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Stripped Back And Raw With MAT ROBINS From CICADASTONE · HEAVY Music Interviews

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hi, this is Matt from Cicadastone. What else would you
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: let missay again? So I'll do it again.
• 0:09
  Speaker 2: Just get introduced your celebrities a band. I'll give the
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: EP a bit of a plug, so down stuff.
• 0:14
  Speaker 3: Oh cool right, Hi, this is Matt from Cicadastone.
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: We have a new EP acoustic EP coming out now
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: and we're very excited and I'm excited.
• 0:25
  Speaker 3: To be here.
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: Yeatiful, but thanks for joining us today, brother, thanks a lot,
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: my pleasure. So as you say, you release your new EP,
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: Future Echos Acoustic this Friday, which I believe will be
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: the thirty first. Is it the thirty thirty?
• 0:41
  Speaker 4: May say? How about you feel about it?
• 0:43
  Speaker 3: Oh?
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: You know, it's it's exciting because it wasn't really it
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: wasn't really like a planned thing.
• 0:48
  Speaker 3: It was kind of like more of an afterthought.
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: So it's the I guess, the pressure of putting together
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: a recording and and and and then focusing on something.
• 1:00
  Speaker 3: It's it's it's been a lot more.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: Oh, it's more a lot more of like a it's
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: already a win because it exists, doesn't really matter how
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: it turned out. I mean, it turned out great, but
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: it really wasn't even going to be a thing, and
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: it just kind of became a thing.
• 1:13
  Speaker 3: So I think that's that's awesome.
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And the EP features five songs taken from the
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: album Future Echoes that came out back in maybe.
• 1:21
  Speaker 4: So what side to release the songs acoustically? What's the
• 1:25
  Speaker 4: thought protest there?
• 1:27
  Speaker 3: Well, you know, the label, they it was actually their idea.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: They thought it would be great to help promote the album, and.
• 1:36
  Speaker 3: And aside from that, the songs themselves.
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: You know, usually when I write songs, the initial concepts
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: of any song is generally an acoustic guitar sitting on
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: the couch, you know, so they usually translate pretty well,
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: and and that that's the case here. You know that
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: we picked we picked five songs off the record, and
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: it wasn't it wasn't really hard to just work out
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: what to do with them because they all kind of
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: lent to an acoustic guitar quite well.
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: Now there's trove songs on the full album and five
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: you've chosen for the acoustic one.
• 2:07
  Speaker 4: So what was what was the elimination process?
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: I guess with the songs, is there something that were
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: too hard or something you like more than others?
• 2:14
  Speaker 3: No, I don't even think there was was a process.
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: It was more very organic, you know, it was just
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: what popped into my mind and and what we felt
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: worked naturally. Some songs I didn't even consider because it
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: just didn't pop into my mind. But the ones that did,
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: the ones that we chose are the are the ones
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: that did so and you know, I think, you know,
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: there's there's a couple of obvious ones. I think this
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: Hurricane lent to be an acoustic track, very very obviously,
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: but then whispered to my lonely self was not, uh well,
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: I don't think it would be one that you would
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: consider it naturally, but you know, you gave it a
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: shot and it works.
• 2:49
  Speaker 3: So it works with a bit of tweaking like anything.
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 2:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 2:53
  Speaker 4: True. So we'll talk about the actual album for a second.
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: Future Echo is like, it's your third album, bro, So
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: how was it received on fans?
• 3:01
  Speaker 3: Look, I think it's it's gone down well.
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: You know, we've had a lot of good feedback from
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: you know, people online and in general and at gigs
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: and just anywhere. Really, I know that we've had a
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: few really good reviews. When one review in particular calling
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: it out our best record, and I think it's our
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: best record, I think. You know, for each album, you
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: try and raise the bar, you try and better yourself.
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: And you know, if if others can see that, I
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: think that's really good because that's definitely what what we
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: try to do.
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: And do you think people that like that album? Again,
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: I like these songs acoustic. A lot of rock people
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: are pretty pretty narrowminded when it comes to them.
• 3:38
  Speaker 4: You think they're gonna.
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: Appreciate it, Uh, I hope So, I mean, I guess
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: at the end of the day, it really doesn't matter.
• 3:45
  Speaker 3: I'd like them too.
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: It's it's it's there if they want it, you know,
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: it's that's that's I guess. We live in the world,
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: the world of content these days, so you want to
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: really look at it like that.
• 3:56
  Speaker 3: You know, it's content.
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: I'd like to think it's more than common tent, but
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: but you know, if you really want to be black
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: and white about it, it's content.
• 4:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: And you know if if if guys that love big
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: guitar riffs put it on and enjoy it, then then great.
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: Something else somewise this like is it is it aimed
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: at existing fans or is an acoustic album of the
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: same new fans?
