MUSICVIEW #133
hosted by Coleen Murphy
no week or month given, but the band was obviously promoting "Priest=Aura" which would make it late 1992.
CM: The Church's latest and ninth album "Priest=Aura" features a cinematic instrumental, a chaotic, feedback-filled track, and dreamy, beautiful songs.
Their 1990 LP "Gold Afternoon Fix" was more direct and straightforward lyrically and musically. In part one of our feature interview, MusicView
asks vocalist/bassist Steve Kilbey, guitarists Peter Koppes and Marty Willson-Piper, and drummer Jay Dee Daugherty, if they thought their latest
was a return to their trademark spacey, heady sound...
SK: Umm...yeah.
(lots of laughter)
SK: Yeah, definitely more dreamy, less direct, more obscure, more ambient, more ambiguous.
PK: And that's how we like records to sound, so maybe that had something to do with it.
JDD: It was also a general reaction to sort of the contemporary production values, which everything is just so bright and toppy, so we tried to make it
sound really warm, and y'know, with a nice, round bottom end.
MWP: Yeah, we tried to make it sound like it was coming out only on vinyl. Which it isn't at all, coming out on vinyl in America apparently which is
a shock and a horror to me. I know it's an old-fashioned and perhaps stupid attitude, but I feel like I'm missing something with it not coming out on
vinyl.
[plays "Feel"]
....
CM: Now for part two of our feature interview with The Church. Since their inception over a decade ago, this Australian band has recorded nine albums
of their dreamy, beautiful, and often melodramatic pop songs. One of the interesting things about the band is that their two guitarists, Peter Koppes
and Marty Willson-Piper, _both_ share the duties of rhythm and lead guitar, but they wouldn't label those functions as such. Marty related how this works
when talking to MusicView...
MWP: When you've got two guitarists, there's usually the role of a rhythm and a lead guitarist, but with Pete and I, we both have the ability to do
both. I mean, I know if I was playing lead all the time I'd be sick to death
of it, and that's the thing, you just change around. It's great being the
guy that's playing the amazing chords, while somebody else is jamming and playing the lead over the top or whatever it is...it doesn't have to be a
lead, you know, but single-note stuff. And I think we sort of just got into this thing where we both come up with chords and single-note things which
we're willing to interchange with each other at sort of the obvious time, and just sort of swap 'em around, you know? And also with Steve playing
guitar on one of the tracks, I mean - I think Pete played bass on one of the tracks, y'know... [to Koppes] Did you play bass...?
PK: Keyboard on the tracks.
MWP: It's just a matter of, it's interesting to write songs by somebody picking-up another instrument, y'know?
[play acoustic in-studio version of "Ripple"]
....
CM: The Church's latest record "Priest=Aura" is a return to the more dreamy
aspect of their sound, but it also includes a wigged-out, feedback-filled
track called "Chaos". Guitarists Peter Koppes and Marty Willson-Piper remarked upon this unlikely Church track when talking to MusicView...
MWP: We've always had that side where it's turned into a big jam, and that's what "Chaos" was, a big jam.
PK: Basically I think, maybe in the back of our heads, we had this wanting to break structures, even our own structures, and our own self-imposed
stereotypes, and things like that. So it sort of burst out. We didn't know, we're never sure if it's gonna get recorded anyway, but we did it anyway,
and we recorded it anyway, and we put it on the record anyway.
....
CM: With the new album out, band members of The Church are continuing other
projects. Steve Kilbey will eventually put out another Jack Frost album
with former Go-Between Grant McLennan. Peter Koppes, former Patti Smith drummer Jay Dee Daugherty, and Marty Willson-Piper reveal what they're up to
when talking to MusicView...
PK: Yeah, I've got an EP out with a band in Australia, The Well.
JDD: I've just done a little work with The Waterboys on new record with them. And Patti Smith keeps threatening to make a new album, and I'm sure
she will come through with that threat pretty soon.
MWP: I've got a new solo album finished called "Spirit Level", just waiting for it to come out. And also I've been working with an English
band called All About Eve.