Regular John (13/09/2012)
We recently tapped into the minds of childhood mates Ryan Adamson and Caleb Goman, one half of psychedelic rockers Regular John, to get their thoughts on new album ‘Strange Flowers’, their influences and why dedication sometimes means sleeping on a studio floor next to your amp.
Cleverly playing on mankind’s curious nature, the band has unveiled a six part series of short videos based off first single ‘Slume’. Ryan reveals that the Smashing Pumpkins’ penchant for the strange and disorientating turned out to be part of the inspiration behind the teasers. ‘Yeah, well I think the idea with those [teasers] is to confuse people or trick people, or give them little sneak things. I think that’s working because the actual track doesn’t sound anything like those videos.’
’ I don’t know if you’ve ever seen Smashing Pumpkins ‘Vieuphoria’ video, but there’s all these weird bits of tour footage and stuff like that and it’s all accompanied by Pumpkins jams and swirling feedback, noisy dreamy things. I guess the Pumpkins are why me and Cal kind of wanted to start a band. To me that’s what makes the Pumpkins, that little world of the Pumpkins that really made me feel at one with them and made them something that I could hold as my own.’
‘I think I’m speaking for both of us when I say, when we made an album that we realised that fourteen, fifteen year old Caleb and I would freak out over, we were like ‘well let’s keep going with this, and do the things that fourteen and fifteen year old me and Caleb were in love with’. Let’s just not make the record, but let’s make the little world of that record to go with it.’
Growing up in the small country town of Manilla meant cultural choices were limited, leaving Caleb on the hunt for whatever he could get his hands on. ‘When we were younger we used to track down David Lynch VHS and Alejandro Jodorowsky, who did Holy Mountain. We used to scan the tv guides for any weird films as kids. Making these videos, it’s reminded me, oh yeah we used to be into this all the time.’
Having gone through a reshuffle a couple of years ago, that had Miles Devine replace guitarist Brock Tengstrom, a shift has occurred in the band’s dynamic and sound. There’s a great fondness and positivity in Ryan’s voice when Miles is mentioned. ‘Miles is a cosmic little cat, really, really open to exploring sounds like we are’. Caleb agreeably echoes the sentiment, ‘I think it freed us up a lot to do whatever we wanted to do, without being tied to the past, or being tied to the idea of what Regular John is or what Regular John is meant to be.’
A few sonic differences between this album and it’s predecessor ‘The Peaceful Atom is a Bomb’ are laid out by Ryan, ‘I think at first glance this record isn’t as heavy as the first one, in the sense that there isn’t shouting, or there isn’t punk rock guitar and stuff like that, but I think overall it’s a much heavier record texturally. It’s a lot darker and it’s heavier emotionally definitely. Still just as loud though!’
For the band this record draws on life experiences of the past three years. Ryan gives us personal insight into a particularly painful moment that is reflected across the album. ‘I basically had a five, six year relationship kind of come to an end, instead of only having a satiric or escapist kind of seriousness; I suddenly had all these emotions. Those ‘Slume’ videos, those words on those videos are lines from the song, pretty blunt, pretty naked. So that was the big impetus for me, but I think also, we just wanted there to be more focus on the songs and song writing.’
Along with focussing on song writing this time around, Ryan emphasises his desire for the songs to hold their own when stripped back. ‘As much as I’m into layers and textures, I also wanted it to be that there wasn’t just a nice album but also nice songs you know. Any given song on the record can be reduced down to an acoustic guitar and melody and it still stands on its own, which was important to us.’
Joining the band again, is producer Tim Powles (The Church) who has been a long time mentor. Ryan’s voice takes on a respectful tone as he comments their working relationship. ‘We got Tim in again for this one [album]; he’s a tech head like ourselves, so we could present him with a lot of esoteric, suggestive terms as to how we wanted things to sound. Like we could say we want this to sound like the sound of space being pushed in through your ear and he’ll go ‘ok’.’
‘We’d put our heads together and make it happen, he’s a great medium I guess. It’s really cool with this record, him and I really locked down a lot and there were some things where the band fortunately gave me some free reign. It might just be me and Tim in the studio for a couple of days and I’d just go at it. Then they’d[the band] come back and I think ninety nine per cent of the time were totally into it.’
Doubling as the artist for the band’s artwork puts to good use Caleb’s other talent and he’s quite candid about his unconventional influences, ‘A lot of it’s coming from, how do I explain this, everything, I’m a really big bookophile and I collect heaps of old books, I’d go so far as to say it’s somewhat of an occult thing. So yeah just going through old books, going through really old photos, strange things like rituals by African societies or looking at pyramid artwork or renaissance alchemical kind of illustrations and a lot of it is sort of drawn from that. Looking at pictures and zooming in on just the detail of one, finding this beautiful picture inside the bigger picture. ‘
‘I started the artwork a long time ago and it’s funny because I had a specific idea that I liked, but the album grew into its own thing throughout the recording and it came out different to any of us would have expected. So then I had to kind of go back in and find new art for this sound, which was kind of challenging but fun, it’s almost done I think, I plan on finishing it tonight, although I’ve been saying that for months.’
