Confetti falling down in slow motion over a sea of dancing bodies; colourful moving shapes created by kaleidoscope goggles; a disco ball in a ‘90s film prom scene.
These are the kind of images invoked by World’s End Press’ utterly infectious style of dance-pop.
Prior to 2013, the Melbourne quartet had been making blips on radars for a couple of years thanks to a handful of earworm singles and their infamous live shows.
It was then a little bit cruel of them to make us wait until October of last year to finally release their long overdue, much-hyped debut album. Still, it’s impossible not to forgive them.
When I call World’s End Press frontman John Parkinson on a warm Melbourne morning, he’s basking in the sunshine coffee-in-hand at a café in Richmond, not too far away from Tone Deaf HQ. (“We might as well just meet in the flesh!” he jokes.)
Unlike the average Melburnian before their early morning caffeine injection, Parkinson is friendly and upbeat over the phone as he begins reflecting on the band’s humble beginnings.
“I met Rhys [Richards], who’s the keyboard player in our band, way back in school days. I think it was about Year 10… so I’ve sort of been friends with him and making music in whatever capacity with him for years,” he recalls. “I guess it was delayed then again because we had, you know, a ‘yes’ from Tim Goldsworthy.”
“Close to a decade, probably. But as for the band, it was basically through Uni [that] we all combined forces.”
Given the late arrival of the troupe’s first self-titled LP, it’s somewhat strange to be reminded they’ve in fact been together for four years. But in this early embryonic stage, the lads weren’t crafting the disco-drenched pop jams we know them for now.
Instead, you would’ve found them inside a studio at Monash University’s small radio station, meddling in a sound somewhere in the realm of post-punk.
“We kind of didn’t know what we were, really, because we liked so many different types of music,” Parkinson reminisces. “Rhys and I would listen to a lot of Krautrock – like Faust, Can and Noy – but we’d also be listening to stuff like The Slits, The Smiths, and Public Image Ltd.”
At first it seems hard to join the dots between the World’s End Press cramped in the radio booth jamming to Kraftwerk and the same band who would soon after experience a mini-breakout, with the stadium-sized chorus of ‘Second Day Uptown’.
Parkinson describes the transitional growth from punk to pop as “a matter of adaptation”.
“We were a three-piece and had no percussion because our first drummer left, and he, you know, obviously left a big hole,” he explains – a hole which then gave the remaining trio the perfect excuse to branch out into their mutual adoration of pop and rhythm.
“We were already into dance music at the time – this was like three or four years ago, I think – and decided we’d remain a three-piece for a while and program our own beats.”
Unsurprisingly, given what they’re arguably most known for now, this change in direction was consolidated by their first live gig as a trio that featured a drum machine. “…the guy who founded the studios is out there on his tractor hay baling while you’re in there tracking drums.”
“We decided to play a show we thought was ‘gonna bomb, but it went pretty well. It was at The Workers Club – years ago – and there was a modest crowd there, I suppose, but people were dancing for the first time. Like, genuinely dancing,” he says with a laugh. “It was kind of an accident, really, but a happy one.”
Flash forward down World’s End Press’ technicolor vortex, past the introduction of a new member and a string of radio and blogosphere hits in ‘Second Day Uptown’, ‘To Send Our Love’ and ‘Reformation Age’, the four-piece had found themselves with a growing cult-like following both on home soil and abroad.
The hype was building in anticipation of the illusive first record, and it didn’t disappoint; the debut has been celebrated by both fans and critics alike.
A superb culmination, World’s End Press is very much a cohesive record with an accomplished identity as opposed to an album carried by the singles fans had already grown to love.
A full listen takes you through euphoric dancefloor anthems, pulsating extended house jams, and even a stripped back piano ballad, all complete with a glossy polish. It’s a dynamic vision that’s been fully realised.
Speaking of its long recording process, Parkinson describes it as “a combination of waiting and then more waiting – for us and the audience”.
“We spent pretty much a full year touring, and the year before that, and we had the album pretty much ready to go but at the time we were deciding which label to go with and were in a kind of limbo. It took us a year to get signed, basically, and then once we did we had the task of deciding what we wanted to do with recording.
“I guess it was delayed then again because we had, you know, a ‘yes’ from Tim Goldsworthy.”
A revered producer, Goldsworthy has been at the production helm for records by the likes of Massive Attack, The Rapture, and Cut Copy.
The DFA Records co-founder decided to partner up with World’s End Press after they sent him some demos online and he liked what he heard.
