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ON THE COUCH WITH: SPOD

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ARTIST INTERVIEW

Access All Areas.net.au: So it sounds like you guys had a pretty tough time with the recording process – 6 home studios and two hard drives melting… tell us about it?
SPOD: Just before I went to tour the USA to play SXSW, I had finished the album I was working on for the last 3 or so years. So I got home, went to move out of my house / studio and had my laptop with both of my hard drives with all my album and backups on them plugged in, I left the room, came back and the laptop was on the floor somehow… Removalists… Anyway, plug them in in my new house, and they stank like smoke. My heart kind of sank to the point of nearly exploding… So I got a quote for the recovery which was thousands, so I kind of put the whole idea of the album to bed, then a bunch of friends heard of this, and put together a collection and many nice words to help me recover a drive and get back on with finishing it. So that was enough of a hug and a push to get me back on the road to re recording the album, which is now finished! I also had a friend Mirko Vogel help me mix it at the end of the day, and Jonboyrock helped out with mixing Dead for the album. I’m pretty lucky to have such amazing friends, really. So I dedicated the album to them.

Access All Areas.net.au: Given all the pain you’ve gone through and the realisation that this album almost wasn’t going to be released and the band to split, are you happy with the final product?
SPOD: Yeah, I was pretty scarred, exhausted and over it to be honest, but getting the chance to review what I was doing and approach it with an invigorated & refreshed point of view is, in hindsight, a huuuge blessing. It was good fun once I got back into the re recording of it, as I locked myself away for a month in a friends house whilst they were on their honeymoon to do the bulk of the work which helped in making the album what it was. Doing 2.5 days straight of recording is a pro tip, no sleep is conducive to a scary pit of imagination…

Access All Areas.net.au: This is the band’s second album, how do you find that it differs from your first?
SPOD: It’s much more epic in scope, and it’s much more personal, whilst retaining that feeling of making your life an enjoyable experience, getting over rough situations and all the rubbish that tries to ruin your journey to focus on what makes life as amazing as it really is. Musically, I got to realise my visions to a much greater degree by being more competent at producing songs, and lyrically I balanced the good times with a bunch of shit I’ve been dealing with, good and bad, over the last few years. I just made sure I kept to the idea of doing what you want, how you want without thinking about the outside world.

Access All Areas.net.au: Is there any surprises fans can expect from this album?
SPOD: Yeah, I think the album is, song to song, one long list of surprises. From sexy r&b jams, to songs about our lack of respect for the living vs the dead, to existential noise hip hop jams questioning the march of time and the way it’s spent, to a stoner rock song about the ridiculous nature of celebrating physical assets, to an instrumental about an overweight pony fighting for its life... AND if you buy the CD, you get an extra epic jam that I think is the best song on the album… iTunes doesn’t have that one… Shhh!

Access All Areas.net.au: You performed a showcase at SXSW early last year, how was that and did you come away with a success story?
SPOD: Yeah, it was amazing! I played with Thomas Dolby who wrote “Blinded Me With Science” which was hilarious and sad. The Aussie BBQ was fantastic and I had Tex & Spencer from the Beasts of Bourbon tell me how much they loved my show, which was a bit of a special situation! But yeah, SXSW is great for the fun side of it, but hard work. Great times!

For fans who havn’t experienced SPOD live, tell us, what can fans expect to see from your live shows?
SPOD: Lots of appreciation from me to the people who come to the show, in the form of hugs, flowers, presents, bubble machines & confetti. Lots of celebrating the excellence of life and freedom. Lots of good times with good people! AND the best songs written and performed by humans.

ARTIST BIOGRAPHY

SPODs highly anticipated maximum overdue chart busting AMAZING RIDE OF YOUR LIFE record ‘SUPERFRENZ’ is here. A recording, which spans over 6 home studios, a veritable museum of classic synths and 2 hard drives melting.
This album hit a solid brick wall of emotion after SPOD returned from showcasing in the USA at the SXSW festival in early 2007. Locking himself away in his studio with an impressive museum of owned & borrowed classic synths; he hit the final switches on the record. But whilst triumphantly packing and moving out of the studio, both the album and back up hard drives did a spectacular high dive to death.