With the recording process taking on a life of its own and the guys juggling work between studio sessions, Spacejunk studios soon became a home away from home where Ryan unwittingly found himself immersed in his environment. ‘We spent so much time there for this record, there’s a flat next to it and we spent many a night in there. Actually a few nights I slept in the studio on the floor. Laying there next to my amp and it was nice, hate to sound like a hippie but I think it kind of served me in a sense that I was just soaking up the instruments around me and got familiarised. So the next day it was like, ok I’m going to play with this synthesiser, it was like we’re well acquainted, so it was sort of like playing with a friend.’
When pressed about career highlights, supporting Motorhead and Karnivool spring to mind for Caleb, ‘To me Motorhead it was a big deal because the shows were so, massive, huge and also because it was really tough for us to play to their audience and I thought if we can survive that we can survive anything’, he jokes. The Karnivool tour was really good as well, those guys are really smart. ‘
Ryan expands on Karnivool’s positive influence, ‘That was great fun hanging with those cats, Drew the guitarist is a mad guru. At the Goldcoast, we went to the beach me, Cal and Drew and swam out. Just passed a wave and floated around out there and talking about some pretty far out stuff for an hour or so, it was an awesome experience. ‘
For Regular John it had been a while between gigs so a recent support slot with The Mess Hall provided an opportunity for the guys to get back into the live scene. It also proved to be a turning point for Caleb. ‘The big thing for me, I’d personally fallen out of playing live a few years ago. I’ve been saying to people for the last couple of years, that if someone was to say to me ‘hey you got to stay in the studio forever and never play live’ I’d thank them. But after the other night I had such a good time. That purity of sheer volume and people moving, I was looking back, I was like ‘oh yeah that’s right’, me and playing live are like good friends again’
After much anticipation the release date for ‘Strange Flowers’ is firm after shifting quite a few times. But as the guys explain, you can’t rush these kinds of things. Ryan muses, ‘I guess the record took longer than anticipated; it could have come out sooner than September if we wanted, but I was really digging the idea of ‘Strange Flowers’ popping up in spring.’
Caleb chimes in on the subject, ‘We wanted to get it right, we experimented a lot and there were periods where we thought it’ll be finished next week and then kind of stuff would just happen and songs would take on a life of their own. We couldn’t just cut it short and say it would be finished by the end of the week. You’d have to do the initial idea justice.’
Pausing for a moment, Ryan adds his final thoughts on the subject. ‘If you think of the idea that long after myself, Caleb, and no offense, you, have moved on from the Earth, this art we leave behind, the articles you’ve written they’ll still exist. So by that measure, why not make it exactly what you want it to be, because it’ll outlive you, it’s about putting time into something, to make it timeless.’
Nazia Hafiz
Cleverly playing on mankind’s curious nature, the band has unveiled a six part series of short videos based off first single ‘Slume’. Ryan reveals that the Smashing Pumpkins’ penchant for the strange and disorientating turned out to be part of the inspiration behind the teasers. ‘Yeah, well I think the idea with those [teasers] is to confuse people or trick people, or give them little sneak things. I think that’s working because the actual track doesn’t sound anything like those videos.’
’ I don’t know if you’ve ever seen Smashing Pumpkins ‘Vieuphoria’ video, but there’s all these weird bits of tour footage and stuff like that and it’s all accompanied by Pumpkins jams and swirling feedback, noisy dreamy things. I guess the Pumpkins are why me and Cal kind of wanted to start a band. To me that’s what makes the Pumpkins, that little world of the Pumpkins that really made me feel at one with them and made them something that I could hold as my own.’
‘I think I’m speaking for both of us when I say, when we made an album that we realised that fourteen, fifteen year old Caleb and I would freak out over, we were like ‘well let’s keep going with this, and do the things that fourteen and fifteen year old me and Caleb were in love with’. Let’s just not make the record, but let’s make the little world of that record to go with it.’
Growing up in the small country town of Manilla meant cultural choices were limited, leaving Caleb on the hunt for whatever he could get his hands on. ‘When we were younger we used to track down David Lynch VHS and Alejandro Jodorowsky, who did Holy Mountain. We used to scan the tv guides for any weird films as kids. Making these videos, it’s reminded me, oh yeah we used to be into this all the time.’
Having gone through a reshuffle a couple of years ago, that had Miles Devine replace guitarist Brock Tengstrom, a shift has occurred in the band’s dynamic and sound. There’s a great fondness and positivity in Ryan’s voice when Miles is mentioned. ‘Miles is a cosmic little cat, really, really open to exploring sounds like we are’. Caleb agreeably echoes the sentiment, ‘I think it freed us up a lot to do whatever we wanted to do, without being tied to the past, or being tied to the idea of what Regular John is or what Regular John is meant to be.’
A few sonic differences between this album and it’s predecessor ‘The Peaceful Atom is a Bomb’ are laid out by Ryan, ‘I think at first glance this record isn’t as heavy as the first one, in the sense that there isn’t shouting, or there isn’t punk rock guitar and stuff like that, but I think overall it’s a much heavier record texturally. It’s a lot darker and it’s heavier emotionally definitely. Still just as loud though!’
