illusion that we’re going to be able to run music in a backyard forever – it’s going to get shut down at some point – but I hope we get enough people in the area excited about seeing live music to be able to find somewhere else that will see this kind of thing happen on a more regular basis.

+ What’s the next gig?

> We’ve got Betty Airs playing (a new band featuring Gerling/The ELF’s Darren Cross), supported by Border Thieves and Yae!Tiger. It’ll be happening on the 24th of July, and I think between the three acts there’s a pretty diverse representation of many different flavours of rock ‘n’ roll. Going to be a cool night I think.

After the much deserved hype behind his last album Drowning In the Fountain of Youth, it is fair to say that critics and fans alike are eagerly awaiting Dan’s third installment Dan Kelly’s Dream. His jangled guitar has the most hardened drug dealers dancing recklessly outside their meth labs and his lyrics could even bring a smile to Vladimir Putin’s face. The density of each verse alone warrants several listenings, as you trawl the insert wondering, Did he really just say ‘stole an Indonesian General’s waterproof humvee’? Of course he did. “When you’ve only got three verses of what is a quite involved story then you can’t really waste a word otherwise you’ll make it drag or you’ll stuff it up. And plus it’s got to rhyme too… That’s a bastard.”

The writing process saw Dan jumping from Sydney to Melbourne and even touring with the world’s greatest wordsmith of our generation. “We did ten shows with Leonard Cohen which was amazing. It was interesting really watching Leonard Cohen every night – it gave me a lot of confidence. I felt very young. Afterwards I certainly started to write, not all good. Sometimes you have to break past the shit barrier, everything you write down is going to be pretty crap (well in my case) and then you kind of keep working on it until it sounds right.” Dan coolly plays off the elbow rubbing as I nervously laugh.

Ignoring the schoolgirl tones, Dan continues in his grounded round about away that the making of Dan Kelly’s Dream wasn’t all champagne and Cohen. “We started the record in country Victoria and then tried to move to Sydney and then I realized it just wasn’t finished. So I had to re-edit a bit and I sort of ran out of cash because it’s a pretty low budget record. The cheapest thing I could do was to go and do it with a friend in London (former Alpha Male, Aaron Cupples) because I had Frequent Flyer points that I’d been saving for ten years and he sort of said, ‘Pay me later when you’re a megastar.’  And you wouldn’t think that’s the cheapest option, but it definitely was much cheaper than doing it here in a proper studio.” Nevertheless, Dan Kelly’s Dream will still be put in the classy category of having been recorded in London. Very megastar indeed.

With his recent touring with his Dream Band, (Indra Adams and Dale Packard from Ground Components with Dave Williams and Keirnan Box of Augie March) Mr Kelly’s megastar status hit a new high when he released his own line of swimming caps. “Yep that’s right! They’re online. I think that’s my favourite thing ever, that I have my own swimming cap. I feel like I’ve just vindicated my whole career.” Take that Leonard Cohen, enjoy your frizzled hair when you go lap swimming! The silicon headwear industry will be booming in no time and suckers like Mick Jagger and Robert Plant will be left in the lurch like the dinosaurs that they are.

Dan regularly credits onstage that the inspiration for ‘Bindi Irwin Apocalypse Jam’ came from an intense session of lap swimming but other songs came from sheer blue sky coincidence. “I generally come up with the music first with a little bit of a grunted phases which doesn’t make any sense. When you lock those two things together it kind of sets you on a path. For one I was like ‘I’m not sure but it sounds like Dandenong Station’ so then you think ‘Stuff it I’ll write a song about Dandenong Station.’ Catholic Leader didn’t take long either. I was mucking around with a friend in Sydney and came up with a bit of a chorus and then maybe a few months later all of a sudden I was like ‘Oh it’s going to be about a nun and a janitor.’ Other songs were a more a conscious effort to write about stuff, but some of it is a mix of inspiration: you could be drinking or you could be lap swimming.”

But what really distinguishes a Dan Kelly album, other than tightly written punchy verses, is a real preoccupation with the ocean. The twangy surf guitar distortion left to simmer and churn while an organ plays or the faint sound of a ukulele in the background. Dan’s reason? “Well, my mum’s a Pisces. When I was about two she took me to the beach everyday, played by the beach. I’ve always loved the beach. There’s certain albums that give me that undersea feeling like ‘Washing Machine’ by Sonic Youth, they clang along on the Jaguars kind of like Indonesian Gamalan music, like ringing bells.

