Full Ugly: ‘I Just Go For It’

Love Connection guitarist Nathan Burgess made a record with his own band, but it’s taken three years to finally see the light of day. Interview by DOUG WALLEN.

[Historical image is withheld pending rights review.] There’s always a gap between when a band records an album and when it’s released, but it’s not usually three years. Full Ugly, the solo-project-turned-quartet of Melbourne’s Nathan Burgess, cut Spent the Afternoon with Jack Farley (Beaches, Bitch Prefect) back in mid-2011, but it has only just come out via Bedroom Suck. Why the epic wait? It just took Burgess a long time to find a label, and Bedroom Suck a bit longer to clear a spot in its release schedule. (Although there’s definitely some solace to be had in the album falling under the label’s newfound international deal with Fire Records.)

The delay puts the album smack in the middle of a saturated guitar-pop scene rather than at its start a few years ago. But the current abundance of jangly guitars and mild-mannered vocals in Australian indie music shouldn’t put anyone off Full Ugly: the band is steadier than most, exhaling reverb-frosted tunes full of wagging, surf-tinged melodies and plaintive, day-in-the-life lyrics. The songs come into even sharper focus live, with a certain country tug audible in the ones written since Spent the Afternoon, while ‘Nervous’ and ‘Hilly Street’ map more frayed emotions.

Burgess used to play guitar in Love Connection before that band’s leader, Michael Caterer, relocated to New York with bandmate and wife Kobi Simpson – and Caterer used to play in Full Ugly as well. His move overseas left Burgess to pursue Full Ugly predominately and find a new lead guitarist, eventually recruiting his housemate Nathan McFarlane to join bassist Zach Schneider (Great Outdoors, Totally Mild) and drummer Thomas Mendelovits (Milk Teddy). While the album still sees Caterer playing guitar and Burgess juggling roles since filled by his bandmates, the live band has long been solid and – unsurprisingly – now has enough material for a second LP.

Ahead of a launch tour, Burgess started our interview by mentioning that, despite the holdups, he was fairly sure he didn’t want to self-release the album.

Why didn’t you want to release it yourself?
I just figured it’d be good if someone could put it out and get the word out more than I could. I didn’t want it to be a nothing [release]. There were many times when I thought I should just self-release it, to get it off my chest, but then just having Joe [Alexander from Bedroom Suck] all the time saying he was gonna do it [helped]. He just needed more time.

It was up on Soundcloud for a while, wasn’t it?
Yeah, I chucked it up there and didn’t really tell anyone, just so people could listen to it if they want. That was just an unmastered version, one of the first mixes we had.

Have you been writing a lot of material since?
Yeah, we’ve got pretty much a new album that we wanna record properly pretty soon. So it worked out: the new album is just gonna back up the old album straightaway, pretty much.

Does it feel funny to still be playing these songs and still be tied to them?
A little bit. I’ve never actually been sick of the songs, which is a good thing. But at practices it’s kind of like, “Ugh, this song again?” A lot of the shows, we’ve just been playing new stuff and a couple of the old songs. It seems kind of strange going back to the old songs now because we have to launch it. It’s fun learning them again, ones we haven’t played for a year or longer.

I really liked what you were playing at the Record Store Day gig.
That was mainly new stuff.

“It’s not as if I’m trying to rip anybody off.”

Some of it sounded country-ish.
Yeah, we’ve had people saying that. I don’t know, I guess I listen to heaps of Neil Young and Crazy Horse, and people see country in that. But it’s not as if I’m trying to rip anybody off. I like that sound and I do listen to country music as well.

It was something I hadn’t noticed the previous time I saw you, so I thought maybe the new material was going more in that direction.
No, no. Well, I haven’t intended to. [Laughs] Maybe there’s a bit more twang in the guitar I was playing. I’ve been trying to pull out some lead lines lately, which I’ve never done in the past.

Has the band had a solid lineup for a while now?
Well, Michael [Caterer] was in the band originally and then he had to move over to New York because he got a job. I was living with my friend Nathan [McFarlane] at the time and we were playing guitar together. I was like, “You may as well join,” because he knew the songs. So he’s been in the band probably two years. It’s pretty solid. Even with the new songs in comparison to what Michael used to play, it’s not that different.

So is it Michael playing the lead lines on the album?
Yeah, in collaboration with what I made up. I showed him quite a bit. ’Cause at the start, Full Ugly was just me, pretty much, on the four-track. I showed the guys the songs and said, “Play it like this but use your own touch.” A lot of the songs, like ‘Drove Down’ and ‘Hanging Around’, it’s just all me.

It’s pretty easy with technology if you want to keep making music with Michael remotely. Have you thought about doing that?
Not really. We’re not fast workers anyway, and he’s pretty busy with his own band [Shorts]. And he plays in Scott & Charlene’s [Wedding] as well. We’ve joked about it a couple of times, but nothing so far.

“I don’t think I have a beautiful voice or sing like a bird.”

You have a distinctive singing voice. Especially live, it’s pretty high. Did it take you time to get confident about singing live?
Not really. I’m not that confident about my singing voice, but I just go for it. I’m not trying to impress anyone. I don’t think I have a beautiful voice or sing like a bird or whatever. [Laughs] I just go for it. When I’m making a song, I know now if something has to be lower or higher. It took me a while, when I heard my voice back on recordings, to get used to it. I usually just double-track it and it warms it up away.

Is this the first band you’ve sang lead for?
Yeah, pretty much.

Did you have many bands before Love Connection?
No. [Just] early high-school bands. [This] has been my thing for years. I’ve always just called it Full Ugly, from like eight years ago, when I was trying to write songs.

I hear the influence of Galaxie 500 in Full Ugly, and the beginning of ‘Drove Down’ reminds me of ‘Tugboat’. Were they a big band for you?
To be honest, I got into them after recording our album, just realising the similarities. It’s never been a big part of [my] influences.

Do you think much about influences in general, or do just block that out and do what you’re going to do?
I don’t block it out. I guess I have good intuition of what I can sound like and how I deliver the songs. I just go with that and it seems to fit … nowhere [in particular], really. Whatever people wanna say it sounds like, I’m cool with that.

There’s that line in ‘Summertime’ about “killing all the animals.” What’s that song about?
In that summer when I wrote it, two or three years ago, it was one of the stinking hot days. It [was like] everything’s gonna die because it’s getting so hot. It just felt that way on that day.

A lot of the lyrics seem to have that autobiographical slant, just observing your surroundings. Is that your general approach to writing lyrics?
I don’t know. I try and write stories, but everything’s just autobiographical. How I deal with a situation – or, yeah, if I’m annoyed – generally comes out clearer. I can’t really tell an interesting story other than something that’s happened to myself or how I’m feeling.

Is the newer material much different to the older stuff?
Not necessarily. I just feel like I’ve gotten better at guitar and I’m wanting to do more interesting things. As far as lyrics, it’s still the same method: trying to write about a situation or how I’m feeling. Or let somebody know [something]. Not directly, because that’s a bit strange if you do that. But it’s always personal.

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‘Spent the Afternoon’ is out now on CD, vinyl and digital through Bedroom Suck, with international distribution through Fire Records. Launch tour dates below.

Fri, May 2 – The Brightside, Brisbane, QLD [w/Rites Wild, Martyr Privates + Thigh Master]
Sat, May 10 – Metro, Adelaide, SA [w/Parading + Bruff Superior]
Fri, May 16 – Brisbane Hotel, Hobart, TAS [w/Treehouse, Pines + Heart Beach]
Fri, May 23 – John Curtin Hotel, Melbourne, VIC [w/Bitch Prefect, Totally Mild + Moon Dice]