For the band this record draws on life experiences of the past three years. Ryan gives us personal insight into a particularly painful moment that is reflected across the album. ‘I basically had a five, six year relationship kind of come to an end, instead of only having a satiric or escapist kind of seriousness; I suddenly had all these emotions. Those ‘Slume’ videos, those words on those videos are lines from the song, pretty blunt, pretty naked. So that was the big impetus for me, but I think also, we just wanted there to be more focus on the songs and song writing.’
Along with focussing on song writing this time around, Ryan emphasises his desire for the songs to hold their own when stripped back. ‘As much as I’m into layers and textures, I also wanted it to be that there wasn’t just a nice album but also nice songs you know. Any given song on the record can be reduced down to an acoustic guitar and melody and it still stands on its own, which was important to us.’
Joining the band again, is producer Tim Powles (The Church) who has been a long time mentor. Ryan’s voice takes on a respectful tone as he comments their working relationship. ‘We got Tim in again for this one [album]; he’s a tech head like ourselves, so we could present him with a lot of esoteric, suggestive terms as to how we wanted things to sound. Like we could say we want this to sound like the sound of space being pushed in through your ear and he’ll go ‘ok’.’
‘We’d put our heads together and make it happen, he’s a great medium I guess. It’s really cool with this record, him and I really locked down a lot and there were some things where the band fortunately gave me some free reign. It might just be me and Tim in the studio for a couple of days and I’d just go at it. Then they’d[the band] come back and I think ninety nine per cent of the time were totally into it.’
Doubling as the artist for the band’s artwork puts to good use Caleb’s other talent and he’s quite candid about his unconventional influences, ‘A lot of it’s coming from, how do I explain this, everything, I’m a really big bookophile and I collect heaps of old books, I’d go so far as to say it’s somewhat of an occult thing. So yeah just going through old books, going through really old photos, strange things like rituals by African societies or looking at pyramid artwork or renaissance alchemical kind of illustrations and a lot of it is sort of drawn from that. Looking at pictures and zooming in on just the detail of one, finding this beautiful picture inside the bigger picture. ‘
‘I started the artwork a long time ago and it’s funny because I had a specific idea that I liked, but the album grew into its own thing throughout the recording and it came out different to any of us would have expected. So then I had to kind of go back in and find new art for this sound, which was kind of challenging but fun, it’s almost done I think, I plan on finishing it tonight, although I’ve been saying that for months.’
With the recording process taking on a life of its own and the guys juggling work between studio sessions, Spacejunk studios soon became a home away from home where Ryan unwittingly found himself immersed in his environment. ‘We spent so much time there for this record, there’s a flat next to it and we spent many a night in there. Actually a few nights I slept in the studio on the floor. Laying there next to my amp and it was nice, hate to sound like a hippie but I think it kind of served me in a sense that I was just soaking up the instruments around me and got familiarised. So the next day it was like, ok I’m going to play with this synthesiser, it was like we’re well acquainted, so it was sort of like playing with a friend.’
When pressed about career highlights, supporting Motorhead and Karnivool spring to mind for Caleb, ‘To me Motorhead it was a big deal because the shows were so, massive, huge and also because it was really tough for us to play to their audience and I thought if we can survive that we can survive anything’, he jokes. The Karnivool tour was really good as well, those guys are really smart. ‘
Ryan expands on Karnivool’s positive influence, ‘That was great fun hanging with those cats, Drew the guitarist is a mad guru. At the Goldcoast, we went to the beach me, Cal and Drew and swam out. Just passed a wave and floated around out there and talking about some pretty far out stuff for an hour or so, it was an awesome experience. ‘
For Regular John it had been a while between gigs so a recent support slot with The Mess Hall provided an opportunity for the guys to get back into the live scene. It also proved to be a turning point for Caleb. ‘The big thing for me, I’d personally fallen out of playing live a few years ago. I’ve been saying to people for the last couple of years, that if someone was to say to me ‘hey you got to stay in the studio forever and never play live’ I’d thank them. But after the other night I had such a good time. That purity of sheer volume and people moving, I was looking back, I was like ‘oh yeah that’s right’, me and playing live are like good friends again’
After much anticipation the release date for ‘Strange Flowers’ is firm after shifting quite a few times. But as the guys explain, you can’t rush these kinds of things. Ryan muses, ‘I guess the record took longer than anticipated; it could have come out sooner than September if we wanted, but I was really digging the idea of ‘Strange Flowers’ popping up in spring.’
Caleb chimes in on the subject, ‘We wanted to get it right, we experimented a lot and there were periods where we thought it’ll be finished next week and then kind of stuff would just happen and songs would take on a life of their own. We couldn’t just cut it short and say it would be finished by the end of the week. You’d have to do the initial idea justice.’
Pausing for a moment, Ryan adds his final thoughts on the subject. ‘If you think of the idea that long after myself, Caleb, and no offense, you, have moved on from the Earth, this art we leave behind, the articles you’ve written they’ll still exist. So by that measure, why not make it exactly what you want it to be, because it’ll outlive you, it’s about putting time into something, to make it timeless.’
Nazia Hafiz