You’ve been described as a band that defies traditional genre titles, who seamlessly manage to incorporate elements of grunge, classic rock, stoner rock and metal. Does this stem from an appreciation of myriad genres, or did your sound just come naturally?
I think our sound and the structure of our songs have come from a myriad of influences of all types of music genres. Most of us grew up and started playing our instruments in the late 80’s and 90’s and we drifted towards the hard rock heavy music genres. So there was plenty of what was called “grunge” bands influencing us like Alice in Chains, Tool, Soundgarden, and Nirvana. But we also listened to AC/DC, Metallica, Iron Maiden, Korn, Deftones as well as local Australian bands like Horsehead, Shihad, COG, Karnivool and The Butterfly Effect. We have never deliberately gone to rehearsal and said lets write a song like that band. Ash brings ideas or near completed songs to rehearsal and we jam on them and “The Charge” sound naturally comes from the wealth of influences the four of us have gathered over the years.
Walk us through the recording process of this album.
We recorded the album at Screamlouder Studios with Reggie Bowman over 12 months in 2014. Reggie’s studio is up in the hills just outside of Melbourne. The studio has a great live drum room, which allowed us to pull some very big naturally sounding drum sounds. We spent a couple of weeks doing pre-production and tracked 23 songs for demos. We then culled those 23 songs down to the final 12 tracks that made the album. Reggie is a big guitar tone man, so the emphasis on guitar tone and getting a super solid sound was fundamental to making this album sounding huge. Reggie wanted to build the album’s sound from the ground up and then drive the songs with the guitars and vocals. He then added extra sparkle and depth with violin, keys and some percussion. We mixed the album together at the studio and we had it mastered by Cameron Mitchell at Audiomuster.
In both the film clips to Acid In My Veins and Order of the Owl it looks as though you’ve employed the grit of a Gold Top Les Paul. Was this the go to guitar for the lead parts throughout the album?
That’s interesting because we have had several comments and messages since the video came out on the Gold Top Les Paul. We both share the lead parts and the gold top Les Paul is Hamish’s guitar. He used that for his lead parts and I used my Les Paul Black Beauty for the majority of my lead work and rhythm parts plus a US Fender Strat. Hamish also uses a Bonamassa Signature Fender Strat for the clean parts when we play live.
Those two tracks are really punctuated by strong and present lead parts. Which amps do you guys play through to get those high gain tones? Which pedals have you employed to emphasize those parts?
We used ENGL heads and cabinets, both live and for the recording. Ash uses the ENGL Ritchie Blackmore E650 head and ENGL Vintage 4×12 cabinet. Hamish uses the ENGL Fireball 100 head and ENGL Standard Black 4×12 cabinet. The ENGL amps have become our sound. We have tried different amps but we always go back to the ENGL’s. They create this full rich tone that suits what we play. Pedals we use are the Digitech Whammy pedal, Electro Harmonix POG, Boss Fuzz/Crunch and Jim Dunlop Wah pedal.
You’re releasing The Order Of The Owl under your independently owned record label Angorilla Records. What are both the benefits and hardships of being an independent band, and what lead you to the decision to start up Angorilla Records?
I think the benefits of being an independent band is you have full control over everything: the money you make from the sale of a CD, merch and shows, which goes straight back to you the band. There is no one taking their cut. The hardships are really getting the exposure and promotion that is needed to get you in front of people that might like the music you play and record. But in saying that, there are ways to get yourself out there. We decided to start our own label Angorilla Records, so we can release the new album Order of the Owl and singles for business reasons. It allows the band and label to be separate. We are also in talks with an independent label in the USA that has the same ethos as to what we are doing here in Australia. Eventually we would like to get a few Australian bands on board and help them getting their music out.
The Order Of The Owl is out now via Angorilla Records. For more info, visit www.thecharge.com.au.
