Track by Track: Liam Kenny

The prolific LIAM KENNY (Bitch Prefect, Peak Twins, Friendsters, Roamin' Catholics) teams up with producer JACK FARLEY (Beaches, ZOND) for an unlikely covers album spanning All Saints, The Stones, Bob Dylan and Billy Idol.

[Historical image is withheld pending rights review.]

Jack Farley: I think it should be noted that the following recollection will be flawed. The bulk of this record was recorded nearly three years ago and I don’t have a great memory.

Kate Reid (It Records) is an old friend and after she heard it and we told her that no one was interested in putting it out she decided to start a label so it could see a release. So even if this record is shit, at least Melbourne has another good label that has already put out excellent records by Miles Brown, Little Desert and White Hex.

I’d also like to mention that pretty much my favourite part of the record is the liner notes written by Jensen Tjhung. It’s worth buying the record just to read them, but I guess you could just go into a record store and read it there. Maybe we should have put them on the inside.

‘I’m the Ocean’

JF: I’d never heard this song before Liam played it to me. I love that it goes for so long with no real change and at some point becomes sort of hypnotic. I wanted a really close sound for all the guitars so they were all DI’d. Something that we ended up doing on a few tracks for the record, but I think this was the first with only DI’d guitar.

I think we were on our way to ask Al Montfort (Dick Diver, Total Control, etc.) to do the lead guitar for the outro when we ran into Marty Frawley (Twerps) and we got him do it. He did a really great job of playing a complementary line to what Liam was doing so that it didn’t just become mush. Drum pattern courtesy of my shitty Kawai organ.

Liam Kenny: This is an overlooked Neil Young song. I wanted our cover to sound like Remain in Light-era Talking Heads. It kind of doesn’t at all. But I like the way it turned out. It’s pretty similar to the original. Marty’s contributions on lead guitar are great.

JF: I think it’s overlooked because isn’t it off the weird record he did with Pearl Jam as his backing band [1995’s Mirror Ball?

LK: Yeah that could be why.

‘Eyes Without a Face’

JF: Billy Idol classic. Getting the weird slide guitar to sound like a synth was one of my happiest moments of the recording. I think it was a delay into a MXR Blue Box into a shitty distortion pedal. I guess we could have just used a synth to get the sound, but I like how it kinda makes me feel sick from the way it lurches up to the note. From memory Liam played it with an old stubby neck. But I wouldn’t trust my memory, as I was probably drunk.

LK: It was a stubby but not the neck, the main part. Thanks for asking. Some of the slides don’t quite make it to the right note which is always good. Another one that ended up more similar to the original than I thought it would, except we got rid of that crazy part in the middle. Amy Hill (Constant Mongrel, School of Radiant Living) sings the backup parts really great and Jack did something to the guitar that makes it sound like Tears for Fears on a cruise ship in heaven.

JF: I have no memory of what I did to the guitars, but I do remember that Amy nailed those takes pretty much first run through. I think Liam’s vocal take on this just pips out ‘Avalanche’ as my favourite.

LK: Fuck that, I hate my vocals on it. I’ve always wanted to redo them.

‘Sea of Love’

JF: This was the last one recorded for the album. It was done after I didn’t have a proper place to record so Amy Franz (Super Wild Horses) generously let us do it at her house. To repay her kindness, I got her to do layers and layers of trumpets and saxophone only to then fuck with it until they sounded like synths.

LK: Yeah, Amy Franz deserves a lot of credit for this one. Really like her sax solo. Weird and soulful. Joel Carey (Peak Twins, Wolf & Cub) gets weird on the electronic drum kit too. We recorded this one to replace a version we did of ‘Sun Arise’ by Rolf Harris. Allegations arose (and were later proven) that would have made releasing a Harris cover a problematic act that was best avoided. The informed listener will note that this is more a cover of the Iggy Pop version than the Phil Phillips original.

‘Never Ever’

JF: I have had to explain to quite a few people over the past couple of years that Liam’s love of All Saints is genuine and irony doesn’t enter into it at all. Recording-wise, I don’t think there was anything too interesting for this one. Pat Telfer (Bitch Prefect, Old Mate) provided the drum pattern and Joel Carey and Ela Stiles (Songs, Bushwalking, solo) filled it out with some BVs with Jack Mannix (Circle Pit, Drown Under) doing the spoken-word intro. Liam kills it on bass.

LK: I feel like it needs to be acknowledged that there are not enough songs on this record that were originally sung and written by women. That is to say, there’s only one. This one. This discrepancy is due to a couple of factors, including a failed attempt at ‘Cloudbusting’ by Kate Bush and a failure to actually attempt ‘Malibu’ by Hole. But I don’t want to make excuses for it because the bottom line is that it’s not acceptable or cool and it will be addressed on the next covers album we make.

This song can only fairly be described as a classic. Our version is probably the most similar to the original out of any of them. We just tried to replicate it.

JF: That failed attempt at ‘Cloudbusting’ still irks me. It just wouldn’t fucking come together.

LK: It’s my fault that it didn’t come together because you suggested getting someone to do the drums and I was like “Nah, I can do them good enough” and then I did them like absolute shit. We’ll try it again for the next one.

‘Avalanche’

JF: This was one of the quickest ones to come together. Liam worked out the bass line and I found a drum pattern from jamming down a few buttons at once on the Kawai organ and then we recorded it. All the basics were done in a couple of hours.

We got Justin Fuller (Zond) and Al Montfort to come around and do some guitar and saxophone. It was a bit of a bastard to mix because of all the squally low-end bullshit, but I think it got there in the end.

LK: This track more than any other is a testament to the production talents of Jack Farley. Also, watching Justin put his guitar tracks on this was one of the most enjoyable experiences I’ve had recording music. Wraparound sunnies in the middle of the warehouse with 15 pedals, looking up occasionally to agree with Jack that it needed another layer. The vocals on this one are my attempt to sound like a combination of Ben Hepworth from Repairs, Jarrod Quarrel from Lost Animal and Bob Dylan. Nothing I did on this album is original. If you admit that you’re copying someone it’s not plagiarism, I think that’s the rule ... I like it when derivative-as-fuck rock groups get popular and go with the pre-emptive tactic – get their not-independent labels to put in press releases that they have emerged “refreshingly untouched by contemporary trends.” Nice try.

‘Wild Horses’

JF: I’m not sure if this is true, but I think that the a cappella nature of this one was inspired by Ela Stiles. She had been around recording some tracks for her record and after she left, Liam said he wanted to do it too. Pretty easy for me. I really didn’t have to do anything: just set up a mic and smoke cigarettes.

LK: Might be a bit of truth to that, but I think the main influence was that Scott Walker had just released Bish Bosch and we were listening to it a lot. There is a lot of a cappella singing and silence on that record. I like how this one sounds kind of like a gospel song. It’s emotional.

JF: It’s definitely emotional.

‘(It’s All Over Now) Baby Blue’

JF: This was the first one we did for the record. I quite like the way the guitar and the shaker come in on the third verse and the blazing guitar solo that Liam did. This is one of those songs that is so well written that it is pretty much impossible to fuck it up.

LK: The only guitar solo I did on the record. Went for a combination of Neil Young and Slash. You could do worse for two people to base a method of guitar soloing on. This one is the first one we did and it’s still my favourite. I like how slow and sad it is. We tried to make it sound a bit like ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’. I’ve always wanted to listen to this one at like 6am when the amphetamines are wearing off. It has that exact feeling to me. Haven’t had the chance yet though. If anyone does that, they should let us know how it goes.

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‘A Kenny For Your Thoughts’ is out now on vinyl and digitally through It Records.