I was travelling through Thailand when I was about twenty listening to that record a lot. I’d sort of sit down on the beach and listen to ‘Diamond Sea’ or ‘Little Troubled Girl’ or something with that really open clangy sound and I really kind of got into that. And then Dan Luscombe when he joined the Paul Kelly Band and we started playing left and right guitar he certainly got me into a lot of stuff like Santo & Johnny who do Sleepwalking. They do that kind of 1950s reverberating guitar sounds which again sounds really tropical. Once it gets really woozy that’s when I really like it.”

On the whole, the new album according to Dan was made much like the last, only minus the Alpha Males. “It’s just a new band. There’s a similarity between all my records, all these kind of adventure songs, I tried to make this one lyrically more weirder but sonically straighter. I’ve got my voice right up there and I’m not trying to hide it as much. I like to disguise my voice with effects but this one I’ve got it up there really clean.” And Dan’s trajectory does delight many, but perhaps on this path he’ll never equal the artistic merit of true artists like Ke$ha or Nelly. It’s a tough price for a legitimate songwriter.

Enough, Dan! The new album, Dan Kelly’s Dream, isn’t out until July 16^th so you’re just baiting people now. Give them something to chew on till then. So here comes Dan Kelly’s second single ‘Hold On, I’m Coming On’, an optimistic jiving bag of goodness with recorder interludes (the primary school kind). It’s all in there: the woozy guitar, the imagination overload lyrics  (“a ninja from Kyoto”), Dan’s falsetto. The energy and joy in this song is similar to those nine piece party bands that throw confetti into crowds with a variety of novelty instruments like The Polyphonic Spree, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes, Cuthbert and the Nightwalkers. Except there’s only four guys on stage. It’s just fun and those kind of songs are always great live.

Of course what Dan Kelly song would be amiss without some form of enviable witty anecdote about its creation. Take it away Dan! “I went to All Tomorrows Parties in Mt Buller last year and just got massively loaded and didn’t mean to and had the best time I’ve had in years and chilled the fuck out for a couple of days and stopped worrying about myself. Because you can get a bit inward when your writing a record and you haven’t done it for awhile. You can lose your sense of perspective. And I sort of gained my sense of perspective by seeing some incredible bands.  I just came away from there saying whatever’s going to happen… So that song’s pretty much the least ‘made-up’ song on the record. “

Triple J will give ‘Hold On, I’m Coming On’ a fair slog on the radio so prepare yourself to swerve rhythmically into oncoming traffic. But wait, there’s more! Look out for the album launch of Dan Kelly’s Dream on August 13^th at an unnamed venue near you and some solo shows that Dan will be doing with Megan Washington. Till next time!

++

Dan Kelly’s new single, ‘Hold On, I’m Coming On’ is available for free download if you sign up to the newsletter on www.dankelly.com.au, where you will also find Dan’s hilarious blog, tour details and merch.

But the forcefulness of his mark-making is expressive of a meaning in his paintings, not a experiment in process. “I’m not technique-based,” he says. “The materials are tools for the trade.” And the abstract shapes and blocks of colour and layering? The textures? The scratches? “Hand and arm movements are something I’ve become really interested in, those gestures… it’s like writing, but I don’t like putting text in my art, I think it betrays the complexity of painting to use that, but this… it’s scratchy like writing, it’s a bit… you can see there’s obviously a graff influence in my work but also hieroglyphics.”

So he likes writing visually, but dislikes the way viewers identify with text and focus on that to the detriment of consideration of the specifically painting-y qualities? “Yeah, basically, I guess,”  he agrees [and I abandon this line of questioning as leading horribly close to aesthetics in German romantic philosophy. To word games! Which you never get in German philosophy, right? Shut up, Wittgenstein. We move on to the titles of the works].

