Wet Leg 33. Jungle 34. Food Guide

I think it was literally two weeks ago I performed in a Lithuanian prison, and so many of the people were screaming the lyrics of my songs back at me, and I was thinking, ‘What the fuck am I doing here? Why do they even know who I am?’ I mean, even the Obama thing, I still to this day don’t know who showed him my music... And no one warns you before hand—I just saw it on Instagram like everyone else. I woke up to my phone being crazy. It’s still weird that people are really fucking with what I’m doing. So, what are some day-to-day perks of this type of success that someone like me wouldn’t know about? [Laughs] Um... Hmm. Like everyday life things? Yeah. Like, ‘Yeah, I get a free subscription to the Financial Times’ or something. I’m not sure if... People probably know this, but it’s weird—I haven’t really bought anything in the last year. They’re just sending stuff. I’ve just been living off gifts. Like this Xbox, for example. I was picking out an outfit the other day and I realised I hadn’t chosen any of it. Someone sent you this jacket, someone sent you these pants... Yeah, yeah. I didn’t really realise that my wardrobe was involuntary. I don’t know what else... Have you been at a restaurant and someone’s sent you a bottle of wine? Actually, one of the first dates with my girlfriend, we went to a restaurant and we sat down, and the waiter handed us these menus and said, ‘Mr Genesis it’s a pleasure to serve you.’ [Laughing] That’s a bit flirty! It was one of the best things that can happen on a first date. [Laughs] That was a good moment. This interview is for Monster Children’s Splendour Paper. Do you remember your first Splendour experience? I do because it was my only Splendour in the Grass experience. We played this set in a tent to what I think was the most people I’d seen in my life. It was insane. It was fun. We stayed in the Red Bull house and they were doing crazy courses for musicians— crazy courses like for breath control and they’d have swimmers come in to teach you how to hold your breath properly. So, in one of those action movies where the bad guys are firing into the lake and the hero’s holding their breath under the water for a crazy amount of time, you can do that now if you need to. Yes. I’m classically trained in holding my breath. So, what are your tips for the people reading this, who are potentially currently at the festival? I’m not gonna lie to you — I am the worst person to ask that question. Because in regard to festival experiences, I am so spoilt. The first five festivals I went to ever was as an artist, so my perception of festivals when I first went as a punter was so skewed. Like, ‘Damn, this is awful.’ [Laughs] It’s hot, stinky, I have to pay for my drinks... Where’s the shade and the drinks and where’s the free massages and... Like, they give you massages backstage. There’s your perk! So, your advice is ‘bring your own masseuse’. My advice is: make some great music and get on the line up. Come back as an artist!

If a person listens to my music and feels confused then I’m like ‘Yeah, I’ve done my job.’ Confused, scared, out of their element...

Photo: Bec Parsons

The Best Art To See At Splendour 2022

BY CHLOE BORICH

Believe it or not, there’s more to this festival than meets the eye. Yes, the main draw might be getting a few beers in with your mates and watching live music back-to-back for three days straight until you can’t feel your feet and start laughing and crying at the same time–but it is also about immersing yourself in some pretty amazing artworks by some pretty serious artists. And this year’s line-up doesn’t disappoint.

HIROMI TANGO, HIROMI HOTEL: HEARTBEAT If there’s one artist in the world who has a true affinity with rainbows, it would have to be Hiromi Tango. You’ll understand why as soon as you enter Hiromi Hotel, a vibrant, interactive work that acts as the pulsing heartbeat of Splendour. Encouraging visitors to step away from their screens and digital devices, people are instead invited to engage in sensory artmaking centred around conversation and connection. Using colour, texture and movement in her immersive sculptures, the Japanese-Australian artist shifts our perception of our surrounding environment and challenges how we relate to each other. Workshops will take place every day at Hiromi Hotel, where you can add to the heart of the artwork throughout the weekend. So, drop by and get crafty during your festival experience.

