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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