feedtime: The Heavy Side of Rock ‘n’ Roll

feedtime bassist Al Larkin opens up about the cult Sydney trio’s first new material in decades, why the band isn’t genre-specific, and his approach to ‘making noise’ on the bass. Interview by DOUG WALLEN.

[Historical image is withheld pending rights review.] feedtime are in the midst of a comeback, but one done very much their own way. That means dropping a few new tracks here and there, and doing the odd gig or two, but never doing anything that might approach overkill.

The Sydney band’s 1978-to-1989 incarnation – Rick Johnson (guitar, vocals), Al Larkin (bass, vocals) and Tom Sturm (drums) – may be back in business (and thank god for that), but it’s just as something “low-key and casual” rather than an actual career, as Larkin explains below.

Of course, we’ll take what we can get. After 2012’s much-needed box set The Aberrant Years, which collected the band’s four 1980s-era albums from Aberrant Records and got a high-profile international release through Sub Pop, there was every chance that feedtime might go back to being a slumbering beast able to be awoken only for a rare gig every handful of years. But this month we got a brand new 7” on Sub Pop – the band’s first new material in decades – hot on the heels of a track for a small-run Amphetamine Reptile compilation. Premiered on M+N, ‘Flatiron’ is as brutally effective and admirably unwieldy as anything the band has done, with the B-side ‘Stick Up Jack’ following suit. Recorded last year with Mikey Young (Total Control, Eddy Current Suppression Ring) at Bakehouse Studios in Melbourne, the songs are a brilliant return for the stubbornly unique trio. Even better, they’ve paved the way for more new material to be recorded later this year.

And judging by the fact that ‘Flatiron’ has scored more than 40,000 plays on Soundcloud in just a week, we’re obviously not the only ones who are excited.

Let’s start with the two new songs. Did you go in to record more material, and these are just the first two songs to come out?
No. Tom Hazelmyer [from Amphetamine Reptile] wanted a track for a Dope Guns ‘N Fucking in the Streets compilation 7”, and also Sub Pop wanted to put a single out. In the last couple of years, since we got back from the States, we have actually been writing stuff. We just arranged to have a couple of gigs in Melbourne because that’s where Mikey [Young] hangs out, and he found a big rehearsal room down there [Bakehouse Studios] with lounges and a bit of space in it. So he booked that for the day and we went down.

We recorded about 18 tracks, but some of those were doubles. Even triples. I think there were eight new songs that we tried on the day. We culled that down to five. We sent [those] to Sub Pop and they picked ‘Flatiron’ and ‘Stick Up Jack’. And we sent [another] one off to Tom Hazelmyer. We basically recorded live, and then Mikey would just send us tweaks and we’d make other suggestions. We just went back and forth for two or three go’s and then we said, “Yeah, we like those.”

What’s the song for the compilation?
‘Herb Says’. Which is another new one. It’s already out. You know how Tom likes to do handmade records? I think it was only a very small production run [300], which sold out very quickly. Quite a nice little production. He’s resurrected [the series] and wanted a track from us. But we have been writing new stuff and we’ve got lots of stuff that we didn’t record down there.

Did you just know Mikey by reputation?
Sub Pop recommended him. They asked if we’d be interested in doing a single and they said, “We think this guy would be good to record you.” We lined it up and just went down and had a day in this rehearsal room with him. Then we did two nights [of gigs] at The Tote after that. We hadn’t been there [in Melbourne] for years.

“We do what we do, and warts and all is what comes out.”

How did it feel to be in the studio again?
We really enjoyed it, because we were all in the one room with no booths anywhere. The three of us just set up facing each other and Mikey managed to get a pretty good sound, I think. So it really was like a rehearsal. The recordings we did in the ’80s, we did a live take with a [separate] vocal track and then had to try to match up the vocal track later. This way of recording, we really liked it. Mikey was easy to work with; he just went about his business and we went about our business. It was not really like a recording. We get together in a rehearsal room in Sydenham every once in a while and just have a bash, so it was almost like that. And the nature of feedtime is we don’t get too pressured. We do what we do, and warts and all is what comes out. We just enjoy doing it, and he was able to capture the sound.

How much are you planning to play live this year?
Well, the Oblivians are coming out from the States and we’re playing with them in Newtown and then at The Tote. And we’re playing with a band called Spray Paint from Austin, Texas [sometime this year]. I’m not sure where we’re playing, but it’s somewhere in Sydney with them. And we’ll probably try to set up a gig on our own in a Sydney venue like the Valve Bar or Newtown Social Club or some such place. But the other guys don’t really want to gig too much, so it’s really just for love and enjoyment. It’s not really like a career these days. [Laughs]

I think we’d like to do some more recording later in the year, because we’ve got a bunch of stuff that we’re working on. Everyone seems keen, within reason. We’re not wanting to be touring [a lot], but a certain amount seems [possible]. We’ll probably get over to Adelaide to August, and somebody wants us to go back up to Brisbane. We’re open to anything and then we’ll decide if something’s worth our while. It’s pretty low-key and casual, but when we do it we thoroughly enjoy it.

