Harmony: ‘North Korean-Style Democracy’

For all the potential sweetness of a three-piece vocal section, Melbourne ensemble Harmony are still gloriously damaged on their second album, thanks to the hoarse revelations and scuffed production work of leader Tom Lyncgoln. DOUG WALLEN talks to Lyncgoln about refusing to clean up the band’s act.

[Historical image is withheld pending rights review.] Whether or not there’s a bottle-able ‘triple j sound’, we do wind up with an awful lot of young bands sounding an awful lot alike these days, often erring on the side of bright-eyed, upbeat and pop-addled. That makes Harmony all the more of a standout. Everything about the band is a stubborn point of difference from those around it: three-piece vocal section, muffled production, dirge-y crawls to the finish line, frontman Tom Lyngcoln’s haunted songwriting and that ragged merger of age-old gospel and blues with folk and punk.

Following up the counter-programming glory of its self-titled 2011 debut, Harmony comes even further into its own on this year’s cathartic, unflattering Carpetbombing. The Melbourne six-piece does the pretty/ugly thing so well, in fact, that it’s impossible to quite isolate where the one ends and the other begins. And so it should be: life doesn’t lend itself to neat compartmentalisation and, as Lyngcoln reminds us, often it’s a soiled, limping, down-and-out mess. That we have a band like Harmony to trudge through the muck of it all so that we don’t have to – that’s something we should be thankful for every day of our rotten little lives.

First I want to talk about the production for both albums, especially the new one. It’s something that people single out with the band. Did you ever think about making it more user-friendly?
I don’t know if the music lends itself to too slick of a production. There’s also the problem that I’m a poor communicator when it comes to music. I hate talking about it. So trying to convey to somebody else how I want things to sound is an impossibility. So, regardless of my lack of skills, I’m forced into the position of just having to forge my own way to get as close to what’s in my head as possible.

We always cop a fair bit of criticism about how the records sound. People are always going to say it could be a lot better if it sounded nicer, but I think that if you head into that realm, then maybe the songs are a little bit too blatant and too much. It’s already pushing a lot of emotional nerve endings. You kind of need a protective layer of shit in between you and the songs so that you really don’t have to engage too closely with it. You don’t cop every single syllable. If it was higher fidelity, it would probably be even harder going – and maybe kind of gross.

But you did include the lyrics with the album [albeit not verbatim].
Kind of. I go out of my way to avoid full disclosure in the lyrics, particularly with this band. At times I find the lyrics embarrassing. It’s something I can do [only] when we’re playing the songs together. It’s like Year 9 poetry. It can be pretty harsh. [Laughs]

“If you’re gonna present any kind of band, you may as well do it in the shittiest way possible.”

It’s a slippery slope once you start trying to make things sounds ‘nice’.
Yeah. Ten years ago there was a real problem with ProTools, where all of a sudden all these perfect records were getting made. I mean, people have always done everything they can to make music sound as perfect as possible. It’s just human nature, I think. When it comes time to document something you’ve been working on for so long, you want it to sound as good as possible.

But I kind of go the other way. I want everything to sound as ragged as possible and inject as much humanity into it as possible. And also, all my favourite records are just laced with mistakes. Something I like about music is the fact that there are musicians playing it as opposed to machines. Electronic music is probably far more prevalent than the traditional band format these days, so if you’re gonna present any kind of band, you may as well do it in the shittiest way possible. [Laughs]

Do you have any anecdotes from your collaboration with Don Walker?
Just that it’s something that … Don’s been a pretty big part of my life, from afar. I’ve always had a pretty substantial appreciation for him. I think he’s a really interesting songwriter and a really underrated songwriter. His solo records [outside of Cold Chisel] are really slow, unfolding masterpieces. He’s the quintessential slow-burn artist, and that’s something we try to do with our music. It probably takes a few weeks to get into it and then it stays longer than other records maybe. There’s no immediacy, which is something that we like.

I was really terrified approaching Don. Fortunately I was able to do it online, where all the punch-drunk sentences come together a lot faster. For some reason he said yes. We actually thought about just having Don’s voice by itself. He was quite resistant to that. He was very much into the idea of the accompaniment. But I haven’t really heard back from him since. I sent him a record and I hope he got himself into what he thought he was getting into. But to me he’s pretty Paul Kelly-type stuff. Pretty lofty résumé.

