Of Sinners And Saints

After starting out as primarily a recording project, St Helens are enjoying life as a “real” band, writes RENÉ SCHAEFER. Bed photography by KARL SCULLIN.

St Helens is the vehicle for the sardonic songs of Jarrod Quarrell. Backed by a stellar band of underground luminaries, they have delivered an album that packs a punch both musically and lyrically. The band manages this not through volume or aggression – instead they favour a muscular subtlety and attention to detail often lacking in today’s climate of short attention spans, shiny surfaces and instant gratification.

Hence Heavy Profession unfolds gradually. It’s what they used to call “a grower” in the old days; an album that is a joy to return to over and over, because there is always more to discover. A lot of time has obviously gone into crafting this record, which seems a long way removed from the full-frontal assault of Quarrell’s previous band The New Season.

Relaxing over a few drinks in the Old Bar beer garden, he reminisces about the transition from fronting this dark power trio to writing songs that possess both intelligence and potential mass appeal.

“The New Season broke up around 2005, although we have done a few reformation shows since then. The idea with St Helens was to do something broader. The New Season was a punk rock band where every song was pretty flat out. We tried to introduce some slower songs, but it just didn’t work. We had made the decision early on to play in that full-on style.”

In the early 2000s, The New Season were a truly formidable force on Melbourne’s live scene. Coming off like a gang of juvenile delinquents straight out of photographer Larry Clark’s Tulsa series, they had a sharpie swagger and a clutch full of classic low-life songs.

“When we formed, everybody was playing in a post-rock style. I wanted to play up-beat music that people could dance to, but was still poppy and had hooks. In the end though, it had just run its course. The New Season never jammed, really. We were very much flying by the seat of our pants.”

The only legacy of their existence is a self-titled mini album that bristles with the same menace and pop nous as their legendary live shows. Following The New Season’s dissolution, Quarrell took a while to re-invent himself.

“For about a year-and-a-half I didn’t play in any bands. I did a noise-guitar project with Chris Smith and I wrote a batch of songs on acoustic guitar, which I didn’t end up using for anything.”

The catalyst for the formation of St Helens came when Quarrell was approached by Karl Scullin (Kes Band, Mum Smokes) to write songs with him for a recording project. The pair started jamming with drummer Paul Williams (Panel Of Judges) and developed the songs that would end up on Heavy Profession.

Soon after, Quarrell started toying with the idea of introducing a second vocalist into the band. The person he had in mind was Hannah Brooks, whom he had seen perform with her bands Young Professionals and Spider Vomit.

“We had never met,” recalls Brooks. “He just called me one day and asked if I wanted to come over and sing along to all these songs that he had.”

“I thought Hannah had a great raw rock’n’roll voice,” Quarrell explains. “I wanted to change how I approached being in a band and introduce other elements. I used to double-track my vocals on New Season recordings, so now the idea was to double-track it with another voice. It gives the songs an extra dynamic. It’s not about having harmony parts. We want it to sound like one voice, made up of two vocalists.”

The addition of Lewis Boyes (The Alpha Males) on guitar allowed Jarrod to play more keyboards, a skill which he had recently taught himself.

“Keyboard is actually easier to play than guitar. It’s all laid out in front of you, whereas guitar is more about patterns. It came quite naturally to me and I tend to write a lot more on the piano now. I’ve had to practice, of course. When you are a novice on any instrument, you can write a song, but it’s still very difficult to play it.”

Still adhering to Scullin’s concept of St Helens as a recording project, the band chose to restrict its live appearances and concentrate on developing their songs at Head Gap studios with engineer Jack Farley. Recording stretched from September 2007 to March 2008 with numerous overdubs done at Farley’s house.

“I’m very interested in the idea of ‘the popular song’ – from Hank Williams to Brian Eno, and everything in between. The factors that make songs universal are big picture themes like love and nature.”

Brooks had known the fledgling engineer from when they both lived in Brisbane, where he had built a home studio and taught himself the rudiments of his craft. Since relocating to Melbourne, Farley has made quite a name for himself, mainly for recording Panel Of Judges’ acclaimed Bad Vibrations and Beaches’ AMP-nominated debut album. But, as Brooks explains, these successes were still ahead of Farley when St Helens got in touch with him.