You mentioned earlier about coming back from the States. Were you just over there for some gigs?
Well, somebody was writing a book and wanted to interview us all. Rich [Stanley] from Dropkick Records was talking about putting out a box set of the past stuff, which is out of print. That didn’t really go anywhere, and then someone heard Jonathan Poneman from Sub Pop being interviewed. He was asked if there were any albums he would have liked to release, and one of them was Shovel, the second feedtime album. So Bruce [Griffiths from Aberrant Records] got in touch with him. Once they started putting the box set together, they asked if we’d be interested in doing some shows over there. So we went over and played 11 or 12 shows in various places. That was a bit of a hoot.

“We certainly never considered ourselves a punk band.”

On the front of the box set, it tags the band as “avant-garde pub rock.” Are you happy with that assessment, or where do you think the band fits in?
I don’t mind that phrase. We’re certainly not an art band, but we’re not a heavy rock band either. Some of the sound is heavy and loud and fast, but some of it’s more subtle and soft. We certainly never considered ourselves a punk band as such; just on the heavy side of rock ‘n’ roll. And simple sort of blues stuff: just sit in the feel for a while and then stop. But I’d rather have that descriptor than punk band or metal band or noise band. I think it just flags the fact that it’s not really that genre-specific.

Yeah, I read about the influence of blues in the liner notes of the box set. And even ‘Flatiron’ has the refrain about the “flatiron shuffle” – and the slide guitar – but it sounds a lot different than what most people think of as the blues.
Yeah. In the early day, many years ago, Rick was very much into finger-picking and slide acoustic. So he got right into that Cajun and Louisiana stuff. He could actually play it really well, and I think that sneaks its way into our stuff often. Most of my stuff is pretty straightforward and repetitive, and I just maintain that. And Tom does little combinations in and around what I’m doing, and Rick just sort of washes over the lot. It’s just the way we interpret the stuff that we do.

Your bass playing is very distinctive though. It’s very wild and loose. It doesn’t sound like most bass.
That’s probably ’cause I’m not a bass player. [Laughs] I’m not quite sure what I am. I’m making noise on a bass, but it’s really just something I developed. I do use the slide on the bass a lot, so that probably makes it less like a bass. And it’s not usually down in the mix; it’s very audible. Most bass is not that obvious, where in feedtime the bass is often mixed up. It’s trebly and I hit it hard. There’s not a lot of melodious bass: it’s snappy and punchy and just keeps going, where a lot of bass playing is fluid and mellow and meanders in the background. It doesn’t work for me that. [Laughs]

“It’s 33% less strings, so I figured that’d make it easier.”

So did you just come to the instrument because that’s what needed playing at the time?
Basically. I played acoustic guitar as a kid growing up, just three-chord sort of stuff, strumming. Rick was a much better guitarist. We wanted a bass so I just went down [that] line. And also, it’s 33% less strings, so I figured that’d make it easier. [Laughs] I suppose I was always into the repetitive, simple note work, just creating a rhythm and a feel where others can do what they do around it.

Are you still doing many cover songs?
In our live sets now we still do covers. We’ve started bringing some of the new [originals] into the live set, but we still do ‘Paint It Black’. We started doing a Slade song again. There’s a sprinkling of them. In the ’80s we recorded about 85 or 90 songs, and probably 20 of them were covers. We’ve always enjoyed doing them, and we still just do them our particular way. We just reinterpret and do what feels right for us. But there’s less of them now, and we’re probably less likely to look for covers to do now. We really just do the ones we do live now because people who are familiar with us like to hear some of them.

A Mess + Noise commenter was talking about having tapes of feedtime demos for Billy. Do you ever plan to release some of that stuff properly?
Well, I think Rick’s got lots of cassettes of things. But Scott Soriano of S-S Records from Sacramento did put out a compilation [2012’s Today is Friday], because we did have some demos and quarter-inch tape and things that hadn’t been used. It was the same period as The Aberrant Years, but they were rare recordings. There were a few songs [from] where we did a recording session in a pit under a house. [Laughs] But other than that, I think most of the stuff has been used – other than stuff that was on cassettes, which probably won’t be very good quality.

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feedtime’s ‘Flatiron’/‘Stick Up Jack’ 7” is out now through Sub Pop/Inertia, as is the 2012 box set ‘the Aberrant Years’. Read Aaron Curran’s 2012 Icons interview with Larkin, and feedtime’s 2013 Artist on Artist interview with Useless Children. Upcoming gigs below.

Wed, March 4 – Newtown Social Club, Sydney, NSW [w/Oblivians, Low Life + Housewives]
Thurs, March 12 – The Tote, Melbourne, VIC [w/Oblivians + Leather Towel]