For Gareth Liddiard, success is a four-letter word. Actually, it's a few four-letter words.
“You don't expect that sh.t to happen when you're 43 but then f..., how old is Mick Jagger? He's f...ing 75 and that's okay these days, so thank God,” Gareth says.
Gareth is talking about the unexpected success of 'A Laughing Death In Meatspace', the debut album from Tropical F... Storm (TFS) released last year.
In August just passed, TFS followed-up with sophomore long-player 'Braindrops', an album that Gareth says will build on the legacy he's trying to establish for TFS.
“[The first album] was political in its roundabout way, but this new album they're all love songs; with the exception of one or two, I think they're all love songs,” he explains.
“Strip them down and there's still a lot of politics and all sorts of strange concepts going on in there; there's a whole little universe.”
“TFS is not a pop band. . . It's a weird animal, our band.” - Gareth Liddiard
And what a strange and mysterious little universe it can be, populated by a vast array of colours and characters, seemingly chaotic yet carefully organised by Gareth's own process of creation. “I kind of accumulate weird information before an album,” he says.
“It's random and it's this big mess and it forms an accretion disc 'round me, like the solar system did around the sun before all the planets were formed. Eventually you keep stirring it and whirling it around, the planets form and it becomes eight songs.”
Like a delirious philosopher-god, Gareth distills the madness into music, forming order where once there was only chaos. “Even instrumental stuff like classical music, there's a huge amount of information, which is chaotic in its nature, and then a single person has ordered it and created a little universe that is quite complex but it is ordered. I'm fascinated by the whole process.”
Gareth likens his method to that of a bower bird building a nest, recounting a memorable experience from when he was writing his debut solo album, 'Strange Tourist’, as a parallel.
“We were living up in the mountains and I was writing in a room with a big window that overlooked a bush that this black bower bird lived in,” he recalls.
“As I was writing the album he was building a bower and collecting blue sh.t from everywhere like pen lids, Bic lighters, feathers and all sorts of crazy sh.t, and making his little record while I was making mine.
“It's the same process – you need to order sh.t and once you've done it you can hold it in your hand and it feels like the world isn't as overwhelming as it was, it's ordered.”
After his work with The Drones, the success of TFS has come unexpectedly for Gareth – especially overseas where he says TFS has been far more successful than his former band ever was.
At this point though, Gareth says he takes no interest in creating music for the instant gratification of listeners with a seemingly ever-reducing attention span. Instead, his focus remains on music that will stand the test of time.
“Paul Kelly told me a thing years ago when me and Dan Kelly were in our 20s going: ‘Man, there's so much sh.t music around and all these dumb pop stars', and all this sh.t,” he says. “Paul Kelly said 'don't worry, man; I see them come and I see them go'.
“TFS, we're not making music for now, it's for the ages, so you can sit with what we do for a long time and if it doesn't hit you right now it might hit you in ten years, I don't know. That's all it is, it's not meant to be instant gratification like everything else at the moment in the world; everything passes but we're trying to make sh.t that doesn't pass.”
Tropical F... Storm take 'Braindrops' on tour in October for a national run of theatre shows. Speaking prior to the tour, Gareth says what you hear on TFS records is rarely repeated verbatim in the live space.
“We never make an album with the live thing in mind because unless you're AC/DC it's kind of pointless and you'll probably never going to hit it anyway,” he says.
“We're not trying to capture a live show on a record so it'll sound slightly different but f... that's not a new thing, everyone does that. We still haven't figured out half of the songs, so we're a bit terrified but we'll figure it out.”
Whether it's music for today, tomorrow or ten years time, TFS are playing the long game with their sights set on achieving permanency in a musical culture of mass-consumption.
“We're not a pop band,” Gareth states. “There's a lot going on, but at the same time it's a lot of fun too. It's a weird animal, our band.”
'Braindrops' is out now.
Tropical F... Storm 2019 Tour Dates
Fri 4 Oct - Byron Bay BrewerySat 5 Oct - The Triffid (Brisbane)
Sun 6 Oct - Solbar (Sunshine Coast)
Thu 10 Oct - The Metro Theatre (Sydney)
Fri 11 Oct - Kambri ANU (Canberra)
Sat 12 Oct - UoW UniBar (Wollongong)
Thu 17 Oct - Altar (Hobart)
18-19 Oct - Croxton Bandroom (Melbourne) - sold out
Sun 20 Oct - Torquay Hotel (Melbourne)
Wed 23 Oct - Howler (Melbourne)
Thu 24 Oct - The Gov (Adelaide)
Fri 25 Oct - Rock Rover (Fremantle)
