Interview: John from the Grates
So, last night my buddies went to a trivia night at my local, there was a big cash jackpot and they were trying to get me to come down. I decided to stay at home and prepare for my interview with John from the Grates. About 10 30 I got a call from my mates saying that they’d won the jackpot, which was worth about $300 each. So, I guess my first question is how much do you value a conversation with John from The Grates?
Definitely not at three hundred dollars! It’s substantially less, I’m so sorry!
I guess the first thing that we should address is that Alana is no longer in the band. Are you okay with talking about that?
Yeah, yeah!
What happened?
I think after we moved to New York we were all just finding our feet again, you know, being out of our regular lives. I think she wanted to try something different with her life after having it shaken up so much; she wanted to go into baking and everybody was okay with it.
Is she a good baker?
She’s an amazing baker and I actually really miss that.
Was there an adjustment period for you, learning to play and to record without her?
Yeah, there was, definitely. But it was kind of exciting learning how to work with other people: we spent quite a bit longer in pre-production learning how to talk to other people about drums. I think we had our own language with Alana trying to talk about how we wanted songs to sound. So it was learning a new language basically.
How did you want the songs to sound for this record?
I think the main thing we were concentrating on drum-wise was getting a groove and locking into it; giving the whole song one feeling rather than skipping around like we’d done in the past. And that was true of the music and the narration.
Yeah, I assume that would reflect on the rest of the band as well.
Yeah, yeah. We’d pretty much written every harmony and every backing-line and keyboard overdub and stuff before we started adding drums, so it was pretty easy to see how the drums were going to lock into that.
A lot of people work with drums first. Was it weird for you working backwards?
It was the exact opposite of how we’d done it in the past. It wasn’t weird as much as it was eye-opening to see the songs start at such a stripped-back level, and to really think about what they needed. That’s as opposed to starting loud and piling stuff on top of that.
I really love the new album, by the way, I heard it in full for the first time last night. What’s the key to making such a strong first impression?
I think it’s just the melodies. The melodies and the chords, for me, are the heart of the song, really. That’s really my first impression of any song, anyway.
This being the case, tell me about the writing process for this one.
We rode our bikes into our band room every day in New York and, um, probably for the first couple of hours we’d just try to come up with ideas; I would come up with a guitar line and Patience would sing over it. We left a tape recorder going the whole time, so we had this collection of ideas for songs that we could come back to to see if there was anything to be made of them. I think you know it when you hear it; you completely forget what you’ve written, but when you can listen back and hear the first chord and be able to sing along, that’s what you’re looking for.
What was it like going through the motions of making a record in Brooklyn? Is it different?
Yeah, it was. There were less distractions. There was no family dropping in and visiting, you had fresh friends – you didn’t have any commitments. You didn’t have to do laundry because you could drop it off and have it back the next day for five dollars and you didn’t have to cook because it’s affordable to eat out every night. I think it gave us a freedom that we didn’t have in Brisbane.
Is that aesthetic beneficial for songwiriting?
I think so. It leaves you feeling in control of what you’re doing and what you’re recording.
The really interesting thing for me was the video stream that accompanies the album. It’s great. Where did that idea come from?
We got asked to do it, and there was an animation technique that I wanted to try out – you isolate images within images and animate it like that. We spent late nights after band practise doing that for the last couple of weeks. Not that it was very complicated, but it was kind of fun to do.
Because you have an arts background, right?
Kind of. We studied design at Uni and I’ve always liked that kind of thing. Every so often I wish I were an animator, so I’ll buy an animation program and learn how to use it, just to feel like I’m doing something with my time. I just like learning how those things work.
Does that curiosity speak to you as a songwriter as well?
Definitely. Especially, I think, because I’m not really handling the lyrics. I’m in the harmonic and arrangement area. That’s what I concentrate on when we write songs – it’s not about how you connect, it’s about how it feels.
Are there ever conflicts between what’s being conveyed and they way it feels?
Not really conflicts as such. Sometimes she’ll not like something and we’ll just work it through; she’s pretty good about explaining how she wants things to be, whereas I can sometimes get wrapped up in it. I just pile stuff on, and sometimes I don’t know whether it works, and she’ll confirm my suspicion that maybe it wasn’t that good to begin with.
The last question I have for you was actually submitted by Kate, the entertainment co-ordinator for the website. I was like: “man, what do I ask John?” and she just said: “you need to ask him whether there will ever be a boy born who can swim faster than a shark”?
I hope so! I don’t know if he’ll be born, maybe he’ll be genetically engineered. Test tube baby!
The Grates are playing the Hi Fi Bar (Brisbane) this Friday eve (July 1) – tickets here.