When we last spoke to Anth Nekich, the front man & guitarist from Melbourne rockers WARBIRDS at the tail end of 2018, we hinted that 2019 could be a huge year for them, as they were looking to release their debut album which would be a follow-up to their outstanding EP ‘Control’. Well, they may just very well have delivered on that prediction as ‘Order From Chaos’ has made it out of the studio and down on to physical CD… and it is an album that people will definitely need in their collection. The Rockpit are honoured to have WARBIRDS launch the album at our 10th Anniversary celebrations at The Evelyn Hotel on Saturday 12th October, where they will play alongside such Melbourne rock heavyweights such as Palace of the King, Echo Del Tusker, Cicadastone as well as Perth’s The Silent Deeds. That will also be the first opportunity to get your hands on a hard copy of the album. We managed to have a chat with Anth about writing & recording ‘Order From Chaos’, who would his dream collaboration be with and the all-important question on everyone’s lips – Is that the same armchair that was in ‘My Symphony’?
Sean: Hey Anth. It’s always great to chat to you. How are you, mate?
Anth: You too Sean. Pretty good – it’s been a busy time so now we can hopefully sit back and relax a little bit.
Sean: We last spoke back in November last year and for those readers who didn’t catch that interview, here at The Rockpit we predicted that this year could be a real game changer for WARBIRDS. Having listened to ‘Order From Chaos’ for over a week now I can happily report that this album really is something special. ‘Control’ was excellent but this is on a totally different level.
Anth: Thanks man. From the outset we tried to keep the same ball rolling. We had a few people say to us that the problem with the EP is that it wasn’t long enough and that they wanted to hear more so we kind of pushed on from there – we tried to keep the same mind set and create an entertaining body of songs to listen to.
Sean: You’ve certainly done that right throughout the tracks – I remember last year we talked about your influences growing up, not just as a musician but also as a fan of music and I was surprised at how similar our list was, especially with bands like Chickenfoot, Van Halen & KISS to name but a few… I’m guessing it’s this wide range of influences that have moulded and helped shape ‘Order From Chaos’ because each track is quite different.
Anth: It’s interesting you say that because I don’t purposefully go out of my way to right a song a certain way or style, so it’s kind of whatever is going on at the time. My tastes are everything from heavier thrash metal bands to even some pop-rock kind of stuff and everything in between – whatever sounds good we’ll play. And our drummer Lee (Strapp) says the same, “If it sounds good then let’s play it.” We don’t want to worry about having an album that is recognised as just a pop-metal album or just an Alter Bridge-style record per se, which could be a good thing or maybe it could very well bite us on the arse [laughs]
Sean: Well, I think it works brilliantly. From the opening track ‘Slave’ onwards there are so many highlights on here. I keep enjoying different tracks the more I listen. ‘Handgrenade’ is one that immediately jumped out but now ‘Drowning For Hope’ has gripped me…
Anth: Ah that’s good to hear man. Lee & I love that song. We love the light and shade of the track but we didn’t know where to put it on the album as we were trying to put everything in an order – I think that is a really important element to an album. I think a proper music fan likes to listen to an album in its entirety. We also made a conscious decision to put the stronger songs – the possible singles – higher in the list, maybe in the top five… but we then said what if people did pick up on tracks later in the album like you have, so that’s really cool man. Thank you.
Sean: That certainly has happened to me the more I’ve listened to it. But you bring up about singles, so let’s talk about the first track to be released ‘Freak in the Night’ and the video that has gone with it. You seem to create these quite stunning videos as you did with the previous release ‘My Symphony’ and ‘Freak in the Night’ has that same element to it. Once again you’ve pushed on with the quality of the presentation to match the song.
Anth: It’s a deep & gritty song with a slow & heavy groove. We wanted something a bit dark with a bit more texture… sort of less polished. We’ve worked with Daniel Nolan from Clear Reel Video Production for three of our film clips now so we have developed a good relationship. ‘My Symphony’ was very much Danny’s direction & idea but we let him listen to the song and waited to see what he thought, what came to him & inspired him as a videographer – we trust him with his ideas. This time around he didn’t really dig the direction we were going and he couldn’t really pinpoint a certain angle or perspective that he wanted this film clip to be. For me, not every film clip needs to have an amazing meaningful story running through it – it just needs a start, middle and an end along with a progression through the song. We wanted something with some cool shots, some black & white with splashes of colour and just wanted Danny to give a feeling to the song visually.
