Distortland is the Dandy’s ninth studio record. Taylor has expressed that he is experiencing a rare feeling of obsession with the material. “I can’t stop listening and smoking to it. I’ve never had this happen to me. Usually I need a year or at least nine months to leave it alone and not hear it. This one I seriously became a gothic teenager, I would just go and sit in my room with my headphones on and play this album three times in a row minimum. This has only really happened maybe on our first record, I remember getting wasted with my friends and cranking it over and over again, but never on this level.”
A slightly different approach to their other records, Dandy Warhols’ enlisted the services of producer, mixer and Grammy award winning engineer Jim Lowe. “We’ve never really done it this way before. Normally I just fly out and do it. You email them, you get a mix, and you listen to it and email it back and offer suggestions and then you go to bed. Then the next day you get an hour or two when you get up to check mixes, make a few adjustments and then he goes to bed. So you have fucking nothing to do. It’s crazy. It’s hard but it also gives you a little distance. And because you’ve had that distance and you haven’t heard that song in five days, when you listen to it again, you’re a little blown away.” In terms on the albums content, Taylor expresses no favouritism towards any particular track. They are all equally as personal to the band and have their own place, their own world. “Emotionally – It’s an interesting record. I can’t believe how it just turned out to be everything I wanted I guess, or close enough that I just don’t care about any more details I just love it. It makes me feel better.”
Their latest single release, ‘You Are Killing Me’, is self-explanatory, but also opens a dialogue for its listeners. “People are big mistake makers, and we are fucked in the head. It’s a phrase that is there to open a discussion. It’s about being open ended. Lyrically there are admissions of your own shortcomings, but without abusing yourself too much. It calls for admission to yourself.”
“It really seems like; maybe it’s just me. But the idea of when you’re in a relationship what is ruining it is not the shit you do but the shit you don’t do. The shit you forget to do. That seems to be what’s intolerable about me, that and a lot of ill-considered jocularity.”
Taylor finds himself in the lull that is just before the tour. Gagging to get on the road and promote this new record…it’s what they do best. Touring is what Taylor loves. Every part of it, like the lack of sleep, the party, the long flights and, of course, the shows. “We haven’t toured since December. Three months is a really long time for us to have not been on the road, but I guess not for anyone else in the world. It’s too long for me, I should have been on tour 2-3 weeks ago. Touring is serious work, but it’s also a touch of vacation, which I like.” Although dates haven’t been announced yet, touring Australia is the plan. “We love Australia it’s part of our family, it’s part of our body. We did AUS – UK as one tour with a 34-hour flight in between. I actually quite enjoyed it. I love that floating in space jetlag feeling where your time is all distorted. And then I can’t go to sleep, so you have to party. It’s the party plane. You got to drink a lot of water during the party plane. You could forget and you could ruin your life. It’s hard to remember shit when you’re drunk. That’s why we do it. Live in the moment, right?”
Throughout his time making these nine records, Courtney has seen plenty of highs and lows, but you can’t mistake how proud he is of the Dandy’s achievements. “Every record is what we are. Every record is definitely a milestone. They are two-four years apart. Certainly no record is more valuable than others. They are an emotional, physiological document in a lot of ways, that only the four of us can truly interpret what they mean. And then, of course, they are also open for interpretation for everyone else. They’re all milestones for us. Whether they’re big milestones, it’s up to other people to make that decision. This one could be a huge record or, it could be the flop that ended the Dandy Warhols. We don’t know, but I guess we will wait and see but of the day. I just put it on and it makes me fucking feel better.”
Distortland is out now via Dine Alone/Cooking Vinyl Australia.
For more details, head to dandywarhols.com.