Interview with Paper Plains

This week's feature band.

Paper Plains are a Perth four-piece band who started out as an acoustic duo with Matt Rickwood and Pat Gengler. Last year they were joined by two new members: Jess Allen (bass) and Dave Meyrick (drums). They have just released their debut album, Anaestalgia, which they are launching on July 26 at The Beat Nightclub in Perth. I caught up with Paper Plains while they were setting up their jam room last weekend, and chatted about their new album, their transition from acoustic duo to full band, the recording process and where they fit into the local music scene.

Paper Plains: Dave Meyrick, Jess Allen, Matt Rickwood, Pat Gengler.

You’ve titled your album Anaestalgia. Is that a hybrid of the two words anesthetic and nostalgia?

Dave: Yes. We realised after we had this collection of songs that they all shared a common theme which was reflections on the past in one way or another and usually if you’re either in a bad spot looking back at a good one or in a good spot looking back at a bad one there’s always a bittersweet element to that so hence Anaestalgia.

The album seems to be full of repressed memories and heartbreak as well as highlighting social issues, there’s only one fun song on there ‘Painting the Town,’ is this a reflection of your lives or do you just feel more motivated to write about the deeper issues?

Pat: I guess having spawned the only happy song on the record I can probably answer. Both Matt and I write most of the music at first, and it’s kind of like that. Generally when I’m happy I don’t write music, with the exception of that one song. That’s probably the only happy song I’ve ever written in my life and at least for me personally that’s just how it works. When I’m happy I go do shit that isn’t music and when I’m not then I write music and I get all moody about it.

Dave: I’m usually using a bad reference point to draw reference to a good one so for Arbitrary Lines for instance, drawing reference to someone’s really really shitty life so that I can appreciate mine. I guess that comes back to that bittersweet thing.

There’s a definite contrast between Matt and Patt’s voices, how do you make the most of that in your songs?

Pat: When I first sent our tracks out to people they couldn’t tell the difference between Matt and I, singing wise… They sounded different to me!

Matt: When we started… I tried to emulate Pat a bit as I was singing. In some of the older stuff Pat would sing and I’d pretty much copy what he was doing to learn how to sing and now I just do my own thing… When we’re putting together songs and deciding who’s going to sing what part we try to see what the mood is in that part and whose voice will fit that better Pat’s got a better technical voice with a higher range whereas mine’s probably a bit lower.

Earlier in the day we had been discussing the ‘influences,’ listed on their triple j unearthed website. The list includes The Veronicas, which no-one could explain until…

Pat: Us being The Veronicas, or twin girls, he’s like the more butch one. Let’s pretend every twins have a more butch one! He’s that and I’m the big girl over here just going “eeeeeeehhhhhh,” all the time. At least in my head, as silly as I made that to be that’s how it is for me. I think for some reason I always want to sing higher than I should so I’m constantly trying to sing higher than Matt. It’s not conscious but it just happens and Matt’s the harder [style singer]; his voice breaks up a lot more than mine. I don’t really try to go harsh all the time like I used to in my previous band. That’s kind of good because it means he can do the harsh stuff and there is a bit of that transition and we play off each other vocally.

Matt: I think we could probably do better with that as we continue to write and get better, I think we will try to work something out where there’s better harmonies. At the moment it tends to be one person singing or the other person singing, just depending on the context of where we’re at in a song.

Do you write differently now compared to how you did when you were a duo and how do Jess and Dave contribute to that?

Matt: It generally starts with Pat and I doing some guitar stuff and sending that to Dave and Jess and they’ll do the drum and bass stuff and we’ll go back later and put lyrics on it.
Pat: It’s a bit more democratic now. At first Matt and I already had songs written and the songs were already established but now there’s a bit more room to play. We’ll come up with an idea and we’ll have a riff and we ask [Dave and Jess] if they like it and want to develop it as a thing.

You already had a few songs recorded as an acoustic duo. Were you more motivated to record once you became a full band?

They reflected on the technical difficulties they had encountered recording tracks for the Welcome to Splitsville split release.

Pat: That was fucking heartbreaking, hey, we spent 40 hours on that song just making everything exactly how we wanted it to be. We did a little bit of mixing and had all the vocals exactly how we wanted them to be and the computer fucked out and ruined the song.  At that point the motivation was just shot dead.

Matt: Yeah and we just lost motivation, and rather than going downstairs into our old basement where we used to record we just did it on the kitchen table and the TV was on in the background. We just did a really quick run through.

Pat: There were three days to the deadline by the time that happened it was very close.

Matt: And we still had to send it to Harry from the Decline and he mixed it for us.