But the first few clips he sent to us just weren’t quite right and we couldn’t work out what it needed but Danny kept going back and working his arse off trying to get these clips right, as we were closing in on the release date of the single. Then about five days out he sent this thirty second clip to us which we absolutely loved then he sent us the first edit and it was absolutely awesome – we only gave him one small list of edits to do and that was it. We love working with him and he’s a fucking wonderful guy. He’s so creative & always works on the fly – he pulls the most incredible ideas out of nowhere so some of those images he captured were a last minute thing as we were packing up. He saw my silhouette against the wall and got me to sing the song and that has become one of the standout images on the film clip. It’s awesome man.
READ REVIEW OF ORDER FROM CHAOS
Sean: I had to laugh when I texted you after watching it for the first time and asking you if it was the armchair from ‘My Symphony’ and you replied “No, it fucking isn’t!” [laughs]
Anth: [laughs] Yeah man, very funny. I saw it there at the shoot and thought it looked like the same chair too. They had these really minimalist café style chairs there and I was going to sit on it backwards but Danny wanted the fucking chair, man [laughs] so now that chair may have to appear in all future WARBIRDS film clips…. Keep an eye out for it! [laughs] We may have to make a thing out of it now.
Sean: [laughs] I’ll be making a conscious decision to look out for it now. There could easily be six strong singles off this album and for lovers of ‘Control’ two of the tracks from the EP have made it on to this album. I was messaging Nikki Rowe from The Hard Rock Show the other day, as we were comparing WARBIRDS notes and she told me they had selected ‘My Symphony’ as their ‘Single of the Year’ for 2018 – I have to say I can’t think of any better singles from last year either, so I’m glad that is on the album but also the title track ‘Control’ has made a welcome appearance too.
Anth: ‘My Symphony’ is such a fun song to play. Lee & I like to push the set to the heavier side of things sometimes but we have to play our singles and I’m thinking ‘Reality Check’ will come back into the set too and it’s a great live track. But I love the light, the shade & the feeling of ‘Symphony’ – it’s a great song to sing and to play on the guitar… I love it. I never get tired of playing it anyway.
Sean: I know when we spoke last year we discussed about how hard you have worked on your vocals with coaching over the years – I have to say you sound incredible on this album. Add into that something I know that maybe not many others do, in that you were pretty ill while you were recording this. We spoke a couple of times and you were really knocked down with the flu.
Anth: [laughs] I know it was worrying at times but there are some songs where being quite coarse probably added a tonal quality & texture – one song that came up really good and I really wasn’t well at the time of recording it, was ‘Bring Back Your Love’. If you listen to the verses my voice is very dry & course. We were under some time constraints too because Mat (Robins) at Coloursound Recording Studio was going overseas for a few weeks so we really had to finish it on time. ‘Freak in the Night’ was the first vocal that we tracked and I managed to lock it in pretty well. Then I had a couple of days off and when I came back I managed to smash out five songs in a day – I wasn’t feeling the best but vocally I had the range there. I then had another day off which was the Saturday and then I got really bad when I was due to go back in on the Sunday. But we got there in the end and Mat was great to work with – he was awesome… pivotal I’d say, to be honest with his patience & time, his guidance & positivity… he was fucking brilliant. He’s so great to work with.
Sean: We must talk about the title track… I think, in my review I’ve described it as “epic”. It’s quite breath-taking as a song…
Anth: It was a last minute decision to add it. I had a kind of chord progression down and I was in my little home studio set up jamming away. Usually a good song comes up real quick & real easy. The more you need to work on a song, I’m not saying it won’t be as good but if you can ride the wave of an idea without thinking about what you’re doing and just letting it go if that makes sense, letting it flow…this song was written real quick and on a wing & a feeling. I had an original intro that was four or five times as long as the one we ended up with because it was going to be this huge epic nine minute song, you know.
So I had my chord progression and had my little lyric book with me where I write my ideas down and I just started singing…like I say, it happened real quick and then I put it to sleep and left it for a day or two, went back to it and felt it was going to be good. I then found the title in my book and I thought it was a great title because it was pretty important at the time. I knew it was a strong track and it was going to be put as the last song on the album then I felt it made a good title for the whole album… its funny because I good friend of mine got in my car when we had recorded the tracks – we hadn’t had them mixed or mastered but when this track came on he reacted exactly like you did to it. He loved it and you know, it’s become a real surprise package because in the studio we didn’t spend that much time on it… we did everything virtually in one take. Lee & I went in to jam the song maybe once or twice as just the two of us and it’s just taken off man… I’m just so proud of it. It’s an important song.
Sean: Just now you said how important the make-up and order of an album is and I think at track five this is in a nice position in the track listing too…
Anth: Thank you man. It was a tough decision… we were going to put it last because it would have been a great closing song but my mate told me I had to put it higher up the track listing because people need to hear it and its too big a song to go first or second… for me the album kind of almost kicks on from there – it’s almost like another beginning after that point because all the songs have a certain flow after that. It’s almost a bit of a concept album from that point on. It ebbs & flows from that point onwards to the end.