Due to the financial and emotional cost of repairing the drives, the fact it took around 3 years to get the album done through several home studios and the hellish work it would take to get it back up and running, SPOD was going to bin the whole thing, the album, the band, everything, out to pasture into the realms of non existence for all eternity, until…
A super lovely crew of superfrenz caught wind of such talk and all joined forces in wondrous superiority, organising a SPOD fundraiser pulling some money together all on their own SPOD love accord. Along with a dose of 'dude, pull it together and get it done' love, SPOD started upon the long journey to re-record, rebuilt and reinterpret what would become SPODs long overdue second album, Superfrenz, which
is dedicated to those very people.

This destruction and reconstruction process of this album has resulted in an album much more evolved, adventurous & musically involved, spanning & capturing the magic of what makes Spod, SPOD, and also exploring the realms of epic majesty only noblemen and lordmens dare... But more than anything, it reminded SPOD of why he makes music in the first place.

SPOD has extended the abilities of his studio beyond an Atari, a sampler and a drum machine which has allowed him to construct an album that spans from psychedelic folk vintage synth epix about death to future metal anthems about bewbs to post hip hop noise jams about the concept of time.
The instrumentation of these recordings range from game boys and other video game machines, live drums, keys, piano, acoustic guitar, electric guitar and bass, this, creating at bare minimum, an eclectic record of all sorts.SPOD recorded and produced the entire record independently in the various studios. Then on to dealings with the genius mixing works of Mirko Vogel (sekiden), cameo appearance from jonboy rock on track ‘Dead’ (hard ons) and finally Shellac’s own Tom Weston mastering the record (woo!).
This album also includes a real deal bonus secret track sh......, only available on the cd! BONUSES forever!

SPODs recording and performance existence has been always active, innovative and forever interesting resulting in attracting collaborating teams of multi plat legends, having awesome bands as his SPOD band such as Black Level Embassy, Further, Sekiden, and 2/3rds of Wolfmother and releasing special limited cassette tapes, EPs and 7” vinyl for his people, Since the almighty return of SPOD instant support and opportunities have unveiled themselves. Clarifying, that the people missed SPOD and that we need all things SPOD.

Plenty of loadponies have attempted to take the crown in the absence of Sir Spodlington, but the crown is safe once more, and secured back on his sweet kingly head so fear not, sit back and relax and listen to SPOD.

Heres to SUPERFRENZ!

SUPERFRENZ OUT SEPT 27th through Valve / Rice Is Nice / MGM and on ITUNES!

www.myspace.com/spod

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MY FESTIVAL EXPERIENCE

Michael Franti
I remember at the Falls Festival a few years ago after we played there we got one of those little train vehicles and jumped out in the middle of night to this creek bed and went to this little revien and sat there and our eyes started to adjust to the darkness and what was creepy were these things... on the walls they were filled with these glow worms and it was the most fantastic thing... all these different colours- purple, green, white all glowing and that was the most amazing festival experience I've ever had!

When I see a band I always have a moment in show when you have an epiphone at some point when this band is kicking, or the band is about to hit a peak, or something that the drummer does like knock this bottle of beer off the stand [laughs] or something crazy when there is just this sudden abrupt thing and everyone just lets go and that’s what I love of that experience... people not worrying about the past or the future.

Ideal Lineup?
On a historical sense, definately love to have Bob Marley of course, but apart from that I really love going to festivals because you see bands that you’ve never heard of before and you know that’s how I met Blue King Brown, Ben Harper, Jack Johnson, R.E.M., John Butler, The Public Enemy... throw any of those bands on a festival and it will be good but its about finding something that you never imagined.

Tips for attending Music Festivals?
My tips [laughs]... Always bring your own roll of toilet paper and the other is only look at the festival schedule if absolutely necessary... like if you know that the Black Keys are your most favourite band in the world and you need to know what time they are playing, then look at the schedule but otherwise just walk around!