Are there any questions that Pond frontman Nick Allbrook hates being asked? Allbrook laughs and answers, “If [a question] is particularly shit then I’ll just, I dunno, burp or something.” The conversation continues on much in this manner.
Allbrook reminisces about their touring tomfoolery and general backstage carry-ons.
“Tours are usually just a big fucking parade of shenanigans, ranging from the banal to the stereotypical rock’n’roll shit that you read in some Mötley Crüe bio or something.”
Those who have seen Pond play live will know that their stage antics are very similar to that description. You would probably expect that from the bunch of psychedelic loons, but as the vocalist/sometimes flautist/all-round space-man states, not everything comes easy.
“Yeah man, sometimes I feel like shit,” Allbrook confides. “I’m just like, why the fuck is anyone looking at me? I’m not anything special.”
It seems that the picture he has of himself has a pretty low correlation to what the followers of Pond think of the enigmatic musician. Almost verifying this, he explains that it’s the crowd that usually end up egging him on.
“By the time we actually start, the pure fact that people are there gets me excited enough, and that someone actually cares enough to come and watch us. It usually gives me the jitters and that’s when I start jumping around.”
He backtracks though, half sighing and half laughing when he says that, “Sometimes I just feel like a turd, like I don’t deserve to be here. It’s hard to just fake [confidence]. But usually it all comes out in a genuine way.”
“Tours are usually just a big fucking parade of shenanigans, ranging from the banal to the stereotypical rock’n’roll shit that you read in some Mötley Crüe bio or something.”The recording process for Hobo Rocket was very different from Pond’s critically acclaimed album Beard, Wives, Denim – a record that had a “magical idealistic” process.
“With Beard,Wives, Denim we were all floating on this cloud of hippy idealism in the country, and with Hobo Rocket we were between tours. We just went into the studio with all the songs ready and we kind of just smashed them out.”
“One was this long, joyous, crazy holiday and the other one was just an efficient sort of economical expulsion of what we had.”
When asked whether this was somewhat indicative of the music industry as a whole, he explained that it was still important for them to keep the magic alive.
“We try. If we don’t do that then we’re pretty fucked because that’s the only thing we’ve got, some kind of inherent charm.”
“We’re not particularly talented or intelligent guys so the only thing we’ve got is what charm comes from being fun-loving, you know, West Australian trash bags. And if we lose track of that there’s no point; we’re just another wad of dickheads making another thing to get slapped onto Pitchfork for someone to root. There’s just such a flood of shit everywhere, and it’s just stuff. New names and band names and reviews and blogs, but if we don’t keep ourselves happy then there’s no point in doing it.”
This is representative of Allbrook’s ideologies surrounding music. “Music should ideally just be what it is. No one should judge anyone for making something that’s derivative or too poppy or with vacuous lyrics or crap production; no one should be taking anything particularly seriously.”
“It’s just what people do. Everyone wants to make something, and if you can then that’s great. I might not like it but who cares. It’s simple: music should just be music.”
So let’s chat about the music. ‘O Dharma’, the third track on Hobo Rocket, is quite lyrically focused. “It’s kind of like a rumination of a person who is one of those unceasingly moral people who unintentionally makes you feel kind of guilty just because they’re so good with people.”
Furthermore, Allbrook says that he’s “kind of reflecting on how I might not be a good person”.
“Sometimes in certain moments you just want to tell people to fuck off and keep doing what you’re doing, even if it’s not true.”
‘Midnight Mass (At The Market Street Payphone)’, a song they recorded for the most part themselves, follows similar patterns regarding “the usual fucking teenage immature bullshit”.
“It’s what Australian people do – the drop-kick, twenty-somethings of England and Ireland and Australia and New Zealand. We’ve got this sort of culture of the afternoon pints and…you know. I was thinking about religion, and maybe walking past a church and having a sit there and thinking ‘hell of it, it might be a better way to spend my time than getting pissed.’”
Interestingly, for the title song of the album Hobo Rocket, Pond use a different vocalist to Allbrook. “It makes it the most enjoyable song for me to listen to by all means,” Allbrook explains.
“We’re not particularly talented or intelligent guys so the only thing we’ve got is what charm comes from being fun-loving, you know, West Australian trash bags.”The mystery man behind the microphone is Cowboy John, and is described as “your classic eccentric artist, troubadour, and dirt bag”.
“He just came in as he always does, unannounced and wearing some lunatic feather boa and a cowboy hat with no shoes. We decided it would be perfect if he would all out rap some shit over [‘Hobo Rocket’].”
“We tried to write him some lyrics but he just wouldn’t even, I don’t know. It’s not like he can’t read, but he was just looking at the page kind of like, ‘nah’. So we let him do whatever he wanted and it was awesome.”
It was worth the risk, with golden questions freestyled such as ‘what kind of chemistry and biology do you know?’ and perhaps more importantly, ‘what kind of drugs are you guys on?’
When inevitably questioned about his split from Tame Impala, Allbrook explains that, “I don’t miss it, I miss them”.
“I don’t see them very often which is really horrible. They’re like my best friends, but it’s a worthy trade to be able to spend my own time doing my own thing.”
After some thought, he explained his decision to leave. “I was just tired, man. Tired and grumpy and cynical. I just got nervous about what could happen to someone being lorded for something that wasn’t actually them, and just me getting nervous about myself and not having any time to do what made me feel like a worthwhile human being.”
And that is? “You know, drawing and making music and just doing poor boy dumb shit like skating and listening to tunes and going to the park and stuff. I just didn’t have time for things that made me happy.”
With Pond’s headline tour coming up in December and plenty more time to dedicate to his own happiness, things are looking up for Nick Allbrook aka Paisley Adams.
It may be different for everyone, but for Allbrook, happiness is in the form of waking up at 9am on a Sunday, having a good morning of music making by himself, perhaps a skate, perhaps a beard at the Napier Pub with some mates, and then, of course, “go home and smoke plenty of weed and make more music”.
“Maybe my answer will change when I’ve got a wife or something like that, but for now that seems pretty great to me.”
View the video for ‘Midnight Mass’ below.
Pond Australian Tour 2013
FREMANTLE
Metropolis Fremantle
Thursday 12th December, 2013
ADELAIDE
The Gov
Friday 13th December, 2013
BRISBANE The Zoo
Saturday 14th December, 2013
BYRON BAY
The Northern
Sunday 15th December, 2013
MELBOURNE The Corner Hotel
Wednesday 18th December, 2013
MELBOURNE SOLD OUT
The Corner Hotel
Thurs 19th December, 2013
SYDNEY
Metro Theatre
Friday 20th December, 2013
Hobo Rocket is out now on Modular and is available on CD in record stores, on vinyl here, or online.
