Dec 3
HARD ROCK INTERVIEWS 2013 - LULLWATER - JOHN STRICKLAND
LULLWATER'S JOHN STRICKLAND TALKS TO THE ROCKPIT ABOUT THE STUNNING NEW DEBUT ALBUM FROM LULLWATER |
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A FEW WEEKS BEFORE THIS INTERVIEW I HAD NEVER HEARD OF 'LULLWATER' BUT WHEN I HEARD THAT ALBUM I KNEW WE HAD TO TALK TO THEM. LULLWATER IS THE BEST BAND YOU'LL HEAR ALL YEAR...
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Mark: I can only imagine what the live show is like, is it pretty high energy? What’s the show like?
John: Yeah, our show is a lot of energy, it’s really loud, and we just put ourselves out there. We try and play like we’re playing in front of 10,000 people every night, and make sure everybody has a good time.
Mark: It was great to get a copy of the album, from Steve, it’s not often I’m impressed as much, as I was with that!! There’s just something, and I’m not entirely sure what it is, that you manage to capture on there. There’s a feeling of familiarity, and yet there’s something new and really fresh, and vibrant on there. Were you happy with how the recording came out?
John: Oh, Yeah! We are super excited with how the recording came out, and thanks for the kind words, we appreciate that. We are huge fans of the late eighties, early nineties rock scene from Seattle, so it’s going to have that familiar nineties feel, that Seattle scene feel. But, we are also from Athens, Georgia, it’s 2000 miles away from Seattle! So, we think we’ve put our own spin on it, we are influenced by that Seattle grunge scene, but we all put our different parts in to make the music our own, and original. That means a lot, thanks again, Mark.
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Mark: It’s great to hear a band, that you can’t quite pigeon hole with a genre. What’s the critical response been like, so far, from the reviews I’ve read, it looks like its pretty good.
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Mark: It says in the press release here that you wanted to bring Athens to Seattle! Do you think you achieved that with the record?
John: Yeah, it’s kind of like an F you song! It’s a really aggressive song; it’s an anti-do what you’re told song! The song was written about an acquaintance of mine, and a friend of our bass player, who was going through a hard time with his establishment, I think everyone has their own personal establishment that they are trying to rebel against. I think that song for me was very much a middle finger to the establishment that I was fighting against, at the time that related to a certain persons journey. We were going through a really hard time with the music business, and being naïve with things, and being taken advantage of, actually while we were in Seattle. That was kind of the final battle against a former record label! It’s a very aggressive song.
Mark: Where did the title of that song come from? I’ve not heard that before, 'Oddline'?
John: It’s from the chorus, it’s about being in the Oddline, it’s about being different and weird, and feeling like you’re weird! You are in the oddline; you’re not in the path where everyone wants you to be.
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Mark: Where do you get your inspiration from for the lyrics? Do you write all the lyrics?
Mark: The record really stands out, lyrically, and you can sense the emotion in there. You talked about the band having different line-up changes in the past, and then your drummer leaving during the recording of the album. What do you see as being the greatest challenges in getting your music heard? It really upsets me sometimes, when I hear a fantastic album, and I play it to someone a few years later, and they say,” wow, why didn’t I hear that at the time!” The music industry is so messed up at the moment.
John: Yeah, it’s definitely f’d up, it’s crazy! We have a lot of friends in bands, and we’ve played with other musicians on the road, and we’ve heard some great bands, and you’re like, Man, these guys are really good. I’d say you have to put everything out there, to get your music heard. We’ve been playing for seven years now, and it’s all about perseverance and about how passionate you are about playing and recording the music that you create. Some of the pop music out there, you think, how the hell did that get so popular, and how did it get to be so exposed?? Then you have these great bands that you run in to, about 500 miles away from your home town, and there are 10 people at the show, but they are killing it and so why don’t people know about these guys?!! It’s a crazy world, man, and if I think about it too much, it’s saddening.
Mark: On one hand it’s so easy to find stuff these days on the internet, YouTube, etc. and the stuff you get force fed is like the lowest of the low, it’s terrible!!
John: It is, Mark! I don’t know about the Australian music business, whether it is like here, where you are just force fed regurgitated garbage. We have come to realise that a lot of people are tired of the same old stuff, we are not going to record this record on a computer, and it be over polished and over produced. We wanted to have those influences come out through analogue tape, where you can hear four people playing, it’s not like you hit play on a computer and all this noise comes out! It’s not real!
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Mark: I think we need a revolution, but I don’t know who’s going to start it!! When did your musical journey start for you? You mentioned you heard “Ten” as a kid, but what made you know that you had to be in a band?
Mark: Yeah, it’s that emotional connection that people are missing. For our final couple of questions, if you could have been a fly on the wall for the creation of any album, at any point in time, what would it have been for you and why?
John Strickland spoke to Mark Diggins November 2013 |
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