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ON THE COUCH WITH: Gelbison

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ARTIST INTERVIEW

Sydney band Gelbison have recently returned from playing shows and receiving rave reviews in America to launch their second album, See The World, and perform at this year's Homebake.

The first single off the album, All The Rage, is just that, having being added to high rotation on youth radio Triple J.

Access All Areas.net.au chatted with brothers Edo and Nadav Kahn about what makes the band tick.

Access All Areas.net.au:Where does the name Gelbison come from?
Edo:It's a sacred mountain in Italy and the title of the first album is the height of the mountain [1704].

Access All Areas.net.au:How did the band come together?
Edo:The initial band came together when I met Dave [Galafassi- who has since left the band], the drummer, at Glenworth Valley music festival. We started playing, Nadav joined in. And then I saw this guy lying on the lawn, he looked really cool and ended up being in the same uni class as him and I just asked him if he was a bass player and that's how Pete [Farley] came into the picture.

Access All Areas.net.au:You've been called a pop band, how do you classify your sound?
Nadav:It's got definite pop elements. In the sense that it's melodic and ahh… Edo:There are verses and choruses.
Nadav:Our pop is more pop in the sense that The Beatles were pop.
Edo:When we do it it's coloured by electronic sounds and psychedelic sounds and atmospheric sounds, a lot of folk influence, country so its…rock. It's rock as well. Nadav:It's probably rock, more than pop, if we had to define…I don't know, it's better not to. Just put everything you love in music into it, then that's it.

Access All Areas.net.au:You mentioned The Beatles, who are your other influences?
Nadav:I guess there's like, you know, the whole the Sixties kind of stuff: The Beatles, [Bob] Dylan, Pink Floyd…like every age, jazz, just so many different styles that we listen to.
Edo:We're really getting into the Prophet, which is a great book of poetry, a lot of ballads and literature and poetry…that's been really inspirational.

Access All Areas.net.au:There's a fair bit of spirituality influencing you also.
Edo:Yeah definitely. Music for me is like a path to the source. When it feels disconnected to that it doesn't feel meaningful. Nadav:I think that the expression, for it to be true, it's got to come from within, it just comes from everywhere. The source is all around us and within us and it's about letting it out and finding the best avenue for it.

Access All Areas.net.au:Is there a particular mindset that you have to be in to write songs and music?
Nadav:I think open, entirely. I think when you sit down and you think alright I really need to finish this song and you kind of have a half finished song in front of you and bash out lines upon lines it's kind of work. But things work when they need to work. And you'll be walking down to buy some milk and suddenly something will come through you in the pace of the moment will suddenly [clicks fingers] will bring it all out. And you don't need to have a guitar in front of you and you don't need to have a piano, it'll just kind of flow. Sometimes just grab an instrument and it all pours out and sometimes you see a film and it just wells such emotion in you that you want to sing and sometimes you see a newspaper and it depresses you so much that you that you need to write something happy to kind of lift yourself up out of it. Sometimes you just cross the road and see the light changing and just the change of colour is enough.

Access All Areas.net.au:How did the new album come about?
Edo:We had finished the last one, we'd toured it and it was kind of time. The time had come to really think about it. So we took a month, we went and pretty much collated all the songs we'd collectively written, and tried to write some new ones, rearrange the tunes and then basically went into the studios and started recording. Once we started recording new songs were written and it was kind of a once you start it's like an avalanche. The ball starts rolling and before you know it there's an album.

Access All Areas.net.au:I can imagine you would have a mass collection of songs, how do you choose what songs will go onto an album?
Nadav:It's difficult; it is tough. There were some times with this album we had four songs [that] said the same thing and were expressed in a similar way and we thought ok let's just go for that one, eenie-meenie-miney-mo, and sometimes it was like, oh that's the best one. There were times where, you know what I love the chorus in that one but the intro in that works really well so maybe they don't need to be separate songs, maybe they all fit together. So it was really different each time and sometimes the song would just get written and it was obvious that this one's got to go on the record and sometimes just the last song that was written felt the freshest so we did it.

Access All Areas.net.au:Was there any pressure in creating See The World, your second album?
Edo:Yeah, there was time as a pressure in a way, just because it [the first album] needed to be followed up. Pressure from making a record, from the labels perspective there's commercial pressure. But yeah artistic pressure to make great music, always, that's a self-imposed pressure we always have on us. So there are a lot of pressures but do you let them get to you, do you let your critical mind get to you?

