Yes I’m Leaving: ‘There’s More Articulation In The Anger’

Three albums in, Sydney trio Yes I’m Leaving still offer roiling, screamed catharsis. But they’re also concentrating more on lyrics and production than ever before, guitarist/singer Billy Burke and bassist David Cook tell MITCHELL JUDGE.

[Historical image is withheld pending rights review.] A ‘sold out’ sign hung from the door of Black Wire for the launch of Yes I’m Leaving’s third album Mission Bulb in May. If you needed further proof of how important this band has become, their raucous reception from the crowd provided just that.

A few weeks later I walked past hundreds of cars trapped in standstill traffic, all heading to the Socceroos vs. Iraq game, which was also sold out, before I arrived at a rehearsal studio where Yes I’m Leaving were just another band. Guitarist and lead singer Billy Burke and bassist David Cook were both polite and soft-spoken; it’s hard to believe they are the same guys that can unleash an onslaught of noise and screaming at live shows. We spoke about these differences, and discuss just how far the band has come in a short time.

Mission Bulb is your third album in four years. What do you think has changed in that time?
Billy Burke: Well, I didn’t mix Mission Bulb. We got people that we knew to do it this time around; Ivan [Lisyak] from Narrow Lands mixed it, and Steve [Smith] from Skul Hazzards mastered it. That was because I mixed the last album [Nothing] and I made it very noisy, and the music was maybe a bit harsher; there was a lot of screaming.

David Cook: We recorded all three albums ourselves, but this time we got it mixed by someone else. For the first record [Yes I’m Leaving] we just did it all in a day, and that was it.

Burke: And then for Nothing I mixed it separately, just so I could play around with double-mic’ing guitar amps and stuff. So I guess to answer your question, we spent a bit more time thinking about production, and the songs came over a longer period of time. With Nothing I usually just came up with the guitar riff or something, and then it was written very quickly, and then we recorded it quickly.

“I’m not as angry or shitty about things as I was when I wrote ‘Nothing’.”

So you still recorded it yourself?
Burke: Yeah, we just came in and recorded the tracks over about six hours. Some of the tracks were recorded live, and then I did a separate vocals session here at Keynote [Studios] as well; we set up microphones and I just tried out different sounds. That was just so some songs had a different dynamic to them, and I could think about the lyrics for a bit longer.

And the songs are a little bit different from Nothing; I don’t know why they’re different in terms of the way they sound. Maybe as the person who writes the lyrics, I’m not as angry or shitty about things as much as I was when I wrote Nothing. But it’s a different kind of shitty; about what’s going on personally and about what I see. There’s more articulation in the anger.

In that respect, there’s certainly a big change from Nothing to this record; was the songwriting process longer as well?
Burke: Lyrically it was; I spent a lot more time thinking about what I was trying to talk about in different songs.

Cook: Musically I think we jammed them all out pretty quickly. It was very similar to the other albums.

Burke: Like I would bring a riff, and we’d be lucky and the riff would click. So a song like maybe ‘Creepyman’, I came in with that riff and then Anthony [Boyer] and David lurched into that, and that song came out of it. But also some songs I did a couple of demos and we listened to them and then mucked around with them. It was a quick process in that respect, but lyrically it wasn’t, because I was trying to hone stuff that I was trying to talk about.

I want to talk about ‘Creepyman’ in particular. It seems like it gets an incredible reception every time you play it live. Do you think there’s something special about it, compared to the rest of your material?
Burke: Well, that song is kind of about that quintessential character when you walk from home down to Parramatta Station, or Newtown Station, or wherever you are in the world, and you see this one odd character that just catches your eye for a second. And it’s about thinking about that person more, and imagining what their reality might be. But for me also, it’s about a more sinister character in your life that you have to choose to stay away from; that’s kind of in the chorus.

Cook: The lyrics start off pretty ridiculous, and then it got a bit more serious.

Burke: Yeah, like having a plastic eye. I didn’t want to say glass eye, I wanted it to be more ridiculous. Electric veins, and this weird religious subtext; this guy is going to manipulate you through religion, drugs, whatever. But you have to stay on top of people like that.

But that’s my version. And when I write something like that, and I write the lyrics sheet on the inside of the album, I give it away. So really it doesn’t matter what I think it means; I want it to mean anything to anybody. The author is dead at that point.

“We’re actually reissuing the first two records on vinyl. They should be back from the pressing plant any day now.”

Mission Bulb was also the first record that wasn’t available initially as a free download?
Cook: Yeah, we had CDs and tapes for those first two albums, but just small runs. Just because we spent more money; paying to get it mixed and mastered, which was well worth it, and pressing the vinyl is the main cost. We’re at least trying to make our money back.

Burke: There’s a reason why we put out a vinyl; not only is it the music quality, but you have the artwork, the lyrics sheet, and you can get a free digital download with it. And then you can put it in your collection and keep it forever.

Cook: It’s more of an experience. And apparently no one buys CDs anymore.

Burke: Yeah, it was something that we really wanted to do: we’ve always wanted to have a record on vinyl.

Cook: We’re actually reissuing the first two records on vinyl. They should be back from the pressing plant any day now. [Shaun] Tenzenmen took that upon himself to do that.