Sean: So, since ‘Control’ there has been a personnel change, with you guys parting ways with Jared (Piatkowski). You made a decision to carry on as a two-piece during the recording of the album, which must have been hard.
Anth: It was a difficult decision to make at the time. Jared is a good guy… a lovely guy but he was over committed everywhere else with work & family and for us to take it into the studio we needed everyone to be fully committed to the band and the album… we were all desperate to get something out this year and so when The Rockpit 10th Anniversary gig popped up it gave us a deadline to get ‘Order From Chaos’ out there – and man, we have been busting our arse to do that. Lee is a good backbone – he really keeps my head in check – He’s a yes man. We decided when we started pre-production that the wheels were falling off and that we were going to have to pull the pin – making an album is a huge commitment both emotionally & financially and we felt if wasn’t fair to add even more pressure to Jared at that time. So, after we parted ways we saw Mat at Coloursound, decided to jump in head first and get it done. It was weird – it was like a magnetic pull for us and it was just something we had to do. When we got into the studio we sat down and talked to Mat and he just said “Utilize me, I used to be a bass player” and we’d worked with him on ‘Control’ so we had a good relationship already. It was a labour of love but it’s also been so rewarding – just picking up the boxes yesterday with the physical copies of the disc was just so awesome… it felt really, really good.
So, at the moment we have Ben (Strapp) on bass for the live shows, he’s Lee’s brother and a brilliant bass player so he’s like a permanent fill-in for the time being but he also has family commitments & a high-pressure job. He really wanted to join but when it comes to touring he was honest in the fact that he won’t be able to commit to that one hundred percent. He’s really helped us and as a musician he is brilliant. Wait till you see him at The Evelyn. Having two brothers in the rhythm section, they really lock in and gel so well together. So it’s a real shame he can’t commit and the search goes on for a permanent bass player for WARBIRDS… I’m hoping it will be like that Kevin Costner movie ‘Field of Dreams’ – “Build & they will come”.
Sean: The hard work has been done and the foundations have been laid so the new bass player can just slide into the role without too much pressure. We are so excited to have you on the bill at The Evelyn on October 12 for the launch of the album and I can’t wait to hear these played live. As I’ve already asked you my regular wind-down questions last time we spoke, I’ve had to think of a couple more… and the first is what was the last album you listened to?
Anth: [laughs] My one… does that count? But the last album that I bought that I listened to was by Big Wreck, who is a Canadian band. I bought their debut album. They’ve been around a long time and you just scratch your head wondering why they haven’t become a stadium band – they are fucking amazing. The singer & guitarist is called Ian Thornley and he is world class – he has vocal qualities of Chris Cornell. He was approached by Velvet Revolver to be their front man before Scott Weiland… he went & had a jam and sing with them but declined because as a front man he wanted to play guitar but they already had Slash & Dave Kushner. Check out Big Wreck – they are awesome man.
Sean: I will do mate. So if after we hang up this call, your phone immediately started ringing, who would you hope would be on the other end asking for a collaboration with you?
Anth: Eddie Van Halen is a big deal for me but that’s more of an icon. But someone to collaborate with… probably Jeff Martin from The Tea Party, I think. I love that band – they are one of my all-time favourite bands. I suppose the other one would be Richie Kotzen from The Winery Dogs – he’s another really talented man… I’m heavily influenced by him as a lead singer & lead guitarist. So I think I’d learn a ton off either of those guys.
Sean: Kotzen has done some incredible stuff over the years. I missed out on The Tea Party so maybe that’s a band for me to revisit. Well, as always, it’s been an absolute pleasure talking to you Anth and we are all looking forward to catching up when we fly over to Melbourne in a couple of weeks for our birthday gig at The Evelyn.
Anth: It’s going to be such a good night and we can’t wait Sean.
Sean: We wish you all the best with ‘Order From Chaos’ and really hope people get to hear it. Thanks again for your time mate.
Anth: No, thank you man. And a huge thanks to The Rockpit for all your support.
Krunch Entertainment presents…
The Rockpit 10th Birthday
celebrating 10 years of rock n’ roll
Melbourne, VIC
Saturday October 12th 2019
Palace Of The King, WARBIRDS, Echo Del Tusker
The Silent Deeds & Cicadastone (acoustic set)
8pm Doors – $12 +bf Oztix or $20 at the door
Evelyn Hotel – 351 Brunswick St Fitzroy
Tickets: evelynhotel.oztix.com.au
Event Page: https://www.facebook.com/events/626696684521369/