Access All Areas.net.au:What about in terms of the expectations from your fans?
Edo:That wasn't really a consideration. Not to say that we didn't want to reach them again but we figured we could only do what's right for us and we actually thought that we'd reach more people, hopefully, with this one. And hopefully the same people are inspired by it.
Nadav:We hope that the element and the core of what we are still comes across in this album but with perhaps a slightly different sound, slightly different songs, more involved, how we feel.
Edo:If we believe it's great [the album] we believe that other people will believe it's great. Or if we just believe that we've communicated something that we've needed to express and hopefully we've said that on behalf of people that have had similar experiences, and connect with them. It only goes as far as it can resonate; vibrate, so it's kind of out of your control anyway.
Nadav:I think if you think about that then you start thinking about molding your sound to other people, you can only do what you can do.

Access All Areas.net.au:Was it an easier process [making a record] the second time around?
Edo:We had a little more experience. We knew how to negotiate our way in the studio, a lot more comfortable and more aware of how it's done.

Access All Areas.net.au:How did the change in the line up on this album affect the music?
Edo:Physically it just meant that the unit that we'd established…to the point where we got to be quite tight as a live band, losing the drummer just meant that we couldn't capitalise on that strength we had built up. But it liberated us to try something completely new and that other forces that needed to come up to the surface came though.
Nadav:We started detaching from the idea that this is the band [and] this is how it is. The fact is what we're trying to do is create the best music that we can make and having different people play on it [the album] only enhanced that. We can share that process with other people. It was very special.

Access All Areas.net.au:How did the collaboration with Ian Ball [from Gomez] come about?
Edo:The first time, we just met in a bakery in Bondi. He was playing in the bakery on a taco night.
Nadav:He was sitting on the kneading table. Edo:We all just started drinking and hanging out and before long ended up jamming.
Nadav:And formed a bond and developed into him wanting to work with us.
Edo:He really mentored us through the first record and helped us get to the point that we could make this next record, gave us our first push, which was great. And then this next record was kind of extricating from that while still working together but really taking control ourselves.

Access All Areas.net.au:You've recently returned from America, how was that experience?
Edo:Great. People are really really responsive. We did a few show and got good feedback. You have to get over there to do it, simple as that.

Access All Areas.net.au:Were you surprise at the American reaction?
Edo:Yes and no. I suppose we didn't know. It was pretty amazing that we got a really good review in Rolling Stone in America. Out of thousands of bands they picked five bands [to feature] and one of them was us which was pretty amazing when you look at it statistically. I just remember thinking before we left that there's a thousand bands but there's only one Gelbison. You've got to believe in yourself if you want to be a big band. It's not about other bands it's about your journey and if you can reach people here [in Australia] you can reach people anywhere. And we see our music as international.

Access All Areas.net.au:Was it intimidating at all?
Edo:More exciting than anything. We played a show on a radio station to a couple of million people.
Nadav:Our first show was crazy because it was our first show with a brand new drummer, recorded live and it was our first show in America. It was great.

Access All Areas.net.au:Is it inspiring to know that people around the world are listening to your music?
Nadav:I guess it's amazing that anybody buys your record, in this country or any. Just when you start thinking that there are people in different cities and different places that actually get to take, what we spend so much time creating, home and listen to it and respond to it in different ways. It's exciting.

Access All Areas.net.au:How are you feeling about playing Homebake?
Edo:It's going to be great!

ARTIST BIOGRAPHY

Sydney's quiet achievers, Gelbison, are currently putting the finishing touches to their sophomore album, due for release this November.

Produced by the band in collaboration with Melbourne sound-scape artist Ben Frost and Ian Ball, "See The World" is a stunningly mature record that explores the light and dark side of Gelbison, who have spent the last year aggressively exploring their musical boundaries whilst playing shows both locally and overseas.

www.gelbison.com.au

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MY FESTIVAL EXPERIENCE

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Your most memorable Festival moment or experience?
Probably the first time we played Falls. It was in Tasmania and we were on a side stage in the afternoon and were just happy to be there. Our friend Mason Jennings played before us to about a hundred people but by the time we came on the entire festival crowd was at our stage! There was literally about 50 people at the mainstage. It was mayhem with too many people in a small area. The front barrier got knocked down and the crowd sung every song so loudly we couldn’t hear ourselves. There’s been many amazing festival stories but that was the first and I’ll never forget it.

Favourite Artist you’ve seen at a Music Festival?
Probably Snoop Dogg at a festival we played in Detroit.

What’s your ideal Festival line-up?
TBG, Pantera, Biggy, Soundgarden, Nirvana, Fat Freddys Drop, The Clash, The Specials, Kate Bush, Tenor Saw, Tanuki Dub, The Dead Beat Band, Daft Punk, Led Zepplin, Johnny Cash, Bianca Jade

What are your tips for attending Music Festivals?
Turn up, bring your ticket.