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: I guess I reckon both because because anyone who's seen
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: us knows me and me and Mark from Cicadastone. We
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: we haven't done in a long time, but there was
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: a while there we were doing a lot of just
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: acoustic duo Cicadastone gigs around town just to kind of
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: fill in gaps and and so people people would come
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: to it watch us, would would get a sort of
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: a good idea of of how how how we approach
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: our songs acoustically. But as for new anyone hearing it
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: for the first time, I mean maybe maybe someone will
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: hear it for the first time before they hear the band,
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: and then they might hear the band, go hear the
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: album and kind of might be the opposite.
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: It might be the worse.
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: You know, they might go wow, I didn't expect to
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: hear it or rocked up like that.
• 5:07
  Speaker 4: You know, it's crude.
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: Said, there's five songs on the EP, bro, So I
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: want to run through each of them individually and tell
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: us me more about the song and how you constructed
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: it then reconstructed it again acoustically. So we'll start with
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: the first track, which is burn Your Name.
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, so Burn Your name, well, burn your name
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  Speaker 1: on the album has a lot of acoustic through it,
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: so that was a real obvious one, and.
• 5:31
  Speaker 3: I guess the idea was some songs we some songs
• 5:34
  Speaker 3: we we re recorded drums and something. We didn't have
• 5:38
  Speaker 3: any drums.
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: This one, we we did, and we kept it pretty
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: I guess, structure wise, pretty much such the same structure
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: as the album. We just we just changed the dynamic
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: flow of the songs. Obviously it's going to change because
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: you know, when you're playing with brushes, the impacts different,
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: So we.
• 5:56
  Speaker 3: Just we really did that one was quite simple.
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: That was very much set and forget the bass followed
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: the same paths. We just stripped back some of the
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: vocals because on the album there's some overdubs and some
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: double tracking.
• 6:08
  Speaker 3: Fact we did that with all of it.
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: We stripped the vocals right back to just two vocals,
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: which is what it really should.
• 6:13
  Speaker 4: Be straight all right. The next one is the title track,
• 6:16
  Speaker 4: Future Echos.
• 6:19
  Speaker 3: Yes, a future Echoes. I'm trying to think. We don't
• 6:22
  Speaker 3: think we had any drums on that one.
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: We just stripped it back to an acoustic guitar and
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: two vocals and a little bit of percussion as well,
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: just to just to keep it interesting and and light
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: and different, you know. But again the order of the song,
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: I think, I think we just cut a few little
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: spots where I felt that it was it was just
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: dragging a bit because you haven't.
• 6:43
  Speaker 3: Got a big band behind it. It's sort of interesting.
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Okay, then you've got shadows in an empty room.
• 6:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah. So this one we did actually do a fair bit.
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: We we brought the drums in again. There were drums
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: on this this track, and we brought them in in
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: a different spot and on the album it could they
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: come in at the start and then on.
• 7:11
  Speaker 3: That sort of.
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: Guitars that you have on the album, back to just
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: a couple of guitars and in the same with the
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: vocal process. It was very much as live as it
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: could be, you.
• 7:20
  Speaker 3: Know what I mean.
• 7:22
  Speaker 4: And this Hurricane is next.
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so this Hurricane, I'm just trying to think. Now,
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: this Hurricane had drums, and again it was the order
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: of this of these of this song was pretty much
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: stuck to the same as the album. Some of the
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: guitar work was some of the There was a couple
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: of little guitar lines I think on this one that
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: we reworked a bit to suit the acoustic guitar.
• 7:50
  Speaker 3: Actually, it was the same with Burn Your Name.
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: A couple of guitar lines that we reworked a little
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: bit that you know, we had like electric guitars bending
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: note and stuff, and on these songs we sort of
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: just played the notes a little more simply just to
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: give it a much more of an organic live feel.
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: And then it's rounded off by the track Whispers of
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: My Lonely Self.
• 8:13
  Speaker 4: Very cool title too, by the way, I like that.
• 8:15
  Speaker 3: Yeah, thanks, Yeah.
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: So this one again we opted to it's funny because
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: it's a it's a big rock song.
• 8:21
  Speaker 3: But then we didn't have drums on this one.
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: We just kept it to like shakers and percussion and
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: h and and I think we ended up we ended
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: up cutting the intro and cutting the outro because on
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: the album it's quite a long epic song, it fades out,
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: so we ended up cutting that stuff and keeping it
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: so the song ended ended with a chord if you
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: know what I.
• 8:44
  Speaker 3: Mean, which is great.
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: It's really it's a really different approach and and it's
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: a nice way to end the ep I.
