More Life was a collaborative effort featuring the likes of John Butler, Liz Stringer, Fred Leone, and Don Walker amongst many more.
The three-time ARIA award winner Jeff Lang is gearing up for the release of his 18th studio album More Life this month. Melbournians will be pleased to hear that a good chunk of More Life was recorded at Preston’s illustrious Headgap studios with head engineer Finn Keane. “A great sounding space. It’s always great to have a singer like Fred Leone and say ‘Let’s put a longbody U47 on him’. It’s really deluxe.”
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Jeff further reveals that the recording of More Life wasn’t strictly a Melbourne affair.
“About half of the record was recorded and mixed here at my home studio, with a few contributions being recorded remotely.”
“I remember reading an interview with [producer] Daniel Lanois (U2, Peter Gabriel, Bob Dylan etc.) in Guitar Player back in the early 90s. He said that you can absolutely make a great-sounding record at home with a pair of SM57’s and a Cassette Portastudio. I remember thinking even back then how cool that was!”
A significant ingredient in Jeff’s rootsy concoction has been his long-term use of unorthodox acoustic amplification methods. Often running in-built microphones in parallel with Sunrise pickups, Jeff will also run the output of the Sunrise pickup through a variety of gear closely associated with electric guitar rigs to blend both acoustic and distorted guitar tones.
When asked to elaborate on his penchant for blending in distorted acoustic guitar sounds he goes on to divulge “There’s a lot of outright electric guitar on More Life but “Goodbye Amsterdam” is a good example of an overdriven acoustic.”
“I like sounds that could go either way, like an electric that might sound like an acoustic or vice versa. For over 30 years now I’ve been focused on getting big rich acoustic guitar sounds through the PA system and then morphing them into full-blown electric sounds just by using a volume pedal.”
From this point, the conversation steers into a direct appreciation for the smorgasbord of sonic delicacies caught in the runtime of More Life.
I prod Jeff about some mesmerising Sitar-like sounds put smack bang in the middle of the heavily world-influenced cut Calling Me Back Home.
“On Calling Me Back Home I’m playing alongside Debashish Bhattacharya who is playing Hindustani Slide guitar” Jeff explains with adoration.
“He has a number of instruments he invented to play Indian Classical music on slide guitar. A couple of them actually have sympathetic strings that do sound very sitar-esque. It’s very much his style of playing and he’s an absolute monster!”
“Alongside that, you are also hearing Asin Khan Langa playing the Sindhi Sarangi, which is the Indian version of a violin. It’s played quite differently to a Western violin but it’s with a bow. It again has a lot of sympathetic strings and all the wonderful Indian inflection, which paired up great with Danny Mckenna’s feel on the western drum kit.”
Before closing up our Wednesday morning chat Jeff is eager to spill the beans on some of the gear that remains victorious for his work both live and in the studio. Starting off by giving much creedence to his Ross Coole made Fry Pan Lap Steel Guitar.
“That’s a fantastic instrument, Ross is just one of those guys, he just has to know how things work when he sees them”.
Jeff goes on to further detail “Ross saw someone playing a Rickenbacker Fry Pan at a gig in Western Australia and was just taken by the sound. This led to him making moulds and melting down aluminium, he wanted to make an exact copy and he just nailed it!”
Another piece of gear Jeff is quick to sing praises for are his Almach amplifiers, built by Allan Kelley back in Geelong.
“The Fry Pan I did on the track with John Butler called Seek High, that is just the Ross Coole Fry Pan, into a spring reverb unit and my 20 watt Almach amp.”
“It’s a special amp that one, class A, 6l6s, and Octal preamp tubes. I ran it into a JBL 10” speaker and a JBL 15” off of two cabinets. It just makes that glorious sound when it’s up full!”
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