Pat: We did one take of each song and that’s what we sent off.
Matt: It came out pretty bad.
Pat: It was pretty bad yeah.
Matt: When people are like, oh yeah we heard your Splitsville thing we’re like “Oh….”
Pat [pretending to talk to people who listened to the recording]: “I wish you hadn’t, are you alright, do you need therapy?”

This time around, their experience was much more positive, with expert guidance and support from Tom Ware.

Guitars and amps used for recording Anaestalgia.

Pat: We were exploring more sounds with guitars… It was free range for everyone. Tom Ware knows all the things about guitars.

Matt: It was pretty cool, we found a lot of really good tones and there’s a picture of all the different amps and guitars we used and there was something like ten different amps and seven or eight different guitars we used. It was really cool, I enjoyed the process it was good fun.

Pat: It was hot! Middle of summer, in a room with no ventilation, literally just sweating into each other.

Jess: In a warehouse!

Matt: There was a lot of sweat, and not even because we were doing anything really good it was just hot! 

Pat: The beer helped. But then when you start coming down off the beer you go ‘Is this real life?’

Matt: Tom [Ware] was really good for motivation. There were days there where I just really didn’t want to be there and he was just stoked throughout most of it. When he ‘cooked it,’ it was time to go. Once Tom was knackered it was all over for the day. To his credit he was just stoked throughout a lot of the time, and we were just like ‘How are you so positive and happy?’ and it’s really good for a guy to record to be like that.

Pat: He knows how to get the best out of people and you get the best out of people when you’re stoked on their shit even if you aren’t really… He was a good motivational tool!

Matt: Looking back we started recording within six months of being a band so I guess it was quick.

Jess: Once we started playing full gigs we suddenly had to write a lot more full band material really quickly to have enough to fill out a set so that really helped.

Do you have any new material on the go at the moment?

Matt: We’ve got two songs, one’s pretty much done. The other one musically is pretty well complete and it’s just a matter of lyrics and vocals.

What can we expect at your album launch show on July 26 at The Beat Nightclub?

Dave: Disappointment.

Matt: Four really good bands and us… It’s Burgs from Grims [Grim Fandango] last show with them so there’ll probably be a bigger turnout than would be there for us so that’s cool. It’s Alex The Kid’s last show as a four-piece* so it should be a lot of fun… We’ve got the place until 4am; Grim [Fandango] will start before midnight and they can just play until whenever.

Are we likely to hear the two new songs you’re working on at the album launch?

Matt: You’re likely to hear one of them. You won’t hear the other one.
Patrick: Ever!

Matt: You’ll hear one of them. We haven’t actually played that song in full, so we’ll be doing that today.

Pat: Matt and I basically re-wrote all of the guitar parts for it the other day
Matt: The other night when we were drunk! So we get to see if it actually sounds any good or if we go back to what we were doing before. It doesn’t change structurally from what the drums or bass are doing, it’s just the guitar that does.

You play with a lot of punk bands like Chilling Winston, Alex the Kid and Being Beta and you’ve known them all for years. Have you explored how your sound fits into other pockets of the Perth music scene and are you interested in playing with a wider range of bands?

Matt: It would be cool to play with other bands but we don’t know any other bands. These bands are all friends of ours that we’ve known for, like you said, years. I’ll end up and other shows and there’s bands that are really cool that I think we’d play well along with them but it hasn’t eventuated yet. One day we’ll brach out.

Pat: We don’t have anyone doing any form of management for us, we just sort of self manage… Asking a complete stranger is a bit of a faux pas apparently. We’re very interested to branch out but haven’t yet.

Matt: It’s a bit easier now that we’ve got an album [that people can listen to as a reference] so it might get a bit easier.

Do you find much time to go and check out other bands at shows that you’re not playing in?

Matt: Yeah when I’m home probably most weekends. Last night I saw a show with Nerdlinger, The Revellers, Blindspot, The Decline and House Arrest.

Pat: I’ve still gotta see House Arrest, hey! I’m the opposite of Matt at the moment, I haven’t gone to anything lately… I’ve been a bit shit with that lately but hopefully that changes soon.

Jess: I tend to work most weekends so it’s really hard for me to get out but I try every now and then.

Dave: I’m probably somewhere in the middle of all that; I’m super busy at the moment, but when I can I go to shows.

Have you seen any new bands recently that you really liked?

Matt: I saw Revellers last night, they were really cool, I was pretty impressed with them. Nerdlinger I’ve seen before and they had one song that was so fucking catchy! I bought both their CDs. Flowermouth played at the Lionizer launch show [earlier this year] and they blew my mind, they were awesome.

Jess: I saw Yokohomo recently and they put on a hell of a show.

*Alex The Kid have a new band member joining them.