SAM SONGAILO, GATEWAY LEGACY As night falls, there’s no missing Sam Songailo’s Gateway Legacy. The installation acts as a portal to another world, grounded in the digital. Co-opting motifs from technology and electronic music, Songailo’s work merges algorithms and sonic references with the modernist grid in an entertaining amalgamation of light, form and sound. For Gateway Legacy, the artist reveals a mesmerising display, as well as a narrative. The work tells the story of the son of a virtual world designer, who goes looking for his father and ends up inside the digital world that his father designed. Instead, he meets his father’s corrupted creation and a unique ally who was born inside the digital world. In Songailo’s own words, it’s a ‘big, beautiful, expensive train-wreck that really is something of an apex in glossy, vapid art-making…’ Sounds a bit wild, doesn’t it? Do yourself a favour and have a beer or two before getting involved in this highly immersive work.

IKONIX, PHAROS ‘Beam me up, Scotty’ is something you might be tempted to utter as you stumble upon the spectacle that is Ikonix’s PHAROS. The monumental light sculpture is a gigantic column loaded with beams of light projected hundreds of metres into the air that will delight viewers with a range of dazzling effects and animations. Positioned in the Mix-Up Oval, be drawn into a series of otherworldly forms that meld with the festive surroundings of Splendour night-life, bringing you along for the ride. Designed by Ikonix, Australian-based bespoke content and creative environment creators, this is an experience you don’t want to miss.

ANDY FORBES, THE TOWNSHIP Get drawing at Andy Forbes’ The Township, a giant cartoon storyboard. Hand-painted and crafted by the artist who has been contributing to Splendour Arts since 2001, the scene depicts a fictional village that you rowdy punters can enter for yourselves. Grab some chalk and stick your head in a hole (in the wall), like in those old English seaside attractions that chafe your chin, to become a part of the #splendourtownship.

LUCY DYSON, SPLENDOUR ARTIST IN RESIDENCE You’ll instantly recognise the work of Lucy Dyson, who’s been Splendour’s Artist in Residence for not one, not two, but three years thanks to our global sweetheart, Covid-19. Drawing on retro references and intergalactic motifs from resources including vintage magazines, photographs and children’s books, Dysondreams up time-bending scenarios that are a pure delight to the eye. Having originally created the official artwork for the 2020 SITG poster, video and other pretty things, Dyson has also put her talents to a large-scale mural that will finally welcome back festivalgoers as they enter the tunnel to funtown.

Fazerdaze (known to friends, family and the New Zealand government as Amelia Murray) has been putting out high-quality dream and bedroom pop for close to a decade, exploring the higher octaves and more optimistic tones of the genres, and providing the music with a more glimmering, misty aesthetic. Fazerdaze has been on hiatus for a couple of years now, but with new music soon to be released, Splendour in the Grass will mark a welcome return. Thanks to that return (and my choosing a nosy profession), I got to ask my celebrity crush what she’s been up to, what she does in her spare time, and bother her about music production.

Fazerdaze

INTERVIEW: NAZ KAWAKAMI

A whole new era of Fazerdaze. So many new songs, new sounds. I’m in a new era of my life and I want to bring that onto the stage.