“He was pretty much at the top of a small list that we wrote up for ourselves of producers we’d like to work with, and what we’d then do is just track down their email addresses and send them stuff,” he says, chuckling at their stalkerish-sounding methods. Still, they worked.
“He came back and said he was really interested in working with us, so it was kind of as simple as that. We ended up speaking on Skype several times to get a feel for each other, you know, whether or not we’re going to hate each other or whatever, but we got on really well and then it was a matter of negotiating where we wanted to do it.”
The parties would then agree on Bristol, where Goldsworthy works with Massive Attack, and on Rockfield Studios in Monmourshire, Wales – otherwise known as the birthplace of classics by Oasis, Motörhead, and Queen – a bullet point on most band’s bucket list but one that rarely ever gets crossed off, let alone with the debut.
“It’s obviously a pretty sweet studio,” Parkinson humbly recalls. “It’s been kicking ‘round since the ‘60s and it’s an active farm as well, so Kingsley, the guy who founded the studios, is out there on his tractor hay baling while you’re in there tracking drums or whatever.” “We kind of maxi’d up the production. We don’t normally go that overboard with the lights and the dancers but we thought, ‘What the fuck, whatever.’
A highlight at their time at Rockfield involved a close encounter with a piano owned (or at least graced) by Freddie Mercury, which they got to use on the recording of their own aforementioned piano ballad, ‘Vanguard I’.
“It’s the place where Queen recorded all the tracks on A Night at the Opera, obviously ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ being the most famous of them, but yeah it was that piano and in that studio. It’s kind of the first thing you’re told when you go there. It’s like a museum piece.
“But I don’t think it’s actually Freddie Mercury’s piano, ‘cause I just realised he would’ve probably wanted to take his piano with him if he left the studio. I think it might’ve just been there, and he played it,” he banters, laughing. “You don’t have to put that in.”
Of course, it’s impossible to discuss World’s End Press’ recordings without giving an ode to their live shows. The quartet are known for jubilant sets that reduce crowds to smiling, dancing messes.
It’s probably the sole reason why Cut Copy recruited them as the support act for their US tour last year, which Parkinson jokes, “was great – had we done that on our own we would’ve been playing bad comedy venues with maybe two or three alcoholics in there.”
Last year’s Meredith slot was arguably the highlight of the entire weekend, with the synths of the latest single ‘Drag Me Home’ charging up as light rain began to fall down on the Amphitheater like a true cliché. Strangers were hugging, fans belted out chorus after chorus, and hundreds waved their shoes above their heads in the honorary Meredith tradition.
“They’re our favourite shows, pretty much hands down,” agrees Parkinson. “We kind of maxi’d up the production. We don’t normally go that overboard with the lights and the dancers but we thought, ‘What the fuck, whatever.’
“[On stage] I have to say the vibe is really comfortable, and that only comes about because we’re all best mates, really,” continues Parkinson.
“Maybe it’s a bad thing but we just hang out all the time together, so I suppose having your friends up there on stage is kind of like having a safety net. If anything goes wrong it might just be a laugh, you know.”
As for what’s next for World’s End Press, following their enormous 2013, it seems that we can expect to be hearing some new work on the horizon.
“I’ve been doing heaps of production and getting busy making new material and it’s coming along pretty quickly, so hopefully we can have if not some songs, maybe an album out.
“You never know, things generally take longer than you expect, don’t they?”
World’s End Press headline the Triple J Hottest 100 party at the Espy in St Kilda this Sunday, with Asta, Willow Beats, Papa vs Pretty, Client Liaison, Drunk Mums, Bad//Dreems and more. Info here. They also have a headline tour in February and support Phoenix in March. Full dates and details below.
World’s End Press Australian Tour 2014
Thursday 13 February – OAF, Sydney
Tickets: www.moshtix.com.au
Friday 14 February – Black Bear Lodge, Brisbane
Tickets: www.OzTix.com.au and OzTix Retail Outlets
Friday 28 February – NGV, Melbourne **Free Entry**
Info: http://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/melbournenow/about-melbourne-now
Also appearing at:
Saturday 1 March – Secret Garden Festival, Sydney
Tickets: SOLD OUT
Lineup and more info here
Wednesday 5 March – Phoenix, Hordern Pavillion, Sydney
Tickets: www.ticketek.com.au
Thursday 6 March – Phoenix, Festival Hall, Melbourne
Tickets: http://www.ticketmaster.com.au/
