Just for fun. And we had a lot of fun this year. Great answers. GREAT ANSWERS!

Thank you all. See you in 2017.

So for re-reading purposes … “our” 5 most popular  Q&A’s of 2016.

 

5. The Loved

I also have this quote I picked up somewhere, sometime…I put it on a note that hangs on my wall: “Deep and simple is far more essential than shallow and complex.” Both of these lines mean something, form a bit of the base of how my songwriting should work.

Re-read here

4. Terry Malts

We’ve always had a deeper affinity for UK music than for American music. There’s a romance and charisma to it that Americans can’t naturally reproduce. It’s got style.

Re-read here

3. Ed Ryan

My favorite lyric writers in any genre tend to go deep and a little dark. Like most songwriters there’s a fair amount of romantic relationship stuff but I like to go beyond just boy/girl stuff as much as I can. Davies, Townshend and Hiatt are such great storytellers while staying emotionally true…they are my gold standard.

Re-read here

2. The Top Boost

We are massively influenced by 1960’s pop music. It naturally comes out that way while composing. What we went for was just what we thought sounded right. To build each song properly we put together a sound collage filled with our favorite instruments.

Re-read here

1. Nick Piunti

The song is actually about a relationship that ran its course, but using the analogy of a “one hit wonder” band that couldn’t follow it up. The relationship couldn’t survive past the infatuation, love at first site stage. Actually a true story of sorts.

Re-read here

An album of rich melodies, lush harmonies and reverb laden guitar driven pop. It stands on the cross roads of Americana-English late 70s guitar pop with a dash of Australiana from the same era.

Sweet Sweet Music talked to Wade Jackson.

The story or the melody, what comes the most natural to you? 

The melody definitely comes first for me. I find inspiration from chord structures and melodies to create a story. There are rare times that it all comes together at the same time. Wouldn’t it be great if it was always that easy?

Shooting Star is my favorite song on WADE. Really like the guitar. Build and build till It was perfect? 

Shooting Star seems to be one of the most popular tracks from the record. It was the most played track on radio here in Australia. I really wanted to go for an ethereal sounding outro and I had some great ideas on the original demo. It wasn’t until Liam Judson (co-producer) brought in the Roland Juno-6 keyboard and said let’s layer it up with the guitars that it really came to life. It ended up sounding reminiscent of The Church for me, which is a great thing. I still love that outro, I revisited the record a few weeks back.

How did you record W.A.D.E.?

Liam Judson recorded W.A.D.E. and I performed all instruments. We started at Ripple studio in Sydney City and recorded the drums, from there we spent 4 days tracking bass and guitars at a friend’s Mum’s place in Lawson in the Blue Mountains, that’s where the album really took shape. It was really cold up there and we had a fire going the whole time. It was a perfect environment for us to work in. Some friends came up and made a short video which was really cool. We took some time out after that as I hadn’t finished writing lyrics and had some serious writers block. I was really trying to force lyrics and they were terrible, definitely not from the heart. So over the next year we added more guitars, keys and eventually finished vocals at my place in Tamarama, Sydney. It was a lengthy process but well worth it. I’m glad we took the time to get it right otherwise it may have not turned out like it did. Incidentally, I am re-releasing Whiskey Alpha Delta Echo on Vinyl with a joint label release from You Are The Cosmos in Spain/Europe and my new label Grow Yourself Up here in Sydney. I’m really excited about this as I always intended for this record to be on vinyl.

Did you do things differently for the new record? 

Yes, for my upcoming record “Crown & Cathedral” it was a completely different process. For one is was all written on piano except one song and I didn’t try to write complete tracks, just ideas. Eventually I had amassed a heap of stuff and started matching it all up and putting it together. I wrote almost all the lyrics just before I would track vocals. I had melodies and an idea of what the subject was and luckily it happened really fast. I recorded the entire record and Liam mixed it. 

The music industry has changed a lot (or so they say). What did it bring you? And what not? 

It brought to me the fact that I could no longer afford to go to “recording studios” and record albums so therefore I had to learn how to do it myself which is a little sad because I love the whole romanticism of a beautiful working studio. A lot of what I learned was from watching Liam work and have realised that I actually work better in a comfortable completely controlled environment such as my house or his work space. In saying that I would love to do an album with a full band someday and return to the “recording studio”. The only thing that hasn’t changed for me is the fact that I’m as passionate as ever about creating and playing music. It’s remains completely the same. It’s become a financial ghost for everyone but we still keep plugging away

She tells you she will decide on a 5-song-mix tape if there is going to be a second date. Which 5 would you put on? 

OK, well if I’m trying to court someone then it is a different ball game, but I’d like to know that she likes similar stuff to me but that’s not too important. So here we go
Michael Jackson – Rock With You

Glen Campbell – Galveston 

Fela Kuti & The Africa 70 – Let’s Start

Steely Dan – Black Cow

Scott Walker – It’s Raining Today

If you could pick two bands (any) to tour the world with. Who? 

