The Drones might have just released their latest album in February this year, in their sixth (and possibly best) opus I See Seaweed, but the Australian rock quintet are looking to make up for the four-year gap between albums by getting started on a brand new album ASAP.
Frontman Gareth ‘Gaz’ Liddiard has taken to the The Drones Facebook page with an open call from the band for a recording space to start on their seventh studio album.
The statement reads (in all its lower case glory): “hey all, the drones are looking for a space to rent in or around inner city melbourne. we want to set up a recording studio in it for at least 6 months so we can make a new record.”
The band insist that “it’s gotta have”:
-reasonably priced rent
-no noise issues as we are pretty loud
-plenty of space… for example: 1 big room, 2 small rooms would be great.
-the ability or potential to be heated so we don’t freeze
-good acoustics ie: not a concrete box….. wooden floors and high ceilings are preferable
-good security
-a reasonable level of privacy
So if you and yours know someone with the requirements, you can be a part of Drones history. All enquiries can be made to the band directly through a private message on their page.
As guitarist Dan Luscombe recently revealed in an interview with Tone Deaf, the Australian rock group are looking to begin work on the album early next year, “we’re going to go into pre-production for another record. We had a pretty lengthy break between [2008 album] Havilah and this one and now we seem to have a newfound enthusiasm for keeping the ball rolling.” “We want to set up a recording studio in it for at least 6 months so we can make a new record.” – Gareth Liddiard
“We’ve amassed a lot of gear over the years and we now have a fully equipped place to record our own albums without really spending any money anymore, so we might as well use that,” says Luscombe, of the custom-built facility located just outside of Myrtleford in rural Victoria made for the recording of I See Seaweed; presumably the band are looking to shift that equipment to the new space they find in their public shout-out.
The guitarist and the rest of the Drones lineup – incendiary frontman Gareth Liddiard, bassist Fiona Kitschen, newly added pianist Steve Hesketh, and Noga – have already made some headway in the writing process for the new album. “There are few things that we got started on in the Seaweedsessions that just didn’t make it, mainly because we didn’t have time to finish them,” Luscombe reveals.
“There are few songs on the bench – they weren’t on the bench because they were inferior to the others, they just weren’t finished. We’re finishing a few of them and I think Gaz is writing some words for a couple more new ones right now,” he adds, saying that the leftover material was put on hold; “We just got to the eight songs that we had and thought ‘we’re certainly [finished]’.”
“We were thinking about all the great albums that only have eight songs… Led Zeppelin’s IV, [Television’s 1977 debut] Marquee Moon, [Van Morrison’s 1968 album] Astral Weeks – and we decided eight is enough,” he says.
The full interview with Dan Luscombe will be published on Tone Deaf ahead of the band’s forthcoming headline Australian tour, hitting stages around the country in September with support from Melbourne’s Harmony. The Drones also play the third-ever Harvest Festival this November, alongside the likes of Franz Ferdinand, Neutral Milk Hotel, and headliners Massive Attack.
