Latest / HEAVY Music Interviews / Under The Microscope With FERGUS LINACRE From KINGSWOOD

Transcript

Under The Microscope With FERGUS LINACRE From KINGSWOOD · HEAVY Music Interviews

• 0:00
  My name is Fergus. I'm in the bank Kingswood and we are going on
• 0:05
  a ten year anniversary tour of our debut album, Microscopic Work Moore's Microscopic walg
• 0:14
  Microscopic Morgue, Microshopic Morgue. It's a Morgue Center for ants and we're going
• 0:23
  on tour in August and we're quite thrilled about it, to be honest.
• 0:27
  It's been a very nostalgic time organizing all this and yeah, it's it's great.
• 0:33
  We're very excited. All right, nice thanks for joining us today,
• 0:36
  Fergus, No problem, Chris. So, as you say, Kingswood are
• 0:40
  off on the Microscopic Wars ten year anniversary, starting in Melbourne on August the
• 0:45
  second and going through Gold Coast, Brisbane, Sydney, Newcastle, Adelaide and
• 0:50
  Bunderbar. Was it bumbering? And then he finished in Perth on August at
• 0:53
  eighteenth Made. So, what sort of delights have you got in store for
• 0:56
  us? Made? I know it's the ten year od of birth for you,
• 0:58
  so you've got to have something special. No, look, we do.
• 1:00
  We've got a few special guests for sure that are going to come up
• 1:03
  and join us on stage. You know, we're taking a great band called
• 1:07
  the Delta Riggs with us for most of the tour, and over in wa
• 1:12
  we're going to have Death by Denim come with us. But you know,
• 1:15
  we was talking. We were talking, Alex and I were. He said
• 1:19
  to me yesterday when we were sort of planning out who's going to play what
• 1:23
  and what the part's going to be, because we're going to relearn a lot
• 1:26
  of it. I've got to relearn how to play piano, which I never
• 1:27
  did in the first place. But he said, you know, we're going
• 1:33
  to give them because we're so much more experience, we're better seeing as we
• 1:37
  better perform as better players. He said, we're going to give the fans
• 1:42
  that love that album the best version of those songs that they've ever heard,
• 1:46
  you know, far better than when we played them back in the day.
• 1:49
  Oh yeah. So it's exciting. It sounds like it's a pretty big tour,
• 1:53
  mate, But by your standards, it's only walk in the park,
• 1:56
  isn't it. No, this is leave the kettle boiling and pop out a
• 2:00
  few shows and come back and have a cup of That's what this tour is.
• 2:02
  But look, it's good. It's it's great when we do those big,
• 2:06
  you know, mega long bus tours, we play smaller rooms and go
• 2:09
  sort of town to town. This is getting back into some big rooms,
• 2:13
  you know, and just isolating in the city. So that'll be fun,
• 2:17
  you know, that's it. That's a that's a type of tour that we
• 2:20
  also really enjoy. So you know, we don't mind. We don't mind
• 2:28
  at all playing to a big room as much as we do love sort of
• 2:30
  going going down to town on a big bus. The bus will do the
• 2:35
  East Coast tour. They now, I've assuming you're going to be playing the
• 2:39
  whole album fronts You're back anniversary. Yeah, we are. We're honoring our
• 2:46
  frog Stompers as as as you can understand. There's a lot of people that
• 2:52
  love that. We are a band that has changed our sound a lot and
• 2:54
  diversified, and you know, we don't shy away from that. We're proud
• 2:59
  of that. And so we do understand that there's fans that love that first
• 3:02
  album and then went you know, they went a bit this, or they
• 3:07
  went a bit this, and that's that's fine. We love those people as
• 3:09
  much. But yeah, we were certainly going to play era appropriate heavy,
• 3:15
  heavy rock and roll. So there's the first album in totalatality. We're not
• 3:21
  going to play Golden or Big City, they're too soft. We're going to
• 3:24
  play you know, all there. We've been asking fans what else they want
• 3:29
  to hear, and it's all like, yeah, go Diamond DUSA, Snake
• 3:32
  Pit, all the really heavy, heavy stuff. So I'm actually going to
• 3:36
  go to see Carnival tonight to get some inspiration. Nice is it like,
• 3:42
  is it difficult at all to play an album front and back? Broy like
• 3:45
  when you're made, and I can't imagine you sort of ever had it in
• 3:46
  mind that you'd ever play the whole thing. I take a lot of I
• 3:51
  put a lot of thought into track order on albums. Our doesn't really seem
• 3:58
  to mind it as much, but so generally I'll get the track order and
• 4:01
  then he'll come in and sort of tinker and that kind of thing. But
• 4:04
  I actually love track order. I think it's important. And the same thing
• 4:06
  goes for set lists, and I don't think they differ too much generally.
