Chupacabra is the anticipated new album from Perth trio Emperors. Following on from their stunning 2012 debut effort Stay Frosty.

Produced by long time friend and collaborator Dave Parkin (Jebediah, Gyroscope), the album features ten brand songs, rich in walls of overdriven guitars and 90s flavoured power pop goodness.

According to the band, the philosophy has always been simple with Emperors; keep it simple, loud and catchy. The approach to making Chupacabra was no different.

However, the process turned out to be far from simple, with setback after setback occurring, resulting in the recording taking a total of nine months to complete and a sonic darkness captured on an otherwise upbeat batch of songs.

The darkness was a reflection of the real life drama that unfolded in the studio during the recording, and has led ultimately to the band’s demise with lead vocalist Adam Livingston announcing recently that he has no intention of performing live to support the album’s release.

Now to coincide with the release, the band’s guitarist Greg Sanders put together a track by track run down of the making of Chupacabra. Check it out below.

Seeing Ghosts

“The Hawaiian intro is the first thing you hear on the album. Zoe recorded this on Garageband on a banged up acoustic using an elastic band for a capo and a battery as a slide, and It’s probably her finest musical hour. Once that ends, it basically travels to Superchunk land and ends with a slightly weirder structure than our usual verse / chorus / verse pattern. |

The line “Seeing Ghosts” was inspired by ‘Breakfast’ (the cat Zoe and I own) who was hanging out while we were demoing, and like most cats she has a way of staring at you like someone is directly behind you. I’m pretty sure cats can either see ghosts or see into parallel universes.”

Deleted Scenes

Fraser Cringle stepped in at the last minute to play drums on the album and I remember this was the song when we all realised how good he was.

“When listening back to the album now it’s weird – I can listen to the drumming performance objectively because it came from outside the band, and I think it’s incredible. Even though I wrote all the drum parts his playing takes the songs to a different level and is a real highlight on the album.

This one is pretty standard Emperors fare, with a kind of wannabe Replacements ‘Tim’ era swagger. Adam came up with the chord progression similar to one of our older songs ‘Plastic Guns’ and I recall him saying he’d had the chorus lyrics since he was 16. Which is a fucking long time ago. So it’s kind of recycled but turbo charged Emperors.”

Eliot Ness

“This is an unashamed nod to Weezer’s ‘Blue album’, one of our favourite albums collectively. We were trying to write our version of ‘Holiday’ and capture the bittersweet vibe of ‘Only In Dreams’ in one hit and I think we kind of pulled it off – it’s probably my favourite song on the record.

I can’t remember where the Eliot Ness line came from, but I can only assume Adam must have watched ‘The Untouchables’ before coming in with it after one of Rinnaz’ (our manager) famous ‘History of Film and Cinema’ lessons. Kevin Costner does a pretty bad job of playing Eliot Ness in my opinion, but could probably play a good version of Adam in the Emperors made for television movie that I assume will eventually get green-lit.”

Shooting From The Bell Tower

“This one is more influenced by Weezer ‘Green’ than ‘Blue’, which im a massive fan of and I think is one of the most underrated album of the ‘noughties’. The song starts with the line “Bury all the heroine, just to dig it up and bury it again”, which is a reference to my experience doing jury duty quite a few years ago.

Turns out there was a lot of heroin buried in Whiteman Park in Perth in the 90s. The line “Shooting From The Bell Tower” may sound phallic, but it’s actually a reference to the “I hate Perth but I continue to live here and not do anything to make it a better place” mentality. The Bell Tower was a pretty apt symbol as it inspired a lot of complaining when it was built. I don’t love it or anything, but hey, it’s alright. So is Perth.”

Automatic Sigh

“This is one of the few narrative based songs on the album. Adam came up with the idea of it being about a boy and his toy robot and we intended for the tone to be fairly playful, but the subtext turned out to be quite a lot heavier, about coping with loss.

I didn’t know at the time it was foreshadowing the events leading to the band breaking up. Turns out a broken robot is a pretty good metaphor for a defunct rock band. If you listen closely there are dying robot noises littered throughout the song, which Dave Parkin (producer) and I made with my guitar and about 20 different pedals.”

Green Head

“Another narrative based song and another one of my favourites on the album. I’m really proud of this chorus. Anyway, it’s not about weed as a lot of people have asked. We made up a character on our way to playing a festival near Geraldton as we passed a town called Green Head. I’m sure it’s a nice place, but it was so remote we had one of those moments that im sure bands always have on tour, collectively thinking “who the hell would live here” and “imagine if you were born here”.

It’s a song about a guy who grows up in a small town and tries to get out but doesn’t quite make it. I can definitely relate to the character, coming from Perth. Whenever I travel to a big city with more than a few million people I’ll generally get a bit claustrophobic after a while and be pretty happy to return home.”

Penny Arcade

“Musically this is me trying to write an AC/DC riff for the rhythm section with an Archers of Loaf lead riff over the top. I won’t say it sounds like a good version of either, but that’s where it comes from.

I remember this was one of the more difficult songs to write. We re-wrote the chorus several times over about six months and im happy with how it turned out, although i think it’s slightly overshadowed by the call and response vocal part after the second chorus, which is one of my favourite moments on the album. A classic example of Adam and Zoe’s voices working really well together, which I thought was one of the best attributes of the band. They have such completely different voices but always had this chemistry which I was in awe of.”

Little Victories

“When we started writing we of course put a lot of pressure on ourselves to follow up ‘Be Ready When I Say Go’ with a similar ‘Siamese Dream’ style anthem.

We couldn’t really avoid it, I think it’s a natural thing for a band to go through when one of your songs is so much more successful than the others. That’s where ‘Little Victories’ comes from, and I think it’s pretty obvious. It always worked really well live and people seemed to enjoy it but it’s one we struggled a lot with in the studio and it never really ended up where I wanted it to go.

Adam’s voice had changed to the point where he struggled to hit the big notes and there was definitely an element of settling for what we had, which is a shame because I think it had a lot of potential. With that said though, I think it’s still a good song and sums up where the band ended up. Moments of greatness, but never quite getting the chance to reach it’s potential. And a little melancholy.”

You’ll Come Around

“I think this is a bit of a slow burner at track nine. I don’t anticipate it will take anyone’s breath away the first time they hear it but hopefully it’ll grow on people like it has on me.

To me this song typifies the song writing evolution between our two albums. The verse is very ‘Stay Frosty’ and the chorus is all Chupacabra. With the chorus, I remember wanting to make it sound like one of the 90s emo bands I used to love (and still do a bit), like The Getup Kids or Sunday’s Best. Again, im not sure if it will sound like that to people but that’s where it comes from.”

Somebody Else’s Dream

“The title isn’t as serious as it sounds. Or at least it didn’t start that way. It’s actually a Noel Gallagher quote which comes from some lazy journalist asking him if it’s difficult being in a touring band and being famous.

One of my pet hates is hearing successful musicians complain about touring and having to live in hotels – all those cliches. So I loved Noel’s response which was essentially “shut the fuck up and stop complaining because you’re living somebody else’s dream, even if it’s not your own, and that means something so respect it”.

I realised this song would be the album closer as soon as I got the mix back, although at the time I didn’t know the band was ending nor did I realise how eerily well we’d subconsciously summarised our lifespan with the chorus, “Lets get wasted, lets get sober. Lets not look ’til its all over”. It came and went and we had a shit load of getting drunk and being a band together for six years. Now here I am analysing it.”

Chupacabra is out now via Gun Fever Records, pick up your copy at www.emperorsmusic.com