Yeo is one of the more versatile performers in Australian music, with a penchant for using all sorts of interesting gear both in the studio and onstage. This tendency reached its peak earlier this year when he famously whipped out a keytar for his appearance on triple j’s Like A Version, putting his multi-instrumental talents on a lot of radars.
Having just released new single ‘Frost’and with a bunch of shows on the cards this week, we thought we’d chat to Yeo about his varied arsenal of instruments, obscure tech he’s accumulated over the years, and the other gear he just couldn’t live without.
You can catch Yeo live this week at Melbourne Music Week, playing the Valve Sounds showcase tonight with w/ Elliphant, UV boi فوق بنفسجي and more, and making an appearance at Section 8/Ferdydurke this Thursday with Black Milk, SAATSUMA and more as part of the MMW Live Music Safari. If you can’t make it to MMW, you’ll also find him back onstage early next year playing shows in Sydney and Melbourne with HÆLOS, Christopher Port and BUOY – dates below.
How has your current rig evolved over the years?
In terms of live setup, it has changed with every album I’ve put out. There have been 6 piece bands, 2-piece acoustic setups, and finally we have settled on a two-piece using a laptop. My recording setup has always been the same though. One or two mics, a solid audio interface, midi-controller and a laptop.
What’s unique about your setup?
Onstage, we’re not shy about our use of backing track and laptop. I think we’re quite ambitious with how much we try to play, and every gig is different (which is a nice way to say I often make a lot of musical mistakes and improvise to cover it up). We also focus a lot on the visual aspect of our shows, and there is a purpose-built visualisation rig that handles our projections.
What’s the oldest piece of gear in your rig?
That would have to be my Greco electric P-bass. It was made in 1979. It’s a beauty though; nicely worn with Seymour Duncan pickup upgrade.
How does it vary between the studio and the live stage?
Quite a lot actually. I always work out how to play a song after I’ve produced it. My drummer doesn’t have eight arms to cover all the different percussion layers, so we leave parts of it in the track and parts of it out of the live version altogether. Lately we’ve been using in-ear monitoring to rehearse which has increased our attention to detail significantly. It gives the live stage more of a studio feel.
Yeo busting out the keytar on Like A Version
Does the gear you use influence the song that results from it, or the other way around?
It does, and vice-versa. When I get a new toy (instrument, synth, plug-in or whatever), I’ll start mucking around with it and the results often turn into a brand new song. Then sometimes a song that’s already half-done will have something missing which is hard to find, and I’ll explore the limits of my gear to try and pull something unique that fits.
If you were forced to tour in a van and only had room for two or three piece of equipment, what would you bring and why?
I’d probably strip it back to electric guitar, an amp and some interesting pedals. Nothing beats slinging an axe and seeing if your songs stand up without all the fancy tricks. It could also demolish my self-esteem…
What was some of the first gear you got?
I used to record all my guitar through a Behringer V-amp! I had a Magnum strat copy with a tiny Kustom practice amp – one of those starter packs that you get from a music store. I mixed through a crappy Logitech 5.1 speaker system that you can buy cheaply from JB-Hifi. I remember saving up for ages for my first condenser microphone, the Rode NT1000. It’s still the one I use today.
What’s the weirdest or most obscure piece of gear you’ve paid money for?
An analogue vision mixer for our visualisations rig. It was difficult to find one in Australia that could accept S-video input and didn’t cost a fortune, I ended up driving an hour out of town to buy one from a retired broadcasting editor. I needed to buy a plug from Bunnings to screw to the bare power cabling because he had stripped it so he could hard-wire it into his rig – over 20 years before I bought it.
The poor quality of this thing allowed us to glitch it up during shows and create interesting effects, but we’ve since upgraded to a much more recent model (still discontinued) that can handle more input/output channels and maintains the brightness of the signal.
Yeo Tour Dates
November 15 – Valve Sounds @ State Library of Victoria w/ Elliphant + UV boi فوق بنفسجي + more
November 17 – ZOO: Live Music Safari @ Section 8 w/ Black Milk + SAATSUMA + more
January 4 – Howler, Melbourne w/ HÆLOS + Christopher Port
January 6 – Oxford Arts Factory w/ HÆLOS + Christopher Port + BUOY
