Exclusive Listen :: Megastick Fanfare ‘Fanfare EP 1’

January 29th 2013

“… maybe an upbeat family drama/comedy where one of the children gets a terminal illness and dies and everyone is sad.”

Sydney five-piece Megastick Fanfare have become known and celebrated for their exuberant live shows – where experimental input is generous and uniqueness is a certainty.  Each live performance kicks off with a brand new piece of music written especially for that night known as a ‘fanfare’.  All of this effort however, has not seen the band decelerate; they have in fact been busier than ever concocting an eclectic EP of post-album experimentation.  Born from the ‘fanfares’ that didn’t quite fit on a Megastick album’s song list, but that held equal weight in their own right – Fanfare EP 1 offers a place for these prodigious tracks.

Intrigued? Well, you’re in luck: the Flog has got an exclusive preview streaming of the EP for you below – before it’s official release on Tuesday. We were also lucky enough to steal a little of bandmate Adam Connelly’s time to chat about the band’s new music and generally being mega(stick).

————————————-

FBi: Could you tell us about the songwriting process for ‘Call Out’ – the first single released from your Fanfare EP 1? 

AC: I can’t remember exactly which show this was written for but I remember it happening really naturally. I think I just started playing the chords on guitar and then Sam came in with a melody with the keys and then Zwi with drums. It was written in a pretty similar event to how it plays recorded.

What the driving force was behind this post-album EP?

We had a bunch of fanfares that were written for shows during the time we were recording Grit Aglow that were very different to the stuff we were writing post-album. These were the fanfares we didn’t want to let go of but didn’t see working on our next album. 

Since forming the band, has much changed in terms of how you guys work?

Definitely. In recording we are trying to work out how to get things more efficient so the turnover of writing songs and people being able to listen to them is shorter than 2 years. In writing we are trying to be more disciplined with our arrangements so songs haven’t got infinity layers and are hence possible to mix. In our live shows we have learnt that having heaps of gear means heaps of carrying and hence have cut back significantly.

Was there anything that you were listening to when you were setting about making this EP?

Honestly can’t remember but it’s a safe bet we were listening to a lot of Black Moth Super Rainbow, Why? DOOM and Ratatat.

‘Teething’ from your debut album, Grit Aglow, was featured on the soundtrack to Australian movie Not Suitable For Children – what genre of film would you place the songs from your new EP alongside?

I’ve always seen the EP as made up of two really bright songs and two, kind of darker songs so maybe an upbeat family drama/comedy where one of the children gets a terminal illness and dies and everyone is sad.

How did Collin Jordan, from The Boiler Room (Chicago), come aboard as Mastering engineer of the new EP?

He did our album Grit Aglow as well. I just looked up who mastered all of the Black Moth Super Rainbow records because they always sound so huge. Collin is a great guy.

You are currently recording your sophomore album – was the length of the recording process on Grit Aglow the reason you decided to head out to Turondale in regional NSW to record this time?  What is it like out there? 

Partly. It was the last time we were all going to be in the same country for a long time as everyone is going overseas to different locations for different reasons. So it was an opportunity to spend some solid band time as well as solid friendship time. It was very productive but we still have a lot to do before the album is done. Turondale is really great; it’s an old mining town with not much in it. The house we stayed in is very simple but the views are incredible – so much sky, swimming in the creek twice a day – it was nice being isolated in bush for a while.

 

Fanfare EP 1 will be released digitally on 5 February.

Grab it here as a name-your-price download: megastickfanfare.bandcamp.com

 

Read more from Edwina Hagon

Contributor

Read more from FBi Radio