• 4:15
  I think that they can be you know, that they can reflect each other
• 4:20
  pretty easily. So I think the way that an album is on a record
• 4:25
  is generally a pretty good set to play to play it live as well,
• 4:30
  so we are going to do it in order, you know. So these
• 4:35
  are from front to back, and then I think the album flows really well
• 4:40
  and I think it'll flatly well lives as well. Oh now, you probably
• 4:44
  would actually learn quite a few of these songs all over again now, bro,
• 4:46
  So they still resonating with you as much now as what they did when
• 4:50
  you first wrote them. Here they are. It's funny. There's one in
• 4:55
  particular that I've been learning, the Storm, and it kind of it was
• 5:01
  it was kind of an emotional song for me at the time. It was
• 5:03
  sort of about my breakup at that time, and it all sort of comes
• 5:09
  rushing back, and you know, it's like I listened to the song and
• 5:14
  it's speaking to me as if I'm like a fan of the song and it
• 5:16
  meant something to me at one point in my life. And then you revisit
• 5:18
  it and you go, oh, you know, I remember this and I
• 5:20
  remember that. So it's kind of like we're so detached from the songs that
• 5:26
  they're not really ours, you know that they're they're the sort of a song
• 5:30
  that an album that meant something to you at a time in your life,
• 5:35
  and so yeah, going back and learning them has been pretty pretty pretty interesting.
• 5:44
  But yeah, I think they definitely still mean a lot to us,
• 5:46
  and we're still proud of them. There's nothing that we're like, Oh,
• 5:49
  there's a couple where we're like, oh, wish we did this a bit
• 5:51
  differently, but you know, you can't think too much on that from ten
• 5:56
  years ago anyway. Now, Mike's a Big War was was your debut album
• 6:00
  made after a stringer VP. So what was your thought process going into the
• 6:04
  writing and recording of that record? Oh, to be the big span in
• 6:10
  the world. Well, we was. We were, we were. We
• 6:14
  were so full of energy and we still are. But yeah, we look,
• 6:19
  we tracked down Vance Powell because we love Jack White's Blunderbus record and we
• 6:26
  wanted our record to sort of, you know, sound like that, and
• 6:30
  you know, we went to Nashville and and just dived headfirst and went to
• 6:35
  Blackbird Studios. We're a studio that we loved albums like album Only by the
• 6:41
  Night by kings Leon was done there. So we were kind of you know,
• 6:45
  fanboys to rock and roll and be like we want this producer and we
• 6:48
  want this you know, this studio, and I think it's great that we
• 6:54
  did that. I think that's really you know, been there and working with
• 6:57
  those people inspires you a lot. I think you can make great music without
• 7:01
  doing that, but but you know, that's what we wanted to do it.
• 7:05
  And look, we met Eddie Spear, who was the engineer on that
• 7:09
  record, and he's sort of now our fifth beat all. He's you know,
• 7:13
  done every record with all, worked on every record with us since.
