YOU AM I

I think despite the embellishments, which all came later on when we got back to Melbourne, I was hoping it would come across sounding like a band in a room. We were actually learning the songs on the fly. Leading up to recording we all had respective projects on, so we maybe had two days before we left to jump into a room. Tim sent through a bunch of his songs and I sent through a few of mine – but basically really rough acoustic guitar demos with a guide vocal. I think when we got in there we played the songs through about three times – we were getting things down within two to three takes. There are certainly raw and rough edges on there, and nothing to click track. It’s quite obvious on some songs, in terms of tempo, that they start somewhere and finish somewhere completely different.

It seems unusual that You Am I would ever utilise a click track. One of Rusty’s (drummer Russell Hopkinson) major assets is that he’s all feel, and not particularly cautious with tempo.

We have recorded stuff to click before. I think the last record there were a couple of songs that were built up around loops and things that Tim had put together, so things like that were naturally more grid-based. This is the first time that we’ve gone into the studio and were playing as a band. There wasn’t any, “OK, we’ll go back and fix stuff up later on.” Everything had to go down live.

The recording kicked off at Daptone where you were tracking directly to tape. The Daptone label is renowned for producing authentic-sounding funk and soul music in the 21st century. What was it like recording there?

The studio at Daptone is really small. It’s a pretty unassuming room – it’s just like an old lounge room that’s been converted into a recording space. Acoustically there’s not that much to it. One of the things that we learnt recording in there is that those Daptone records sound the way they do because of the guys playing on it. I don’t think our record has a Daptone stamp on it, but it was certainly a cool experience, and it was the first time I’d had the opportunity to make a record with the band overseas.

Let’s have a look at the guitars you used, and the pedal and amp setup. ‘Good Advices’ and ‘Out To The Never, Now’ have very distinct lead lines. Is there a certain guitar you always look to for that style of playing?

I took three guitars over with me and I ended up overdubbing a few little bits and pieces when I came home. But for the most part the tracks that are on the record are what went down to tape over there. I took over my SG, which I hadn’t used for years. I picked it up for a gig about a year ago and had forgotten what a great fucking guitar it was. I bought it about 12 years ago, it’s a Pete Townshend signature model. I used that one on ‘Good Advices’. There wasn’t that much in the way of pedals. It was all pretty straight-up dry guitar. In terms of amps, we had an old Ampeg Gemini – I think it was a ‘70s Ampeg. Tim would be using that for the most part. We had that and an old [Fender] Princeton. Depending on the song and depending on who needed the thicker, soupier guitar tone we’d swap around. The Princeton is a bit more thin and cutting, which was good for ‘Good Advices’ and those songs where we needed something a bit more jagged and bitey.