Gareth Edwards: Part One

In the first installment of his two-part interview with The Holy Rose’s Gareth Edwards, RENÉ SCHAEFER talks to the former Sandro frontman about his beginnings in Perth, music as therapy and the formation of his seminal ’90s outfit.

[Historical image is withheld pending rights review.] Over the past 13 years, Gareth Edwards has created a formidable body of work, first with his band Sandro and more recently as a solo artist under the moniker The Holy Rose. Despite critical acclaim, whether by accident or design, his audience has remained limited.

Based in suburban Brisbane, Edwards acutely observes human nature and the poignant details of everyday life. A consummate songwriter, he pens tales of fragile beauty and wry insights, often tinged with world-weary sadness.

Having recently self-released the latest Holy Rose album Bats And Birds, Edwards is preparing for a rare visit to Melbourne in late May. He takes time out from his domestic existence to take a look back at where he has been and where he is going.

Gareth, you grew up in Perth. What was that like?
I was born in Subiaco and adopted out due, most likely, to my birth mother’s young age. I grew up in the suburbs; mostly in a place called Balcatta. At the time, Balcatta was considered an outer suburb. I doubt that it still is. Dad worked for an aluminium refinery, starting in the mail room and, via night school, eventually ending up in the drafting office. Mum did various secretarial jobs. My mother is Roman Catholic; my father is best described as an atheist. I’m neither religious nor nihilistic in my outlook.

I was not popular at school, up until the last couple of years. I got into my share of fights and was a bit of a loner. Mid-way through high school I discovered skateboarding and the kinds of ideas and music that accompany the scene. I made a few new friends and I think it was this that brought me out of my shell a bit.

My parents split up when I was 11. My stepfather and mother are still together. He has spent quite a bit of time in the armed forces, but has also held various civilian jobs. When I met him he was driving semi-trailer loads of cars across the country.

I have a sister who I haven’t seen for many years. She’s currently in America, working the ski season. She travels a lot.

How did you first get interested in playing music?
I can’t think of a specific point at which it started. I was given a transistor radio when I was very young and I used to put it under my pillow and listen to it in bed at night. From that I developed a love of pop music. My mother had a couple of ABBA records which I used to listen to repeatedly. On Sundays I was allowed to watch Countdown. I started playing guitar after my parents bought a nylon string from a friend of the family for 30 bucks. Like many people, music for me was both an escape and a comfort. Singing and playing makes me feel better.

My mum led the church choir for a number of years. When we went to mass I was sometimes allowed to sit with the choir. Some of the hymns had melodies that I liked.

You played with a few different bands in Perth, including the rather “interesting” art-rockers Thou Gideon, Manic Pizza and Milk Moustache. Tell me a bit about those bands. How did you hook up with these people?
When I started university I decided I wanted to try and play in an actual band. I put up some ads on the campus notice boards, not really expecting any response. A week or so later I got a call from a guy called Mark who was looking for a guitarist for his band, which was Thou Gideon. I went along to a rehearsal and found myself attracted to the people and the music. I loved playing in that band and some of my best memories of music and friendship come from that time. Mark’s vision was to shock the Perth scene out of its complacency. We were banned from a number of venues, so I suppose we were successful to some degree. A lot of his ideas were quite surreal and were a big influence on me many years later. My experiences in Thou Gideon cemented my belief that any time spent trying to be popular was wasted time.

Of course there were a lot of negative things going on around this time as well. The recession of the early ’90s had hit and jobs were extremely scarce. I was failing university and ended up dropping out. Things were not great family-wise. Thou Gideon provided a great escape for me.

I met Cameron [Potts] through Thou Gideon. He and his friend Dylan used to come to see the band pretty regularly. We all ended up being friends. I quit Thou Gideon when Mark decided he wanted to move the band to Melbourne. After that, Cameron and I started jamming together, playing covers of songs we liked. We eventually started bringing our own songs in. Cameron came up with the name Manic Pizza. We met Laura MacFarlane via another Perth band called The Brautigans. She joined Manic Pizza as the bass player, but she also sang and wrote songs for the band. We all moved to Melbourne and gigged around there for a while. I would describe Manic Pizza as a hardcore band. Cameron was heavily into the Pixies at the time; I was a Hüsker Dü freak; Laura provided the actual talent.

Milk Moustache was an earlier incarnation of Sandro, which didn’t happen until quite a few years later in Melbourne, whilst I was at university (for the second time) and after I met Nick [Carrol].

