Quando conheci o Sunday Reeds no ano passado, foi a amor a primeira vista, veja o porque aqui, desde então é habito pegar meu Drowning in History colocar no carro, em casa e logicamente em alto e bom som, não há como ficar imune ao feedback continuo do album, desde já um clássico.
Convidei recentemente Romana Ashton, vocais e baixo, Drew Jones, guitarras e Andy Dawson para uma entrevista, explicando as origens, influências, o futuro, enfim...diretamente de Melbourne, Australia para o mundo, The Sunday Reeds;
Q. When did Sunday Reeds form, tell us about the beginning…
A. Drew and I formed The Sunday Reeds officially in 2006 but the idea for the band and the sound was brewing for a while before that. We spent some time writing songs and some of them ended up on 'Drowning in History'. Andy joined us at the start of 2009 after we saw him play with another band. I thought he had a certain kind of charisma and he was partial to throwing his sticks around which I liked. I got his number and that was that.
Q. What are the band’s influences?
A. Our main influences are of course The Jesus and Mary Chain but equally Joy Division, The Ramones, The Velvet Underground, a little bit of The Cure, The Cramps, Nirvana, Hole, The Saints, anything that has some kind of underlying substance or grit but has a great pop sensibility too.
Q. Tell us about the recording process for Drowning in history?
A. Drowning in History was recorded throughout 2008 in our apartment in Balaclava, Melbourne. We used a four track and a music program on our PC to do the album. It was just Drew and I. We'd lay down tracks and add feedback to give it warmth. Guitar feedback is like sex to us. Better than sex depending on the sex you're having. ; )
Q, Tell us about playing live. How did last years gigs go?
A. We played our first gig with Andy on June 27, 2009. It was Drew's birthday which is why I can remember the date. It was fucking terrible. The club owner was this arrogant, sleazy pig with snake-skin patterned shoes and a white suit. He had a matching BMW parked outside. I'd say he liked 'white' things. We played the gig to a mostly unappreciative crowd and vowed never to set foot in that place again. We played some good gigs last year in Melbourne and also in Brisbane though. Thankfully we never had a gig as bad as the first one we played. We keep things simple with live shows and we don't use samples. It's just your basic rock line-up and we focus on getting the right kind of energy or chemistry going. That's the most important thing to us. The last gig we played was at 2am at a club called Pony and it was extremely loud apparently. A friend of mind overheard a guy in the audience say to another guy about Drew's guitar feedback "He's doing it on purpose!" Very amusing to us. We play to people who have never even heard of JAMC or probably any of the bands we like so it's always interesting to see how people react. Things are very 'safe' at the moment in the so-called indie world.
Q. What do you think about the classic shoegaze era?
A. Of course we like some bands from what people call 'shoegaze', though sometimes I find it difficult to understand why such vastly different bands are classified under one genre. It happened with 'punk', 'grunge' etc. I know Andy likes the first album from My Bloody Valentine and Drew and I like some of that as well. We like JAMC because they had a punk attitude but just great pop songs. But I don't see that My Bloody Valentine and JAMC are anything alike really apart from the fact that both could be very loud and use feedback. I kind of get bored with shoegaze bands that write tracks that are too dragging or that don't have a pop feel. I get bored easily.
Q. What´s your top five albuns from all time?
A. Of 'all time'. That's a difficult one to answer. It changes all the time. Um, maybe The Saints' 'Stranded', Joy Division - 'Unknown Pleasures', The Ramones first album, The Jesus and Mary Chain - 'Psychocandy' and The Beach Boys - 'Pet Sounds'. I want to add more, it's too hard to answer!
Q. Which songs by other bands would you like to do cover versions of?
A. The Ramones' 'I Just Wanna Have Something to Do' and 'I Don't Wanna Go Down to the Basement', JAMC- 'Kill Surf City', Joy Division's 'Shadowplay', The Carpenter's 'Superstar', maybe The Archies' 'Sugar, Sugar'.
Q. Which new bands you recommended?
A. I'm not sure how 'new' they are but I like Brooklyn's Young Boys because they've got some great pop tracks, The Vacant Lots have some great tracks also, I like Singapore's Stellarium, UK bands The Blanche Hudson Weekend and Insect Guide. I don't get that much time to listen to a lot of newer bands even though I would like to.
Q. What are the plans for the future?
A. We're going to try not to kill each other before we get overseas for some shows. We were planning to go to the U.S. and UK in June but some unfortunate events happened and now we're planning to get to the UK in September.
Q. Any important news to tell us…
A. We should have our follow-up EP 'Dark Rainbows' out in May and we'll have a website with some t-shirts and badges and music for people to buy at that time as well. We're already thinking about an LP after this EP though. We've got some strong ideas and songs for that but you won't see that album until 2011 and we've got a lot of work to do between now and then.
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Thanks Sunday Reeds....all the best!!!