“The first recording Jack did in Melbourne was The Spider Vomit EP. Because of this, Jarrod and I were both keen to work with him. Recording St Helens was his first time in a big studio. He’s been using Head Gap to record bands at since then, but he is building his own studio at the moment. Recently he’s recorded ZOND and Circle Pit.”

Quarrell agrees that it was a fruitful collaboration in the studio. “I like working with friends and people who have an affinity with what we do, so that we can work on things together. Jack did a great job with our album, but everybody else had an input as well. Lewis had a lot to do with it. He knew what he was doing.”

Having fine-tuned St Helens’ songs in the studio, the band was lucky enough to attract the attention of Remote Control/Dot Dash label director Steve Cross.

“I knew Steve through my day job,” Brooks elaborates. “At the end of some work-related email he mentioned that he had listened to our songs on MySpace and that he really liked them. When we finished the album, we sent it to him and it all just went from there.”

Still, a full year was to elapse before the eventual release of Heavy Profession. It transpires that this was a deliberate strategy on the part of Dot Dash.

“They wanted to make more of an impact and spread the word,” Brooks says, before Quarrell chimes in. “We were happy to go with that. They are good people and they’ve got good taste.”

Another crucial factor was St Helens’ transition from studio project to live band. With live appearances becoming more frequent, Scullin and Williams decided they couldn’t sustain their many commitments, musical and otherwise, and dedicate time to St Helens as well.

According to Quarrell, the two musicians’ departure was entirely amicable. “They were obviously really busy and prolific. I started enjoying playing live again and wanted to do it more.” New members were drawn from the band’s circle of friends. “Lewis had initially replaced Ian Wadley in the band as guitarist and then Ian came back to play bass. It was perfect really. I also knew Damian Clarkson, our new drummer. They are all part of a wider music community”

The record label’s insistence on holding back the release of the album seems to have paid off, giving the band time to build a live reputation through touring and high-profile supports for well-known local bands such as Love Of Diagrams and New York art-rockers Blonde Redhead. Getting some airplay on triple j with their radio single ‘How To Choose Your Guru Pt 2’ obviously didn’t hurt either.

Brooks is enthusiastic about being featured in jmag. “We want that,” she says. “We want other people to hear our music.”

Quarrell agrees. “The great thing about getting played on triple j is knowing that some kid in Dubbo has heard our songs. I don’t know how we fit in with other music that’s around, but I believe we are making quality music. They’re catchy songs and there’s no reason why a lot of people shouldn’t like them. I thought that about The New Season too. Obviously I am influenced by a lot stuff outside of pop, but we work within pop structures.

“I’m very interested in the idea of ‘the popular song’ – from Hank Williams to Brian Eno, and everything in between. The factors that make songs universal are big picture themes like love and nature.”

Asked what inspires his lyrics, Quarrell becomes pensive. “Life, and my reaction to it, I guess, friendships. I write words pretty quickly and then I let them lie for a while. The best way for me to write is to tape a riff and then record a ‘mumble track’. Often, complete lines will come out of my mouth while I’m doing that. I don’t really decide what a song is going to be about beforehand. It just comes out and the song will start making sense in some way.”

Quarrell explains that attending an all-male Catholic school had a lasting influence on his songwriting too. Heavy Profession is peppered with religious allusions.

“It just seems curious to me that, at this advanced stage of civilisation, we are still so preoccupied with religion. A lot of conflicts that are going on in the world are about religion. I write about what I see, and I experienced a lot of contradiction with religion as a student. These themes are omnipresent in the world. Another theme is childhood and a loss of innocence. A few of my songs deal with that.”

Having not had any input into the songwriting on Heavy Profession because most of the material was already written prior to her joining the band, Brooks is keen to make more of a contribution in the future.

“That’s something we’ve talked about a lot,” she says. “I’m a songwriter as well, despite Spider Vomit being very much a group effort. St Helens is the first time I’ve been in a band where there is one principal songwriter. Jarrod has a very distinctive style. At first I found his phrasing difficult, but I think I understand it now and eventually we’ll start writing together.”

Quarrell also feels that this is the direction St Helens are heading in.

“It just has to go that way. We can’t repeat what we have done. We made this record as the band was still forming, but I’m hoping to have recorded the second one by the end of the year.”

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‘HEAVY PROFESSION’ LAUNCH

Saturday, May 30
Northcote Social Club, Melbourne, VIC

Friday, June 26
Spectrum, Sydney, NSW