There’s new music! How are you feeling about it? I am excited to put it out because I haven’t released anything in a really long time. I’m excited but also very peaceful and ready to let go of all the music I’ve been writing. Yeah, it’s been a while, where you been? It’s honestly hard to answer that question because it’s really very personal—a lot of personal things I’ve gone through in the last couple of years that I don’t really want to put in the press yet. Most people would have made something up, so thank you for a sincere answer. I’m glad you’re back with new music. I’ve heard a little of it, and it’s definitely a stylistic development for you. What were you listening to that influenced the new stuff? I think more so things I listened to in the past had influenced this new stuff. A bit of Nirvana, maybe. Pixies, probably. At the time of writing this new stuff I was thrashing the new Clairo album, though, I don’t know if those all really line up. What do you do that isn’t music? I’m really into yoga, anything to balance out the mindfuck that is music, so I just like to go running and kick a ball around, pretty much anything physical. How do you mean? Well, I guess, in my head, music is super self-indulgent. I’m sitting in a room by myself writing these songs, trying to refine it, crying because something’s not working, I don’t know. It’s just me on my own working for long periods of time, hunched over a guitar or a keyboard or something. It’s quite enclosed, which I find is good for creativity, but I need to move and stretch and get outside. This’ll sound more aggressive than it’s meant to be: why are you doing this? Why are you back? Playing the show? Well, I’ve got this new stuff coming out and it coincides perfectly with Splendour in the Grass, but I also just want to play again and put this music out there. Would you say that playing live is fun or important for you as a musician? Yeah, totally. It’s been a while, so I’m pretty nervous. The first show back is always a lot, so I’m nervous to see how it goes. I like it a lot more when I’m in the rhythm of playing a lot, and I’ve played enough shows now to know that even the shows that weren’t as great for me, I am able to find a joy and appreciation for being on stage and being able to share my music with people. It’s such a privilege and I am always grateful for it. What’s it like being an artist in Aotearoa? Is there a solid music scene? Sometimes it can be a bubble in the sense that the music will stay here and not make it overseas. In my career, I’ve actively tried to branch out and push my music to other countries. We have a lot of funding there which has been how I’ve been able to make music videos and travel—there’s a lot of government funding for artists which I think has helped keep the scene alive. There’s something quite cool about young artists making stuff in a smaller country, maybe because the art is untainted by the industry and ambition, whatever. Very unpolluted. Yeah! Sometimes I’ll go to a show and you can tell that the musician has no ambition beyond playing these good songs at the local venue, and there’s something quite in the moment and pure about that. You’ve got a bit of that yourself, though, I think. You’re fairly low key as an artist. Even your Instagram is private. Well, putting my social media on private was my way of shutting the project down for a little while, but still allowing new fans to come into that world if they wanted to, I could let them in. It was cute to wake up in the morning and see new friend requests and be like, ‘Yes!’ It was a way for me to put the project on hold while still being able to very directly—but also very quietly—engage with fans, but I’ll probably make everything public again as new music comes out. You seem a very quiet tranquil person, is it weird having fans? Hmm... I mean, I love that I’ve got people that I can give my music to, I’m very grateful for that privilege. I’m lucky that my fans are—from what I can gather—really nice people. The few times that I’ve been recognised or whatever, it feels more like a friend is saying hello, and I say hey back. I don’t think I’m very much of a celebrity, fans feel like equals to me, like friends who are interested in whatever I’m doing which has been really nice. You’re returning from a hiatus with your performance at Splendour, what can your fans expect? A whole new era of Fazerdaze. So many new songs, new sounds. I’m in a new era of my life and I want to bring that onto the stage.

Is Methyl Ethel Haunted?

INTERVIEW: SAM HETHERINGTON

When I call Jake Webb, frontman of Methyl Ethel, he is in his studio in Perth swatting away midges. We talk about Western Australia for a bit. How it’s a hard place to describe and how that’s a good thing because it means there’s more to it than can be put into words. Funnily enough, this is the exact way I would describe Jake. Clearly very talented musically, but also calculated while being vulnerable, and consciously considered without being pretentious. Methyl Ethyl’s new album Are You Haunted?, released earlier this year, has been rated as the most serious album to date while still being experimental and, of course, something we can all dance to. It’s also an album that asks a lot of questions, so I figured I’d jump right in with some questions of my own.