“I want them to be like suggestions, or signposts,” Degroot says of the naieve/allusive names he gives his paintings. “I don’t want to dictate. Also, you know, you’ve got to help people tell them apart. You can’t just call ‘em all Untitled, can you?” Ah, if only more artists thought that way. I really don’t buy that it’s as simple as referencing “something that’s going on there,” which is how he describes how the titles come about. Calling pictures things like The Best Time, or But It Is Fragile, or An Exact Fake seem to me to be taking the kinds of text you might see in Magritte or Tom Polo or whoever, acknowledging that particular kind of interpretative game but getting it out of the frame, which is in line with his general approach to meaning in paintings: that there should be some, and that you should try to find it.

And while the titles are meant to help working out the meanings, Degroot is definitely keeping some secrets, particularly about the characters and creatures that inhabit his works. “Yeah, they do mean something. I sort of make them up as I go along, and they come back and they get collected and inventoried, and each one does mean something particular. To me.” I have a feeling that kind of makes them like hieroglyphics again, in that way that the ideas of people with a coherent body of work tend to refer amongst themselves like an arts and culture blog or something.

To a final question on how important fun is in his art, because their seems to be a lot of it but a lot that undercuts it also (with stealthy glances around my besuited, $12 foccacia-scarfing colleagues in rain-evasion) his advice is first that I keep my voice down using those words, and foremost that “that’s definitely important , but definitely not all the time and definitely not the only thing. You need to get more and more out of a work over time, and I say that for people looking at them. I mean, it needs to be challenging and engaging. But for me, with my own work, well, I do a piece and then I get to do another piece and then I do some more pieces. That’s fun.”

++

Simon Degroot’s exhibition ‘All In Again Sometime’ opens at blank_space on the 3rd of July.

But hold up munch boy. You seem to be missing a few vowels.

Forming in 1999, the Sydney-by-way-of-London-based experimentally progressive trio Pivot (Dave Miller and brothers Laurence and Richard Pike) recently had a nasty run-in with a US metal outfit of the same name, who challenged the Sydneysiders to a duel if group titles didn’t start a-changin’. In a subsequent statement, Richard claimed, “It was frustrating and kind of ridiculous, but it became quickly obvious that it was a legal battle in the US we may not even win, and one we just couldn’t afford to lose. So in the end, we weren’t fazed by it.”

Nor should they be. With a new album and feet back on Australian soil as PVT, a few missing letters are hardly going to dampen the spirits of this electronic three piece, as the small change will surely not lower the volume of their amps. As Richard had to add, “Altering the name just seemed to be another step in the process for the record to come out and be heard.”

Change is a call for innovation and such an opportunity has hardly slipped through the gunning electronic fingers of the three Sydney locals. But with recording done and dusted and an upcoming tour to give such a long awaited record a bit of a preview, what on earth is Laurence Pike doing with his days back on Australian shores? “There’s that big gap between the time that you actually finish your job and other people start doing theirs,” he says. “I’ve just been hanging out at home and making soup. Oh and I just went on my honeymoon.”

Pike should consider newlywed bliss a holiday well-deserved, as the success of PVT has certainly dominated his schedule over the past few years. With 2008 seeing the group become the first Australian artists signed to iconic UK label Warp Records (Battles, Maxïmo Park, !!!, Aphex Twin, Grizzly Bear), PVT grabbed a pocketful of notoriety as the release of album O Soundtrack My Heart even saw the trio scoot on tour with electro-hook god Gary Numan. The problem for Pike, however, is the common journalistic act of romanticising this tale.

“People get quite carried away with the romance of Warp Records,” he says, with the explosive conviction of someone being asked the same question for two years. “Like some magic dream factory; we all go there and hang out and play chess with Aphex Twin.” Denying accusations Warp artists simply indulge in rounds of golf every Wednesday, Pike’s frustration with run-of-the-mill interviews is transparent, as even repeating his interest in Little Richard is met with a resounding subject change.  “To be honest I’m really bored of answering questions about Warp Records,” he says. “Every, every interview we’ve done for the last two years just wants to talk about the label, and it’s like, well how about we talk about our album?”

