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ON THE COUCH WITH: !!!: chkchkchk

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ARTIST INTERVIEW

Access All Areas.net.au: Hey Nic. How are you?
Nic: I’m good and well thanks. I’m bout to go out walking.

Access All Areas.net.au: Now soon will be your first time playing shows in Australia. Are you excited?
Nic: Yeah we are. We’ve toured Europe a few times but we’ve never come Down Under. It’s actually a little bit of a sore spot because we’ve always wanted to come. We’re excited about playing some shows down there.

Access All Areas.net.au: What have you heard about Australia?
Nic: That’s interesting actually. I used to work at an Australian meat pie stand over here. We’d get heaps of surfers in and people just talking about Australia and how beautiful it is. So there it is. That’s what I’ve heard.

Access All Areas.net.au: What was it like supporting the Red Hot Chili Peppers last year?
Nic: Pretty interesting. It was one of those moments when you really have to re-think everything and look at where you are. We got to watch them every night. They are really cool. Such nice guys and really down to earth as well. For such a big band, they are really down to earth.

Access All Areas.net.au: Do you think it’s difficult running a band with 8 members?
Nic: No not really. We’re all pretty used to it. We like it (laughs). It’s pretty much a party all the time. It’s hard to explain, but all of us love being in the band.

Access All Areas.net.au: What can you tell us about your new album Myth Takes?
Nic: It was kind of unanimous when we all said that this was our best work yet. We did a lot more communicating with this album and allowed for a lot more to contributed. It has a bigger and broader sound and we a got a lot more out of each song. It’s really the band in their prime.

Access All Areas.net.au: The bands music is so unique and impossible to classify. Why do you think that is?
Nic: Because… I don’t know (laughs). There are eight of us, so I guess we have a lot that each of us can bring to the table. There’s a lot of ideas in all eight of us and a lot of concepts as well. We were all inspired by music that’s hard to pin down anyway, so that probably shows.

Access All Areas.net.au: If there were one artist that you could work with, who would it be?
Nic: We’re all pretty big Eno fans at the moment. Just his music and the stuff he is producing is amazing. He brings out the best in bands and just pushes them. We want to be bigger than U2! (Laughs) Joke!

Access All Areas.net.au: What are you currently listening to?
Nic: Last night I downloaded some stuff that was good. I bought some minimal techno and some Neil Young. One band I’m loving at the moment is Camera Obscura. I’m going through this weird transitional music period at the moment. I recently just bought my first iPod, so I’m filling it up with music before we go out on the road. I’ve got everything on there from African guitar stuff to French Complilations.

Access All Areas.net.au: Lastly, what can people expect from a !!! live show?
Nic: Live music is what we do best. It’s not just a show. It’s very much a communication between the audience and the band. We make everyone feel that they are a part of the show. If both the band and the audience are up for a great show, then it will be one great night.

Access All Areas.net.au: Thanks for your time Nic.
Nic: No problem mate.

Interview by Simon Finck

ARTIST BIOGRAPHY

The ten tracks on their third album, ‘Myth Takes’, are more dense, layered and groovy than ever before – it’s !!! to the power of !!!, a cut’n’paste pop art sound-splash built from lupine post-punk bass patterns, spaghetti western guitars, African polyrhythms, house bleeps and vintage Philly soul. It’s also no exaggeration to say that there is no music like this being made anywhere else on the planet at the moment. With ‘Myth Takes’,!!! have stretched themselves so far that they’ve become truly peerless.

Because, if they’re anything, !!! (drummer John Pugh, singer Nic Offer, percussionist and horn player Allan Wilson (percussion, horns), guitarist Mario Andreoni, keyboardist Tyler Pope, bassist Justin Van Der Volgen and percussionists Dan Gorman and Jerry Fuchs) are a band that like to test their own limits. It’s all born from an endless, almost spiritual quest to find the ultimate groove, the mystical piece of music that will make all other songs redundant. And like most monks, !!!’s spiritual quest is accompanied by intense and rigorous physical training. Rehearsing ‘Myth Takes’ in a rented house on the wrong side of Nashville, the band started each day with a strict exercise regime. “We all lived in this huge empty building – there was literally nothing there so that when we moved in we had to go out to the thrift shop and buy coffee cups” remembers Nic Offer. “But every morning we’d do a kung-fu workout together and then after that we’d jam together all afternoon and night. I think that the neighbours thought we were a cult or something. One time the postman walked into the yard when we were all out in our little short shorts doing chants and contorted into these weird sweaty positions. It worked, though. Don’t mess with the magic.”