When and why did you make the move to Melbourne?
I had flunked out of university and just couldn’t find work. I had grown apart from most of my friends, who seemed to be doing OK. My skating friends had all quit. I had no money and couldn’t get the dole due to insufficient time having elapsed since leaving university. My mother, stepfather and sister lived in Werribee, Victoria. I wanted to try my luck at start over in a new place and having somewhere to live straight away made the idea more attractive. I also missed that part of my family. Basically I felt that there was nothing more for me in Perth. It was time to go.

When and how did Sandro come into being?
I met Nick at a party at his house in Windsor. Laura, and one or two others, were sharing the place with him. Laura had quit Manic Pizza to focus on her own work. Julian Williams, another friend from Perth, was playing bass for us. Not long after meeting Nick I disbanded Manic Pizza. We’d all lost interest and I wanted to focus on not failing university.

“”I feel that Sandro probably had more to offer, but finding an audience was becoming very difficult … I am not a career musician, which can be a problem when I’m playing with people whose goals are a little loftier.”

Once I’d pretty much got my studies under control I decided to write a few songs and try and get things moving again. I’d lost touch with Cameron, but managed to catch up with him again and suggested that maybe we could jam. He mentioned this to Nick, who offered to play bass. So I got maybe five songs together and booked a room at the Dane Centre [rehearsal studio]. It was loud, a bit Sonic Youth-ish. We jammed regularly and played the odd gig at the Empress or the Arts House

Cameron and I were friends for a long time prior to Sandro. I became good friends with Nick through playing music with him in Milk Moustache and Sandro. I suppose that being friends made it easier to share ideas; it certainly made playing together more enjoyable. I miss the social side of being in that band.

Was the decision to play slower, quietly intense music with Sandro deliberate or did this style develop over time?
I was tired of playing loud and wanted to try something a little more dynamic. I was strongly influenced by The Blue Nile and Uncle Tupelo early on. Neither of these bands was particularly dynamic sound-wise, but at times they could capture an intensity of feeling through sparseness and subtext. It’s easy for me to pinpoint these influences in retrospect; at the time I doubt that I put much thought into it. I felt sad and therefore I wanted to play sad songs. Turning down the volume and utilising space in the songs just came naturally from those feelings.

You recorded the first Sandro album, Live By Rivers, live in a church hall in Collingwood. What was the idea behind doing that, rather than going to a studio?
The hall is part of a housing commission complex in Collingwood. Cameron was working as a cleaner in those buildings and he knew the guy who was the caretaker for the hall. It’s normally used for community-related events and meetings for local groups. We couldn’t afford to hire a real studio and sound engineer, so Cameron came up with the idea of using the hall. We used whatever equipment Nick had and borrowed and hired the rest. Paul Morris looked after the desk while we recorded in exchange for a slab. We had already started to pare back the songs, but playing a few songs in the hall made us realise we ought to go further. It is an extremely live space and there’s an obscene amount of spill going on. I think the experience of hearing the sounds we could make in this hall cemented the future direction of the band.

The release of Live By Rivers gained you a lot of fans early on. Did that surprise you at the time?
Yes. The Melbourne scene was populated by loud, power-pop style bands at the time. There didn’t seem to be room for us and I didn’t expect anyone to really be into what we were trying to do. The early live shows were a little nerve-wracking.

A lot of people cite Live By Rivers as their favourite Sandro album. How do you feel about that record now?
It’s been a very long time since I actually listened to it, however, I think the sparse, lonely quality of the songs and the sound still resonate with me. It evokes memories of a particular period of time in my life so, in that sense, listening to it is a bit like going through old photos.

The follow-up album, Hate Songs, was a lot darker in tone and denser and more challenging musically and lyrically. What informed the themes and moods of that album?
Long-term self-medication through alcohol and pain killers, coupled with being intensely busy with work and the band, topped with a dysfunctional relationship that was rapidly going south. I could go on but I think I’ve made myself sound pathetic enough. I was a nihilistic, unpleasant person to be around during this time and I lost quite a few friends in the process. I think every song I contributed to that record covers some aspect of my own self-loathing.

As a songwriter you seemed to come into your own on Hate Songs. There are so many memorable images and musical moments on that record. Do you have any favourite songs from this period?
I still perform some of the songs from this record, such as ‘Cruel Brother, Cruel Sister’, ‘The Hedonists’, ‘I’ve Been in Pornographic Movies’ and ‘Rainy Season’, so I suppose I like those ones most. Cameron wrote an amazing song called ‘Israel Girl’ for that album, which I still love to listen to. I tend not to perform ‘He is a Monster Now’ anymore, but I love Michelle [Lewitt’s] violin playing and the tension of the whole performance. I also really like Warwick Lobb’s trumpet playing on ‘Hawaiian Pole Dancer’. That song was written about a night I spent in San Francisco and I think it’s the sound of that trumpet which most strongly evokes the memories of those incidents.

