Melbourne’s The Drones are about to embark on a national tour for new album I See Seaweed.
“We’ve gotta rehearse the whole thing yet, so we’ve gotta figure out how to do it,” says frontman Gareth Liddiard. It won’t be the first live performance of How To See Through Fog, however. That track debuted when the band toured with Neil Young during some of his recent Australian shows.
“It was a complete trip being on tour with him. The stage had the set he used when he did tours for Weld and Rust Never Sleeps, all these big stadium shows that he did… I grew up watching the live footage with those sets and all of a sudden I’m standing there with them, playing. It’s weird.”
I See Seaweed has been described as a return to The Drones’ noisy rock roots. One particularly noisy (and excellent) track is ‘A Moat You Can Stand In’, which Liddiard says is about “not suffering fools and enjoying your short time”.
“The last Drones album was Havilah and that was quieter than our usual thing... Then I did a record by myself [Strange Tourist] in between which was completely acoustic, just me and a guitar, so I really wanted to play loud electric again.”
Like all The Drones’ albums, the lyrics of I See Seaweed touch on social issues and politics in a poetic fashion. “[Rock 'n' roll] doesn’t have to be music for idiots. Look at Bob Dylan. It’s pretty intelligent music but it doesn’t have to sound smart-arsey.”
Liddiard has worked in music since high school, often as a roadie, and says he never had a back-up plan. “I had a messy high school and early adulthood. It was kind of out of control and I fucked up a lot of things … I had no fear of failure because I thought I’d already failed.
“[Music] was something to do and something I was really fascinated in. Other guys were trying to pick up girls, I was trying to pick up that Jimi Hendrix album that was really hard to get in Australia. And it never occurred to me until later that maybe I like music more than most people and I should probably concentrate and do something seriously with it.”
The Drones Australia Tour
Thu Apr 11 — The Spotted Cow (Toowoomba)Fri Apr 12 — The Tivoli (Brisbane)
Sat Apr 13 — Tanks Arts Centre (Cairns)
Fri Apr 19 — The Astor Theatre (Perth)
Sat Apr 20 — The Governor Hindmarsh (Adelaide)
Fri Apr 26 — The Forum Theatre (Melbourne)
Sat Apr 27 — Sydney Opera House
I See Seaweed is out now.
King Gizzard And The Lizard Wizard will support at all shows except Tanks Arts Centre, where they'll be joined by Lucy Star Satellite.