For !!! the magic really happens when they play live. Formed in 1995 specifically to play an all-night party in Sacramento, California, they’re still easily one of the most exciting live acts in the world. But with ‘Myth Takes’ the band let their audiences choose the direction of the songs. “The songs are basically written four times” explains Nic. “We write them in the practice space and then we test them on the road. Then we take them back into the studio and rewrite them before we tour them again. So they evolve. But playing them on the road has a way of making everything gel: people come to see us and party and dance, so if that doesn’t happen we’re not doing our job properly.”

A 2006 UK arena tour supporting Red Hot Chilli Peppers helped the band hone their songwriting even more. “Once you’re used to playing in front of 6,000 people it’s not that different to playing to 44,000” says Nic. “But doing that tour we learnt that to play shows that big you have to almost turn into a cartoon character. You have to make the hooks hit harder and make everything seem bigger. I could feel us getting better every night, plus the Chili Peppers were really cool guys. It was a good experience.”

The band are still spread all over the US, so the Nashville house was a welcome opportunity for them to get back together and jam for three weeks non-stop: in this case, almost literally. “Usually when we jam we try and let things go for at least 45 minutes” laughs Nic “but sometimes we’ll get so into it that we’ll play for two hours and not notice.”
“But besides that I think when we covered that Magnetic Fields song it brought us down to how simple it actually is to write a song. All the best music is made when you’re discovering how to do something new - we’re used to writing nine minute songs, but playing something that was so simple made us rethink the whole concept of the song.”

Their friend Chris Woodhouse recorded the Nashville house jams, while Justin Van Der Volgen produced the whole record, threading the best bits together to create a dense sonic patchwork that has as much in common with ‘70s Jamaican dub as 21st century dance-punk. If this sounds too arcane, please don’t be put off: ‘Myth Takes’ also features some of the band’s sparkliest pop songs alongside the distended jamming.

Indeed, the band is keen to make known their dissatisfaction with the current music scene, something their unusual approach to promotional duties for this album seeks to underline.
“Basically” says Nic, “we’re sick of seeing promo pictures of ourselves and other bands because everyone always looks ridiculous. Even our friends’ bands look like douchebags. So this time we’ve created these life-sized cardboard cutouts of ourselves that anyone who wants to feature us in their magazine can do what they want with. You can dress them up, put them on London Bridge, do whatever you want. Because every band knows that doing press is part of a big game that you have to play to make music. You start doing this because you love music and playing live – everything else is just a drag.”

“Really, all we want to do is play. If we could jam together forever without stopping, we probably would. We’re just dedicated to chasing that elusive groove.”

With ‘Myth Takes’, !!! are one step closer to their goal.

Some interesting recent facts about !!! include.
-!!! are already listed by XLR8 as one of the Top Ten most anticipated releases for 2007!

-The Red Hot Chilli Peppers (biggest rock band on the planet today) personally asked them to support on the world tour after John Frusciante saw them play at a club in Los Angeles. He called Anthony Keidis on the phone during the show saying how !!! made him feel like he was watching the energy of the Chilli Peppers when they had started out. John introduced the band to the massive stadium crowds on the tour and now they are great friends.

-The beautiful artwork for the album is an intricate fantasmical landscape with Noahs ark style triplets dotted all over. (Think ‘Where The Wild Things Are’) – Everyone’s favourite children’s book…

-‘Heart Of Hearts’ will be the 1st single

-‘Must Be The Moon’ will be the second single supported by a fantastic video.

-Spank Rock have already done a remix for ‘All My Heroes Are Weirdo’s’

-For photos the band have made life size cut outs of themselves that are shot in various locations, and magazines can create their *own settings for too. (*where approval given)

www.chkchkchk.com

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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!