You decided to release your next album The Flux completely independently. What prompted that decision?
Our label [MDS/Brass Companion] dropped us after Hate Songs. I moved to Sydney for a year, so keeping the band active was difficult. When I returned to Melbourne the three of us were still interested in keeping Sandro alive and we had an album ready to go. We thought we might as well just go through with it.

Around that time Sandro also toured America. How was that experience for you?
Expensive, but worthwhile. I suppose our experience might have been typical for an unknown Australian band playing the States for the first time. Gig-wise the highlight was playing support to The Spinanes at The Black Cat in Washington. Ian MacKaye [of Fugazi] stood up the front during our set, arms crossed, looking harsh. That was great. Mostly we played to near-empty rooms, but it didn’t matter. The few people that did come along seemed to enjoy the show. I’d never been to New York before, so exploring that city was definitely a highlight for me. The gigs in New York were tense, but fun. I also enjoyed touring around the Carolinas. We met a lot of people who were really cool to us and great to hang out with.

By the time The Flux was released, Cameron had decided to leave Sandro. Was it hard to make the transition to a new drummer, Mike Noga, whose style of playing was quite different?
Not at all. They’re both great drummers. Mike’s playing style is tighter and slightly less dynamic than Cameron’s, but that led to some interesting re-interpretations of the songs. Listening to The Blood Plums you can really hear how good Mike is. On a personal level, Mike fitted in really well with Nick and I. He doesn’t take himself too seriously and is an easy guy to get along with. He also immediately understood the vibe of the band and didn’t try and play all over the spaces.

Your EP The Blood Plums, which was the first release Mike played on, had a more urgent and somehow more focused sound than The Flux, which meandered and had more of a dream-like quality. Songs like ‘Robot Version’ and ‘Walk With Me’ were probably the most tightly structured and most “rock” songs you have written. What prompted that change?
My songs are heavily influenced by the place in which I’m living at the time of writing. The Blood Plums was written mostly while I was living in Sydney. Mike’s drumming style was really what pushed the arrangements in that tighter, more rock-like direction. The Flux was quite a loose, dissonant collection of songs. We all wanted to make something that was a little more immediate to follow it up.

The Christmas EP from 2002 continued that trend to get away from the “slow core” sound. As a band, did you feel trapped in that style of music?
If the band had continued, I think we would have continued to move away from the “slow core” style. We’d played it out and I guess moving on was the natural way to keep things interesting for us. I was very happy with the lyrics I wrote for Christmas and The Blood Plums. In hindsight I can see that there’s a lot more room for a listener to impose their own meanings. The first three albums were very literal.

The Christmas EP came out on Unstable Ape Records, quite a hip label at that time, but the relationship did not continue. Why was that? Nobody bought the CD. This is not the label’s fault. We didn’t tour the release, and I was going through some personal issues at the time which kind of nullified my interest in the band. We did get some favourable press though. UAR are continuing to put out some interesting music, which is great.

You decided to disband Sandro in early 2003. What were the reasons?
I feel that Sandro probably had more to offer, but finding an audience was becoming very difficult. People’s interest had moved on, as it does. In addition, Mike had joined The Drones and needed to devote more and more time to that project. I don’t blame him for doing this and I’m glad that he moved on to something that was going to give him the opportunities he deserves. I am not a career musician, which can be a problem when I’m playing with people whose goals are a little loftier. My wife and I also decided to have a child. I wanted to focus on that experience and, in doing so, didn’t feel that I was justified in demanding time from Nick and Mike for a project that I was not completely committed to. The band ended on amicable terms.

Were you disappointed that in its later years Sandro’s music didn’t reach as many people as it should have?
A little. I had a vision for Sandro that I’m not sure we achieved, but we were edging closer. Ultimately, though, there’s only so much you can do to garner people’s interest. There comes a point where you have to accept that the attraction you once had for people has faded and it’s time to move on.

In a way Threaded Into The Night, the live album recorded at your farewell show at The Rob Roy, is not just a greatest hits package, some of the songs actually improve on the album versions in terms of dynamics and intensity. Were you pleased with the way that recording came out?
Definitely. Anthony Cornish did a great job with the recording and mixing. He offered to do it for free, which was very generous. We had no intention of releasing the recordings, but Tom Lyngcoln from Solar/Sonar was very keen to do something with it. I’m happy with how it sounds and I think the essence of the band has been well captured.

PART TWO, HERE: Edwards on Sandro’s legacy, domesticity and his solo project The Holy Rose.

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THE HOLY ROSE IN MELBOURNE

Friday, May 22
The Old Bar, Melbourne, VIC

Sunday, May 24
The Northcote Social Club, Melbourne, VIC
Album launch