• 7:17
  And we've you know, we keep going back to Nashville and have great connections
• 7:21
  there. It's a bit of a second home for us. So it was
• 7:25
  it was a great trip. But yeah, I mean going over there and
• 7:30
  recording that album was a crazy time. We we you know, we were
• 7:35
  ten years younger and we and we just went and it was all new.
• 7:39
  And this was when we were at a time in Nashville where being an Australian
• 7:43
  was it was interesting. You know. You'd be in bars and people would
• 7:47
  come up and be like, oh my god, you're you know South,
• 7:50
  Oh my god, you're as like this, and you'd be like, you
• 7:54
  know, oh yeah, God blessed her, that's not and people would lose
• 7:57
  it. And now no one gives it No one cares at all, but
• 7:59
  that, yeah, it was. It was a commodity to be to be
• 8:01
  in Australian. Now, you mentioned going over to Nashville to record with Advance
• 8:07
  Mate, So looking back now, like, especially as an influential band,
• 8:11
  I guess so young in your career, Like what overall effect did that have
• 8:15
  on the album by making that choice to go over there? Oh, massively.
• 8:18
  I mean, we've written a lot of the songs. One thing we
• 8:22
  knew when we spoke with Vance about going over and recording with him is that
• 8:24
  he didn't want to waste time writing you know what I mean, Like,
• 8:30
  yeah, he wanted to come in because ideally we wanted to do it like
• 8:33
  Blunderbuss, which is all live to track so to tape, which is he
• 8:39
  said, look, if you're going to do that, there's a lot of
• 8:41
  bands here that want to do that, and I tell them no, because
• 8:43
  then good enough, you've got to be you know, the best musicians in
• 8:46
  the world to do that, which we weren't. So some of it was
• 8:50
  but but you know, but then we were doing you know, a lot
• 8:54
  of overdubs and things like that. But it certainly helped us we learned so
• 8:58
  much about recording, about writing, and about musicianship and how important it was.
• 9:07
  So it was an amazing experience to be put in the best studio in
• 9:11
  the world with one of the best producers and go through that process is invaluable,
• 9:16
  you know, teachings that you know, we've just gone onwards and upwards
• 9:20
  from there. Yeah, so you follow that up with After Hours close to
• 9:26
  dorn Mane. So was it turmpic in a way to sort of just rehash
• 9:30
  what was essentially a successful formula with Microscopic was. Yeah, it's an interesting
• 9:35
  one how we shifted so much. Like the head of the label at the
• 9:39
  time, I thought we were playing a Frank on it when we played him
• 9:41
  some songs because it was so different. No, I think we were always
• 9:48
  I don't know it was I think even even the first album was kind of
• 9:54
  there wasn't really anything else like that being made in Australia and it was kind
• 10:01
  of a you know, a bit of a it was a fight to get
• 10:05
  it over. Yeah, So it wasn't so much being rebellions. So I
• 10:09
  think it was just that we didn't really want to fit into whatever else was
• 10:13
  doing. Well we started, we were influenced by so many different bands in
• 10:18
  sound. Yeah, we it wasn't so much a thing of you know,
• 10:24
  fighting any kind of establishment. It was just that we were very open to
• 10:30
  rolling with whatever influences we had, and we've always done that, you know,
• 10:35
  whatever, whatever we're into, whatever is inspiring us, whether it's environmental
• 10:39
  or a piece of music or an album or culturally where you are. You
• 10:46
  know, we go to New York, we don't make that same record,
• 10:48
  so everything sort of just making the album that we want to make. We're
• 10:54
  always very open to whatever influences are around us and what's going to shape the
• 10:58
  kind of the music that we're into and what we want to make. We
• 11:01
  don't really look back and have never thought that we should remake the same record
• 11:07
  or stay in the same genre. I know that there's bands that do that
• 11:09
  and maybe that's naturally their thing, you know, and that's fine, and
• 11:15
  there's the ac DC model of just you know, rinse and repeat, but
• 11:18
  yeah, we're certainly not that band. Yeah. So, in the ten
• 11:22
  years since Microscopic Wars came out, bro Like, it's fair to say you
• 11:26
  guys have a peaked done really well. Man, Like, you've traveled the
• 11:30
  world. People love you everywhere. You've made different albums every time you put
• 11:33
  something out, like you've just you've got to the beat of your own drub,
• 11:37
  which is refreshing in this day and age. But what what what do
• 11:39
  you say that you've learned about yourself and your music in that chenear period since
• 11:45
  Microscopic was I think, you know, I think the music that we put
• 11:52
  out is kind of like a diary for al and I. You know,
• 11:58
  every song he writes, you know, does come from somewhere true and honest.