Todd Rundgren and Blur

What’s up for the next couple of months? 

I’ve just released the first single “She Burn” from my new album that will be released in late February 2017. So lot’s of promotion and hard work until then. I’m also about to record a project with Liam Judson which is something we’ve wanted to do together for a long time. So it’s going to be very busy, which is a good thing right? I’m also awaiting the vinyl release of my new album and W.A.D.E. I’m super excited like a kid at Xmas for that.

Will you still be promoting the record? 

Yes I will. I haven’t played live for quite a while but I am planning to do so to launch my new album. I’m hoping to get over to Europe and Japan later in 2017, let’s see how the reaction is over there. I’ll also be hitting up all my favourite blogs, I think they are such an integral part of the industry nowadays.

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We’ve always had a deeper affinity for UK music than for American music. There’s a romance and charisma to it that Americans can’t naturally reproduce. It’s got style.

Sweet Sweet Music talked to Corey Cunningham of Terry Malts about Lost At The Party.

Lost At The Party has been described as Californian Power Pop but, at the same time, it sounds like Liverpool in the mid 80s. Does that make sense?

Definitely. The “California Power Pop” is a pretty lazy tag. I think it comes from rock writers who don’t have very deep record collections. We’ve always had a deeper affinity for UK music than for American music. There’s a romance and charisma to it that Americans can’t naturally reproduce. It’s got style.

How did the album come together? Why the new approach?

Within a week of finishing the basic recording of our second album I had moved to Los Angeles and started a new life. Our bassist/singer Phil moved down for about 9 months at one point, too. The ensuring two years of touring, writing, and demoing brought out that desire for change. As much as we put our hearts into the second record, it seemed like we were treading water.

Also our old band, Magic Bullets, was the kind of group that would really usr the studio as an instrument by implementing overdubbing and production techniques. I’ve really missed layering guitars in particular since we had been making music as Terry Malts. I was hoping we could reconcile the sound of the two bands by finding a sonic midway point between them.

Once we had the songs together, I approached Monte Vallier who had mixed the last two albums and also recorded the final Magic Bullets EP. I’ve been a fan of his ability to manipulate sounds for a long time. He has an incredible ear for tones and a sweet nature. If you listen to his work, particularly with the band Weekend, you can really notice the detail he adds to a recording. He has a lot of unconventional techniques and I’d describe him as the closest thing to George Martin that this generation has.

I brought notes for every song and we sent him tracks by other artists (some of which you can find on our Party Platters mix on Spotify. 

From there we recorded the basic tracks and started overdubbing different guitar tones, keyboards, and sound effects. Over the course of the next few months Monte mixed the tracks. Once we had a final mix he bounced the mixes down to a cassette tape, played the tape back through a boombox, and mic’d the boombox with a close mic and a room mic in his kitchen. It gives the recording a really dense, warm feel.

How will you promote Lost At The Party?

Is touring the most important part? Or is Facebook as important?


The first thing we did was create a 1-800 number for people to call and hear a little skit promoting the album that I created with our friend Sean O’Shea. It makes fun of these corny American commercials advertising compilation CDs that were really popular in the 90s.

Since then we’ve been touring in patches. It seems to make the most sense because it’s hard for everyone to get time off from their day jobs. We’ll be touring the US early next year and Europe over the summer.

I think touring is way more important than Facebook. In fact, Facebook is more of an obstacle these days because of their algorithm that only allows your posts to pop up in certain fan’s feeds if you’re “trending”. The only way around their algorithm is by paying them to leave a sponsored post in people’s feeds. 

This was something I had serious hang-ups with and avoided for as long as we could. Unfortunately, this is the reality of being in a band now. You’re forced to participate in the marketing of your art, which feels completely wrong and puts you in a compromising position that you have to live with.

She tells you she will decide on a 5-song-mix tape if there is going to be a second date. Which 5 would you put on?

The Necessaries – “More Real”, 
Durutti Column – “Bordeaux Sequence”, 
Virginia Astley – “Some Small Hope”, 
Amina Claudine Myers – “Going Home”, 
The Mamas & The Papas – “Snow Queen Of Texas”

If you could pick two bands (any) to tour the world with. Who?

I would definitely put Henry’s Dress on there. Even though they’re no longer a band, I would say they have been the most influential on us. We played our first show after seeing their reunion show.

And I think I can speak for the others when I say touring with Neil Young would also be a dream come true. It’s been such a strange and horrible year for American politics and I’ve found myself drifting back to the two artists that seem to have brought me the most comfort in my life over the years: Neil Young and The Smiths. 

What about The Netherlands?

We loved The Netherlands! Most of our shows on the last European tour were there and we played big festivals and little village bars. It was pretty special and the people were so engaged and caring. It’s the complete opposite of playing in America where nobody cares unless you’re already incredibly successful. Hopefully we’ll be back soon so we can hang out with our friends Bas and Marco.

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