Are you haunted Jake Webb? Am I? Yes. Straight to it. Good question. No one has asked me that. What haunts you? Oh, no, you only get the one-word answer. Oh, that’s it? Listen to the record and that’s the rest of the answer. Fair enough. ‘A Minute Sublime’ stands out as a particularly haunted song for its take on grief. It references losing your dear friend and producer Brian Mitra, does writing about death help? It is cathartic in the Hollywood sense of it but saying it’s cathartic is too easy a thing to say. For me all of the songs that I’ve ever made put a picture in my head so each song takes me back to a place that is personal to me in the same way that all the songs do for different reasons. It’s nice that you have a song specific about someone though that you can play and it brings you back to that person and moment. You’re right, it is cathartic in that way. Maybe because it sounds corny to say that but in fact yes, it is exactly that. It takes me back to Brian and all of the time we spent together. Throughout this album, certain tracks have quite sombre lyrics, but you’ve created this tension and release that makes it something you can dance to. Is that an intentional creative decision? Yep. 100%. I’m too serious usually when it comes to writing because I read a lot of serious books—not in a snobby way. (Laughs) Redact that. Like your song ‘Castigat Redendo Mores’? That translates to ‘one corrects customs by laughing at them’ or ‘he corrects customs by ridicule’ in Latin. Exactly. When I am not trying to be too serious, I always try to inject a personal joke or some kind of satire in there to dissolute it. What about ‘Kids on Holiday,’ is that one about climate anxiety? That’s the easy answer. All my songs are too complex to describe their meaning in a couple of simple words. Every perspective from the lyrics is observational, pulling in a lot of things from different directions and metaphors. I just present the ideas and then you take them and go wherever you want. In ‘Kids on Holiday’, the idea is that the kids are taking control back. It’s about the political landscape of the time, the patriarchy and the uprising of the next generation as seen through the lens of a kid in the backseat of a car kicking the back of the parent’s seat. Climate anxiety is a part of it though, yes. I guess that’s with any music, you make your own meaning out of it, even if it’s completely different from what the artist intended. If I do my job correctly, the things that go into your head, I should have controlled. Otherwise, it’s too easy to say oh make up your own mind about it. That’s the bullshit answer. I watched an interview with you, and you said that the Are You Haunted? concept name of your album is about not just ghosts of deceased people, but also how decisions of the past haunt us today. Can you explain that one and how that helped to create the themes within the album? The easiest way to explain it is to bring it back down to a personal level. If you were to think about it as yourself, as we continue to talk and as time passes on, you’re always haunted even just by your past self a second ago, or a minute ago or 10 minutes ago. Constantly. In five minutes’ time you could feel regret or embarrassment for something that you’ve said. The decisions we’re making all the time- that’s what I’m meaning. It’s anything in the past because it can be that small, but it can also be as big as the decisions of our generation’s past like climate change and social change. What we are doing today constantly, is dealing with the things we’ve chosen to do in the past. Your past self is always right there and present with you. That’s a lot of the philosophy behind the album. Now I’m just always going to be thinking about what I’ve done wrong. Yeah, you’ll go crazy thinking about it now (laughs). Talking about thinking too much… We’ve obviously all just resurfaced from the pandemic with some time to reflect on our lives and the wider landscape of the world. Do you think that without the pandemic your album would still be as politically charged? Is that the direction you saw yourself going in?

I do think that it would’ve been as politically charged. I was just ready to write more outward facing about what I’m seeing. Not that I think I take a particular stance on it politically. No, you sort of use your lyrics to pose questions. Exactly. So, I think the content would be the same yes. But on the other hand, it seems really big and dramatic, but it did just crate this schism. There was this total change of direction which was all-encompassing. The biggest thing for me was the appreciation for playing music to people. Small groups or large groups and just the enjoyment of it. I just love it. Was that not something you were aware of before? I always loved playing music to people but I guess I didn’t realise how much. The tour I just got back from was the first time I was back speaking to people, being around people. The pandemic made me realise just how much I missed that. That connection is just something I really do value very highly and is a very important part. Are you always trying to say something with your lyrics? Yes and no. You have to keep in mind when I listen to music, I often don’t pay attention to the lyrics myself. There are songs that I’ve been listening to my whole life and only until recently have been like, ‘Oh, that’s what they mean.’ So, I understand it from a listener’s perspective the lyrics are sometimes the last thing they pay attention to in a song. Good that everyone can dance to your music then. Yeah, well sometimes lyrics don’t have to make sense. Yeah, I still don’t really understand why you’d go and cut your hair either. Are you still excited to play old songs? I spend a lot of time building the arc of the show so that by the time we get to a certain song, it feels right to play. It just feels good to play in general. I understand ‘Ubu’ is sometimes the only song people know of mine which is totally fine and I want to give that experience to people because that’s how I can connect with them. So yes, I am always still excited to play all the songs. Finally, you probably get this one a lot but what’s in the water over there that is making so many multi-instrumental visionaries like yourself? There are no underground secret music societies if that’s what you’re asking no. It’s all an illusion. There’s less of us over here doing it. It’s good water though. Keep hydrated kids.

Oh, no, you only get the one-word answer.