Blackchords are a Melbourne indie-rock four piece. They have just released the second single “Oh No” from their soon to be released 2nd album “A Thin Line”. They will be launching their new single this Fri 15th Feb at Ding Dong, Melbourne and Sat 23rd Feb at Oxford Arts Factory Gallery, Sydney.
Blackchords released their debut album in 2009 to rave reviews and were featured at the Great Escape 2010 festival in the UK. Their music has been heard on Australian shows such as Offspring and Underbelly and overseas in such shows as MTV’s Teen Mom 2 and Cougar Town.
In March, the band will be travelling to the U.S. to play the SxSW festival in Austin, Texas, as well as shows in L.A., Houston, Seattle, New York and a quick trip to Toronto, Canada, before returning home to launch their second full length record in April.
You’ve just signed an album deal, looks like an exciting 2013 is ahead for Blackchords, what label did you sign with and when will the album be out?
We signed with Four Four, an imprint label owned by ABC. That means we’re label mates with Tim Rogers who was a huge inspiration to all of us growing up and finding our feet as musicians. The album is set for release 5th April’13.
You recorded the album in a shed, that must have been an interesting experience sound wise, tell us about the shed.
A good friend of ours Mark Stanley, who was the assistant producer on the album, had been telling us about this shed that he had been using to record. He suggested it would be a great place to make a record. It’s a really large space with lots of quirks, kind of a massive ‘pool room’. It’s out past Yarra Junction in the Yarra Valley, so there’s plenty of fresh air and barely any mobile reception, it was nice to escape from the distractions of the big city. We cooked, slept and recorded there and didn’t leave till it was done.
Does the album have a name yet? What titles are or have been thrown around?
“A Thin Line” is the name of the album, its taken from the first track on the album, which we wrote to open the album. We felt it really set the tone for what we wanted to write sonically and lyrically for the rest of the record, so it was an obvious choice. Some things in a band democracy can take some time to work through but I think this was a unanimous fifteen-second discussion.
Your current single ‘Oh No’, has a brilliant music video can you tell us about the concept behind it and who was involved with making it?
Prior to being the lead singer of Blackchords, Nick had a varied and interesting career, first as an infantry soldier in the Australian Army, then as a ballet student at Melbourne’s VCA. Nick wanted to make a clip featuring some of Australia’s best contemporary dance and choreography and the idea spawned from there.
We had worked with Tov Belling to make previous music videos before and he assembled a great crew together to make this video. We created the massive ‘crop circle’ designs using lots of bags of flour, a large tape measure and plenty of string. We filmed it in a shed that we were able to get access to in Melbourne’s Docklands. We covered the dancers in mountains of talcum powder, added floodlights and choreography; I guess you have to check it out for yourself. At the end of the day, there was flour over everything, all our gear, all over our clothes, we were grateful for a shower that night.
What’s your earliest memory of performing and who inspired you to start?
I grew up in a pretty musical family, so I guess the inspiration first and fore mostly came from my parents. I used to listen Sergeant Pepper’s and Abbey Rd a lot on vinyl as a kid. My parents always encouraged me to play an instrument, there were a lot before I ended up settling on the bass. I guess you don’t really choose your instrument, you have to wait for it to choose you.
What’s on heavy rotation on your iPod right now?
I’m a big fan of the Top 100 Bleep.com release that comes out at the beginning of each year. Even if you don’t like everything on it, I think it exposes you to a lot of great, fresh new sounds from the electronic and indie world that may have slipped under the radar of the year previous. If in doubt though, I always go Atlas Sound, or Deerhunter. Bradford Cox is so prolific and he hasn’t really done anything I haven’t liked.
If you could score a movie soundtrack, what genre of film would you like it to be and what movie producer would you love to work with?
Something dark and redemptive, David Fincher, Darren Aronofsky or Christopher Nolan, someone like that but maybe a little less famous and a little more up and coming. Although if it had any kind of Christopher Walken cameo, I’d be there in a heartbeat.
Because it’s more fun to do things together, which living Australian artist would you most like to collaborate with?
We’re all massive fans of the Australian author Peter Carey. His imagination is so vivid and surreal, I think he’s incredibly original and his stories are surprising and unexpected yet accessible. I don’t know how we would collaborate as musicians with a novelist. I’d just like to hang out. Plus I think he lives in New York now. Maybe he owns a shed in New York?
What is your band’s music the best soundtrack for?
We’ve had lots of people say our music has got them through breakups, down times, I guess it has a sombreness or realism to it but I don’t think it’s a downer. There are reflective or redemptive moods on there but there’s plenty of up-stuff too.
Tell us why we shouldn’t miss your single launch at Ding Dong on the 15th February
We’ve worked really hard to bring the full sound palette of the new album to the stage. All the synths and electronic beats are there along with the 2 guitars, drums, bass, vocals line-up. Plus we have a string section to play on some of our favourite tracks from our first album. It’s going to be a lot more than a standard indie band bar gig. We’re super excited about it, we hope to see you there!