• 12:03
  Even on the the you know we made in Covid, we made a
• 12:07
  very blue grassy kind of record of and it was all written in the tale
• 12:13
  of It's called the Tale of GC Towns, and it's all written through the
• 12:16
  eyes of this character that we created because there's nothing going on, there was
• 12:20
  no stories that we could tell, and so we decided to sort of create
• 12:24
  this character and then and then put our feelings and thoughts and ideas through this
• 12:30
  guy. But so even that record, you know, everything's comes from from
• 12:35
  within us. So it's you know, when we've grown as as musicians and
• 12:43
  as friends, and we've been through so much. I think one thing we've
• 12:46
  learned is that we care less now about things that are not important. And
• 12:52
  I think that's just the part of growing up, you know, some things
• 12:54
  you get so worked up about. This great learning. And we had some
• 13:01
  technical issues and the by about ten or fifteen minutes and the sound ears was
• 13:05
  wrong and we had to change the go to like just wedges at the front
• 13:09
  of the stage and it was life to triple J and it was a big
• 13:11
  you know, I was furious, right, and so I went on stage
• 13:15
  and we played like for thirty five minutes, and I hated every second of
• 13:18
  it. You know, big crowd out there in the main anti theater of
• 13:22
  Splending on the Grass, but just the gig went off into the crowd and
• 13:26
  was just sort of you know, angry and pissed off at whoever's fault it
• 13:30
  was. And we lost this opportunity. And then I realized a bit later
• 13:35
  it might have been the next day. You know, you just played a
• 13:39
  gig that not many people get to play. You just played main stage Splending
• 13:43
  on the Grass for the second time, and you didn't and you hated every
• 13:46
  second of it, Like who do you think you are? And I kind
• 13:50
  of, you know, had to had to look myself in the mirror and
• 13:54
  be like, you know, that's crazy, Like things go wrong, you
• 13:56
  know, mistakes happened, and who cares if we lose a couple of songs.
• 14:01
  The crowd still, you know, once to party. So yeah,
• 14:05
  I learned that, and I kind of told everyone that I know realized that
• 14:09
  and hope that they did the same. And and then we were lucky enough
• 14:11
  to place Blender again and went back in twenty seventeen, and you know,
• 14:16
  we sort of celebrated it. And I think it's important to celebrate things because
• 14:18
  we're not sports people. You know, you don't hold up a trophy at
• 14:20
  the end of the year. So when you get a win and when you
• 14:24
  put a great tour on sale, or you know, you know, when
• 14:28
  you have great moments, it's important to sort of sit back and celebrate them.
• 14:31
  It's been great. We've been talking to the original members of the band
• 14:33
  and they're gonna, you know, there's a few surprises in store with those
• 14:37
  guys, and we're all going to get together and celebrate ten years since the
• 14:41
  album's done. So yeah, it's it's been a wild ride, but it's
• 14:46
  certainly not over for us, that's for sure. How a brother. You
• 14:48
  still got your baby teeth, my friend, Burgers what thanks for your time,
• 14:54
  broke pleasure. As always, A talk kicks off in Melbourne on August
• 14:58
  the second Bridsburge's about the third stop Inmate, So I'll come down and have
• 15:01
  a beer. Yeah, I'd love to see you. Thanks, mate,
• 15:03
  appreciate it coming to see every one there.