The Drones have reclaimed the rights to their records, given birth to a Tropical Fuck Storm, and are topping the year off with a ten-year anniversary tour of their ‘Wait Long By The River And The Bodies Of Your Enemies Will Float By’ album.
Working solidly on their seventh album earlier this year, the band came to the realisation that all of the licences to their previous records had run out at exactly the same time. “They were sprinkled between different record companies, so all of a sudden, we owned everything again,” said frontman Gareth Liddiard.
Eager to re-issue their back catalogue on their terms, the band opted to create TFS Records, “…which stands for Tropical Fuck Storm Records. So that’s funny, now we’re fully fledged, record company owners, at the worst possible time in history to be a record company owner. We decided to re-issue it all. ‘Wait Long By The River…’ had never come out on vinyl, so that was a priority.”
The ten-year anniversary of ‘Wait Long By The River…’ was not something the band had thought to capitalise on, but was inevitably brought to their attention. “Vivid Festival in Sydney wanted us to play, but they needed a weird angle, and they said ‘well, it’s been ten years since ‘Wait Long’ was released’, so, it all sort of fell together like that.”
After a ten-year absence from The Drones, Christian Strybosch is back behind the kit after Mike Noga left the band last year. “Chriso is back, which is awesome, because he’s rearing to go. He’s the guy who played on all those early records. Last year we did a four-week European thing, so he’s back on board with that. That was good to get him back into shape, he needed a bit of reminding,” Gareth chuckles.Playing Vivid Live was refreshing for the five-piece, after a long stint of experimenting with new material. “We went from trying to come up with crazy ideas on our instruments, to going straight into rehearsal for Vivid Live. It was really easy because they were songs we’ve been playing for years, they were written when we wrote easier stuff to play. When we got up onstage at the Opera House, we were fresh as daisies.”
After the success of this show the band decided to use the tour, originally booked for their new album, to take the ‘Wait Long By The River…’ anniversary show national. “[The new album] is ready completely. We’re still shopping it in Europe, to try and find someone to put it out. We had that tour booked, but then that got delayed. So we thought, fuck it, let’s do this.”
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Another anniversary Gareth will be celebrating is 40 years since Patti Smith’s ‘Horses’. He’ll be performing alongside female rock powerhouses Adalita, Courtney Barnett and Jen Cloher in their tribute concert at this year’s Melbourne Festival. “I’m the resident guy… I guess I must be qualified; I know what Patti is like because I’ve been in her band.” The Drones supported Patti Smith back in 2008 at the Sydney Opera House. “She asked us to learn a few songs – that was weird – playing ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ with Patti Smith singing. I thought, wow, I can tick off that box."
The re-releases of The Drones catalogue will be accompanied by digital live albums; a topic that gets Gareth reminiscing. “Some people say ‘oh that’s pretty indulgent’ and I’m like ‘fuck off, it’s cool!’ When I was growing up and getting into stuff, whether it was Jimi Hendrix or Jane’s Addiction or Black Flag or The Doors, I always preferred the live records. We are similar to those bands in the sense that, year to year, the same song will sound a lot different.”
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Gareth is the self-confessed hoarder of any sound the Drones has ever recorded. “I’m the guy who squirrels all the tapes away. If someone records a show, or there are outtakes from the recording studio, I put them in my box… I’ve got a whole backlog of crazy stuff to release as the years go on; it’s like a nest egg.”
And what does Gareth think might happen to that nest egg when he’s dead and gone? “I don’t want to be like Kurt Cobain or Tupac or Jeff Buckley, where they just put out crap – all the shit you never wanted to release. I’m going to torch the rest. I’m going to make sure I put out everything that’s worthwhile, while I’m alive, then I’m going to set that shipping container on fire.”
The Drones Tour Dates
Fri 28 Aug - Small Ballroom (Newcastle)
Sat 29 Aug - The Triffid (Brisbane)
Fri 4 Sep - The Gov (Adelaide)
Sat 5 Sep - The Forum Theatre (Melbourne)
Sun 6 Sep - Theatre Royal (Castlemaine)