How democratic is the band in figuring out arrangements and harmony parts?
Kind of North Korean-style democracy? I’ll write the song and take it to Alex [Lyngcoln, drums]. At that point it changes. It’s pretty much exactly like a communist relic, where it starts off with an intention and just comes out as autocratic terror. [Laughs] It definitely changes and it morphs into the creature it becomes due to the input of the others. Jon [Chapple] just writes his bass lines according to what we send him. Even at that point things shift dramatically; Jon’s got a pretty skewed perspective on music, and he always comes in from left field. He’s never ever gonna do what you want him to do. That’s just inherent in his nature.

And then you times that by another three with the three girls [singers Amanda Roff, Quinn Veldhuis and Erica Dunn]. They’re capable of producing anything. They go through these weird baroque phases. The only thing we try to avoid would be too much soul/Stax tribute-band kind of stuff, which is just done to death and too sugary sweet. It’s also, culturally, got nothing to do with a bunch of white kids in Australia, so we try to present something that’s got some kind of Australian overtones to it on that front, with the vocals. But I start it and then it runs away from me downhill rapidly and heads into the place that it heads, which is nice.

“I’ve never been a big party guy. Generally I want to go to bed and hopefully wake up.”

How do you find playing in a band with your wife [Alex]?
Really good. It’s added another dimension to the relationship that’s been really healthy. We’ve been together for the best part of 14 years, and [now] we get to do the things that always used to separate us. She used to tour with bands, I used to tour with bands; it was the thing that kept us apart and now we get to do it together. It’s really nice. I’ve never been a big party kind of guy: I’ve always been a smelly, bloody mess and not really interested in going out and partying after gigs. Generally I want to go to bed and hopefully wake up. There’s been a few nights where that was in doubt. [Laughter] I’ve had some pretty nasty concussions.

I can imagine, at times maybe, for the others it can be a little strange. But we’re pretty sensitive to everyone else in the band. The relationship definitely doesn’t dominate proceedings at all.

What’s the status of The Nation Blue? What’s next for them?
[Laughs] Obese? “Morbidly obese” is a pretty good description of where it’s heading. It’s kind of festering on a couch. We had to play a couple of gigs late last year, and in rehearsing and trying to relearn some songs for that, we ended up writing about eight songs really, really quickly and recorded some of them as well. We’re just waiting for things to calm down, probably in the second half of the year. We intended to go away and record another record around this time, but couldn’t get it together around Christmas. Matt and Dan with High Tension are about to head overseas, and Dan’s playing with Adalita as well.

I think we’ll probably have another record out next year, which would be nice. What it’s going to sound like, who knows? Now that I’ve got a suitable outlet for most of the stuff that I write, I’m gonna try to flip the angry switch again and harness the meanness again, which is pretty hard as you get older sometimes. But it’s something that I’m prepared to have a crack at.

It’s hard to stay angry?
Well, I thought so, but the Abbott government has given me plenty. I’ve had to just stop looking. All I’m going to have to do is read up and then I’ll be furious enough. It’s a real worry. But we’ll definitely have something out soon. We’ve got a couple of other bands on the go as well.

You do?
I had one with Kody [Abrams] from The Gasometer, which has only just split up. I’ve got a friend called Rhys [O’Loughlin from Pairs] – we have a few ideas that we’re going to put down and put together.

What was the thing with Kody called?
We never named it. It was with Lee [Parker] from East Link and Lakes, and Tom Rowley, who plays in Gentlemen. It was this weird thing where we all played along to the drum machine, including the drummer. We just never found a singer in time and then it fell apart.

You didn’t want to sing?
No, no, I just wanted to play guitar. I’m starting to have trouble with my voice, where bad technique is starting to take its toll. I had to take six to 12 months off a couple years ago because of Harmony. [Laughs] I thought playing in a ballad band would be heaps easier [on my voice], but it’s actually worse.

+

‘Carpetbombing’ is out now on vinyl, CD and digital through Poison City. Read Edward Sharp-Paul’s review , Tom Lyngcoln’s Track by Track and Lyngcoln’s interviews with some of the contributors to the bonus ‘Deconstructions’ disc.

Thurs, April 3 – Black Bear Lodge, Brisbane, QLD [w/Gentle Ben + Per Purpose]
Fri, April 4 – GoodGod Small Club, Sydney, NSW [w/Day Ravies + Angie]
Sat, April 5 – The Phoenix, Canberra, ACT [w/Hoodlum Shouts + Sex Noises]
Sat, April 12 – The Brisbane Hotel, Hobart, TAS [w/The Native Cats + Naked]
Sat, April 26 – Howler, Melbourne, VIC [w/Deaf Wish, Tyrannamen, Laura Imbruglia, BJ Morriszonkle + very special secret guest]