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: Think Waiticana says music is essentially nineties brunch influence with
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: a fresh modern edge. Sure, that's that sounds described, mate,
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: So you run us through that fresh modern side, Like,
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: how do you how do you modernize music like that?
• 9:06
  Speaker 3: I don't know, but it's I think it is. I
• 9:09
  Speaker 3: think it's modern. But how do you modernize it? You
• 9:13
  Speaker 3: modernize it?
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: You could modernize it with modern production techniques, you know,
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: recording a lot of the a lot of those records
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: from the nineties that I love, we're all recorded the
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: tape and recorded and you know, and in a different
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: time obviously, you know, we're recording everything digitally, so there's
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: a there's definitely a cleaner.
• 9:33
  Speaker 3: Production to what we're doing, which is good and bad.
• 9:38
  Speaker 3: As for songwriting, I really don't know. I can't answer that.
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: I think it's just you're right what you like. And
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: if people think it's modern, it is. If they don't,
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: I think it's modern, and it's it's not.
• 9:50
  Speaker 4: That's true.
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: So over the years, like one of the bands from
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: that are a lot of bands that are influenced by
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: that music have all fallen by the wayside, Like what
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: do you think Cicada Stone succeeded where others have failed?
• 10:03
  Speaker 3: As any mean, like on the local scene just.
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: In general way like you guys are still going, You're
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: still pumping out records, like a lot of bands that
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: have got their roots and grunts.
• 10:10
  Speaker 4: Just people fall off of me. It's just it's a
• 10:13
  Speaker 4: die and trend. But you guys.
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: Keep I think, Yeah, I think it's because we don't
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: have an agenda.
• 10:18
  Speaker 4: We don't.
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: We're not we're not we're not answering to anyone. Well,
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: I guess we have a label, but you know, that'll
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: led us.
• 10:22
  Speaker 3: To our own thing.
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: We're not on any timeframe, you know when we release
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: a record. When you release a record, you do want
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: it to help push the the the band forward, and
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: I think each record does that a little bit. But
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: ultimately we're still here because we want to be you know,
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: and we're not.
• 10:42
  Speaker 3: We're not trying to impress anyone.
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: We do it because we love it and if people
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: like it and want to come along for the ride,
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: then awesome.
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: You know. Well, before you go mad, I've started up
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: a new little fun segment to finish interviews offer it.
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: I've gone through and I've dug up a couple of
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: photos from the internet about the band. I'm going to
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: check him up my big screen I wanted you to
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: give us a bit of a Storybine, i'n tell us
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: what's going on.
• 11:06
  Speaker 4: The first one I've.
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: Dug up is this one you got to ride the
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: famous person with you?
• 11:13
  Speaker 4: Ah?
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm trying to remember where that was. That was
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: Wednesday thirteen, I think at the Corner Hotel.
• 11:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I wasn't. I didn't. I miss that photo shoot.
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: We did an acoustic, funny enough acoustic support with Wednesday
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: thirteen at the Corner Hotel, I don't know, about six
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: years ago.
• 11:35
  Speaker 3: And it was an awesome, awesome gig. I didn't I
• 11:38
  Speaker 3: didn't even know who it was.
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: So like when we got the gig, we were off
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: of the gig and I was like, I said to Tommy,
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: a bass player who is actually in that photo, I said,
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: I go, who's just got just offer the gigs to
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: do this support for this Wednesday thirteen?
• 11:52
  Speaker 3: And I said, do you want to do that? And
• 11:53
  Speaker 3: he just jumped out of his skin.
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: He's like, ye, do that gig. I'm like, all right,
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: So we did that gig and yes, an amazing artist
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: and the very nice Blake, lovely lovely guy.
• 12:04
  Speaker 4: Lovely all right. And the last one I've got for
• 12:07
  Speaker 4: you is this one? What the fuck? What's going on?
• 12:13
  Speaker 4: Band meeting?
• 12:16
  Speaker 3: Christmas? That was Christmas?
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: I forget which year, but we yeah, I look pretty
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: concerned there. I think I think it was it was
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: like a last catch up of the year before everyone
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: was going to bugger off, knew their own thing, and
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: it was just like a catch up really at the
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: it was at the Joint in Saint Kilda, the vineyard
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: in St Kilda.
• 12:40
  Speaker 4: She I'd like to see. It's a couple of hours
• 12:42
  Speaker 4: after that there.
• 12:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, actually it wasn't too bad that night.
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: Very good man, verbal thanks for it. Time my future
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: Echoes Acoustic is out. It's Friday, August the thirtieth, and
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: it's a typical Cicada Stone stuff but stripped back, raw.
• 12:59
  Speaker 4: And emotional and really good work brother, so glation time
• 13:02
  Speaker 4: it does. Well.
• 13:03
  Speaker 3: Appreciate that mote. Thanks for the support.