INTERVIEW: Super Wild Horses

With their second album Crosswords out in the world, SUPER WILD HORSES have planned a quick tour to show the nation what kind of girls they are and what they do to make that unique sound of theirs.

Hayley McKee is one of the garage duo and as she sits and relaxes by a river down in Victoria; she took the time to chat with us about the new album, a butter factory, and a cozy little beach she likes to visit.

You’ve been getting a lot of praise for your new album Crosswords. What excites you about the finished product?

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I think we’ve achieved what we wanted to do which was to have a variation of songs on this record, we didn’t want it to be a full assault of garage party tunes we just wanted to have a few bits in there in terms of mood and and style of it all.

But we captured that, which was kind of harder for us because we didn’t know if we should do some quieter songs of if we should do some country ballads and that kind of thing, but I’m really happy with the track listing because I think we covered quite a lot of ground, that’s probably my favourite thing about it.

And recording the album in an old butter factory was an interesting choice, what drew you to that location?

Well we always try and get out of town when we record, we don’t really like the idea of just recording in the city or down the road because the idea of doing a few takes, getting in the car and driving home and doing your washing up just sounds awful. So we really like to drive to the country and just get away which is hat we did on our first album as well, so Castlemaine’s beautiful and it just happened to be friends of friends had bought a butter factory, as you do, and they were in the process of turning it into a it of an apartment.

It’s massive it’s really really massive! So when we got there they just had bit of a little apartment so they shipped out, we shipped in and stayed there for a couple of days and it was great. We kind of picked it for the fact that it was out of town, but also the big spacious rooms were appealing to us, when we do our vocals we like to have that reverb and the echo that comes through so you can picture the space rather than just listen to the lyrics, it kind of puts you in a setting and that was really important to us.

Yeah, sometimes the larger rooms are the best option

Yeah, the closer the walls the better your sound is especially when you’re singing it, and it’s never nice to just hear the voice flat, you can kind of get into it a bit more if it’s ringing out and you’ve got that volume that you need as well.

People have described your sound in a variety of different ways, but how would you describe the sound of Super Wild Horses?

It’s always pretty hard when someone asks you that. Kind of hard to be objective but I think a lot of people will always say we’re garage-y which can kind of mean two things like the pace of the song or the trashiness of the sound recording, whereas with this album I don’t think it’s as trashy as it was before you know, we kind of polished it up a bit. But I like to think we play songs that get people dancing, but this is very hard [laughs].

I always find it interesting when different people have different opinions on one band’s sound..

Yeah there’s lots of different variations definitely. It’s the same thing if someone said to you what are you three best qualities, you’re not good at answering that but your best friend is and I kind of feel like that’s the same case when it comes to describing your own band.

And with the album tour about to kick off, have you organized any relaxation time between shows since the dates are all so far apart?

Not really because we both have our own businesses so part of the reason we put each city in different weekends, so this is probably the last week off which is why I’m down the river now just trying to chill out, but I hope we’ll get some time off in between because we’ve begun to gather some friends houses in each city so it would be good to catch up with everyone and crash on their couches, eat good food and and meet some new bands as well.

You’re playing some pretty intimate venues like the Black Bear Lodge in Brisbane, do you prefer playing to intimate crowds?

Well we actually haven’t played at that venue so we didn’t know what it was like. We got a little bit stuck in Brisbane actually with trying to find a venue, we always used to play at Woodland and we really like it there but then it closed and a few people had recommended that place [Black Bear] and we couldn’t picture what it would be like. We like intimate shows we’re doing some in stores around each of the cities as well so we like doing little random shop shows, they’re really fun it’s like you’re playing a party at someone’s house so that’s really good, we did one of them last week here in Melbourne which was fun.

I was gonna say the smaller the show the better but not really, we did a set at an outside festival called Boogie and that was a lot of fun with a couple of thousand people. But really any show [laughs] if we’re in the right mood and we’ve had enough whiskey anything is possible.

There are a lot of bands coming out of Perth and Melbourne, your hometowns, are there any you have noticed jumping out?

In Melbourne we played with a really great band called Early Woman, that was for our single launch and they were really good. They were apart of I don’t know if your remember a band called St Helens? It’s the girls from St Helens and also Ben Montero is in the band and he’s got a couple of side projects, so that was a really good band that we played with.

I also like the band called Heathens who have just signed to Chapter Music, they’ve just put out an EP and they’re just great, some of the songs you wish kept going because they’re so short but they’re really good. In Perth we were pretty disconnected to the scene, we didn’t really have a band over there so it’s hard to know what was going on, but we’re really excited to see what bands we’ve got lined up.

And, would you say you prefer the Perth’s sunny beach or Melbourne’s hustling city?

I’m not a beach person. I can’t hang out there for ages, I’ve never really worked out there and … I don’t really know where I’m going with this, but I used to really bag Melbourne beaches until I was shown this area that was really flat and beautiful ocean in this little bay and there’s the rocks and you have to hold your towels, and your bathers and your bottles over your head as you try to get through this little pathway, but that was my ideal beach. So funnily enough some Melbourne beaches a lot better, but a bit of both the bustling city and the still beach pocket.

You had a lot of help from fellow musicians with Crosswords, do you think there is a bond forming between Australian musicians?

Definitely! Well definitely in the Melbourne scene, the more you play local gigs the more you're sharing equipment and it’s inevitable that you hang out with them and we’ve been playing for a couple of years now and everyone has their side projects and their buddies who collaborate with each other so it’s really natural, it’s natural that it heads that way.

So after the tour, do you have any big plans for Super Wild Horses?

So we finish early June, that’s when our last show is booked that I know of and then the album’s being released in America so we’re hoping to get over there sometime this year or early next year. We toured there in 2010 for the first record so we’re really keen to get back, so that’ll be in the pipeworks – is that what it is pipeworks?

I think you mean pipeline!

Pipeline! [laughs] I like pipeworks might keep flinging that about. But other than that we might just keep playing, we’ve got a comp coming up with a really great label over here called Anti-fade, he’s here in Geelong and he’s putting out some really great records.

CROSSWORDS ALBUM LAUNCH TOUR

Friday, 10th May

GoodGod Small Club, Sydney

Tickets available via Moshtix.

Friday, 17th May

Black Bear Lodge, Brisbane

Tickets available via Oztix.

Saturday, 25th May

The Bird, Perth

Tickets only available at the door.

Friday, 31st May

The Tote, Melbourne