The reason I asked that is because of Tenzenmen actually; in an email that Shaun recently sent out he said that he had lost $20,000 in the last financial year. Obviously he has been a massive supporter of you guys. What was it like to hear that?
Cook: Well for starters he runs the label because he loves the music. That’s the main thing. I think he’s willing to spend his money because it’s what he likes and enjoys. He has a passion for helping bands, and he is extremely generous.

Burke: Yeah, that’s a lot of money. But he hasn’t come up to me since then and spoken about that at all. He’s excited about the new stuff that he’s putting out, or explaining what he might be doing to reduce that loss to a degree. But yeah, he’s in it completely for the music and supporting bands that might not otherwise have a reach. He does a lot of stuff in China and in Asia, and the money spent on those bands is very hard to recoup.

I think in the email he referred to it as an investment, rather than a loss. And it’s certainly important for bands to have people like Shaun as support.
Burke: Yeah, definitely. There are a lot of bands playing around, which is good. But there needs to be people who are supporting bands on a separate level from venues, and gigs, and even recording. Just in terms of setting up ways in which they can put out their music how they want to, and getting publicity for them.

“You have to bring 20 people or you can’t play. Which for us is an impossible contractual obligation, because how do you know if your friends are going to show up?”

Similarly, Black Wire has been a pretty important place for your band.
Cook: Yeah, we played at their last fundraiser, and we’ve launched our last two albums there. It’s just a really good place to play. It’s really easy to organise for starters; Tom [Scott] is just an easy-going guy.

Burke: Pub venues have their pros and cons; some of the cons are sound people who don’t like you playing loudly.

Cook: Like they will actually come up and turn your amps down while you’re playing. That can be fucking painful.

Burke: Yeah, and there’s that deal where you have to bring 20 or 30 people or you can’t play. Which for us is an impossible contractual obligation, because how do you know if your friends are going to show up? Something else could be on, or the world could end.

And then you’ve got a venue like Black Wire, which isn’t just for buying records, tapes and CDs – you can also go to a gig there, see a band for cheap, hang out with bands and people that you know or don’t know that well, and that leads to a lot of musical cross-pollinating. So bands will see another band and say, “Oh, they were really great. We’ll try to get a gig with them.” Black Wire is important. It’s how we got heaps of gigs when we started playing, just before Nothing, and that was so helpful. I love Black Wire, that’s what I say every time I go there.

So after the reissues, do you plan to take a step back for a while?
Cook: Hopefully we’ll record another album this year. We’ve been writing; we’ve got four or five new songs. We’ll try to do one album per year … forever.

Burke: Yeah, aiming for this year, hopefully. Recording or playing little tours or whatever is working at the time.

You’ve been playing a lot of shows recently. You went down to Adelaide and Melbourne; how was that?
Burke: Yeah, Adelaide was great; we played with No Action and a Newcastle band called Amateur Drunks. And we stayed above the venues; nice beds, it was perfect. Melbourne was with No Action again, and Teenage Libido and Halt Ever at Old Bar. And that was a good show too.

Cook: We had more of a crowd this time down there.

Burke: Oh, the first time we played in an amphitheatre in Fairfield, out of the city, with Alphabet Snakes and Spew Your Guts Up, and that was fun because it was a weird tour.

Cook: Second time we went there, just couldn’t get a crowd. A few people turned up, and we played with some really good bands but still no one came. [Laughs]

“We’re actually calm because we spend all that time screaming or hitting the shit out of a drum kit or thrashing a bass.”

It’s quite interesting to see how relaxed and softly spoken you guys are: much different from the screaming, aggressive guys that your music might indicate.
Burke: Yeah, and that can be difficult. People think that we’re such angry people, which we’re really not. We’re not going to be angry towards you when you talk to us. We’re actually calm people because we spend all of that time screaming, or hitting the shit out of a drum kit, or thrashing a bass. There is a lot of anger in our music, but it makes sense why it’s there. We’re mellow, relaxed people; I’ve never had an aggressive moment with any of these guys.

[Historical image is withheld pending rights review.] Is your music a way of venting then?
Burke: Yeah I guess, before I said I write about things that I’m pissed off about, but on the new album it’s a bit different. The song ‘Undertow’ is about depression and sleep depravation, a lot of stuff is about a hazy state … I like the idea of the boundaries between reality and how you define reality. I used to get sleep paralysis, where I would wake up but I couldn’t move; that’s what ‘Four Chorder’ is about for me.

So it’s more than anger; it’s the stuff I can’t really deal with or that I can’t get through. But I am angry. I’m angry about stuff, so why not yell and make it sound good so people can relate to it, maybe get their anger out too and then everyone’s relaxed. I hate aggression, and aggressive people. It’s not necessary anywhere really.

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‘Mission Bulb’ is out now through Tenzenmen. Yes I’m Leaving will play the Croatian Wickham Sports Club in Newcastle this Friday (July 12) with Nunchukka Superfly and Obat Batuk, and The Red Rattler in Sydney on Saturday, August 10 with Constant Mongrel, Woollen Kits, Bed Wettin’ Bad Boys and Destiny 3000 for Repressed Records’ birthday.