Well how about we. Church With No Magic is the latest release from Pike and his merry men, with single ‘Window’ showing the kind of mature and focused sound that only comes with a Londonian adventure or two. “I think Dave living in London for five years has meant exposure to a lot of the electronic club music in London that is quite uniquely localised,” he says. “I think the fact that we’ve done a lot of live playing over the last couple of years has affected the sound, and our approach has shifted to maybe make it a bit more organic than the last record was.” Scooting around more underground English club sounds has certainly only increased the trio’s ability to create new and more innovative structures of sonic originality, with their programmed kind of modernist approach to music production seeing them create a transfixing and mesemerising cache of art music.

But with two years since their last album hit the shelves, does Pike see a difference in the PVT sound without the vowels “I mean vocal prominence is the most obvious difference, though I think there’s a strong connection to the last record at least with the ‘bigness’ of the sound,” he says. “The development is kind of obvious to us because we’ve been plugging at it for a couple of years since we finished the last record. I feel like I’ve been in the doctor’s waiting room for the past six months just waiting for this album, just waiting for the baby to pop out. Once it arrives I’ll probably ask it to move out of home. I’ll be like “GET OUT OF MY LIFE. You ruined my life! Now get out there and make me some money.” ”

Unfortunately for Pike, this money he speaks of doesn’t always buy happiness, particularly when it comes to pre-show riders and his beloved snack he continues to chomp throughout the interview. “I actually asked for sesame snaps to be put on the rider but I don’t think anyone’s ever given them to me, ever, anywhere,” Pike laments. “But when I play with Jack Ladder, he occasionally goes to the shop and buys me a couple.”

So if sesame snaps are off limits, what Easter Eggs are the highlight of PVT riders? “Oh not really much. Postcards. I like sending postcards when I travel and often you don’t have time to go and find any,” he says. “[On tour] you’re just there for a few hours in the city, then you play, sleep, and then leave the next morning. So we get postcards of the city or region featuring ‘points of interest’. Probably should be asking for litres of vodka or something instead.”

As the trio embark on their Australian tour in August, the possibility of creative riders on home shores grows ever more present, however Pike’s yearnings of pre-show beverages are a little more refined than a bottle of Smirnoff. “I’d love a couple of bottles of French red wine right now I’ll tell you what,” he says. “I was just in France and I went total pig out on the French wine it was amazing.”

Pike’s forays into the European food spectrum hardly remained abroad, as his suitcase found itself a culinary Customs spectacle. “I always bring mustard back, there’s this mustard you can buy in France called Amora which is the cheapest shittiest supermarket mustard but it’s fucking the bomb,” he says. “We didn’t bother trying to bring back cheese, we just came back with a suitcase of French chocolates.”

Talking food is a nice change for PVT’s drummer as Pike shows a certain hostility towards journos who attempt to ask him to assign wondrous adjectives and outlandish descriptions to their undefinable sound. With a resigned sense of annoyance, this percussionist shows a blatant disdain for having to label his own sound. “It’s because people have no fucking idea what we do,” he says. People find it very difficult to make sense of what we do, and we don’t make it easy for them, but who wants music to be easy? For me the big question is when people say ‘describe your sound’. I always feel like saying ‘Fuck off, that’s your job.’ We don’t sit around ‘describing’ it all the time.”

At this point it’s difficult not to ask him. Let’s do.

“Ahh…. ‘Exchanging’? ‘Independent’? [laughs] I don’t know!” Perhaps coining a new word is the only means by which the trio’s electronic sound can be described. Let’s try ‘scubadivery’…

“Is that even a word?” Pike asks. “Sure, lock that one off!”

Scubadivery it is. But despite establishing a general dislike of token interview questions, Pike isn’t ferreting away so soon without a hint of what to expect from a live venture into the Kingdom of PVT. “Um, dragons? I don’t really know, lasers? Everyone likes lasers. If you’re into that.”

Thus with a host of media to please and a tour to anticipate, it’s high time Pike was left to his sesame snaps. “Hey, you don’t need to let me go for that to happen,” he laughs. “I’ve been enjoying them for some time now, I don’t know if you’ve noticed me munching.” With a quick reminder his next interview is live radio, this electronic guru should probably chew faster. “I won’t munch on air, but I might not be able to help myself, I’m a pig for it. A glutton for sesame snaps.”

Good luck with that Laurence.

“Ha! Sure. Good luck with my sickness…”

++

PVT’s new album, Church With No Magic, is due out July 10.