While it’s been a frustrating year for many it has also been productive for some. Chocolate Starfish have been one of the bands that have found themselves scrabbling through more lockdowns than most here in Australia and have still managed to produce a wonderful body of work in the form of their fourth studio album ‘The Beautiful Addiction’. With the majority of the band (if not all) based in Melbourne, even getting together to record was improbable but with the help of songwriter & producer Tim Henwood, the band achieved the near on impossible to keep the ‘Fish wagon rolling on after the success & positive feedback from their previous release ‘Spider’.
Here at The Rockpit, it’s always a pleasure to catch up with charismatic front man Adam Thompson, and this time was certainly no different as we discussed the challenges of creating and recording ‘The Beautiful Addiction’ during COVID lockdowns, some in-depth analysis of some of the songs on this release and how they produced the stunning artwork that accompanies ‘The Beautiful Addiction’. Read on, as Mr Chocolate has much to talk about.
Sean: A very good afternoon Mr Thompson and how are you?
Adam: Very well thank you Sean.
Sean: Well, it’s great to see the world is slowly starting to turn once again.
Adam: It is indeed. And how have you been?
Sean: I’ve been going through a little bit of a tough time of late but then an album like ‘The Beautiful Addiction’ arrives in my inbox and I have to say it’s been a real healer for me. A wonderful collection songs Adam. How do you feel it’s ended up now it’s finally been released?
Adam: Sorry to hear that mate and thank you. There’s certainly a decent level of pride over the album and the way it was constructed was during the main lockdown, which was a bit unique, especially writing with Norman (Falvo) & Tim (Henwood) with us all being in different locations and sending everything from voice memos to little video zoom chats… you know, working that way to get the pre-production done. So, I guess in some senses it was a challenge but the other positive to it was that over the last twenty-five years I’ve not had the luxury of time to spend on each song and I guess really how I could delve deep into how I wanted the lyric & narrative to come out. Once all the pre-production was done then it made it all pretty easy when we went into the studio because so much of that groundwork had already been done.
Sean: So, I’m guessing getting everyone together was another challenge you had to overcome.
Adam: We still had to even do that individually with the recording because we were still in partial lockdown, even then so we could only have one at a time in the studio with Tim. We didn’t all stand around and jam it out like a rehearsal as such. We really toyed with tempos and Darren (Danielson) would do the same on drums, you know. He’d play it at two or three different tempos to which Tim & I would then play along to, and we could then work out which one went better. So, al lot of the stuff you would normally do in a studio environment we did at home, and we had hours and hours to play with it.
Sean: It’s come together beautifully. It’s certainly an album I could sit down with you and discuss every single track such is the different vibes across this album, but I’ve picked out just three or four or we’d be here all day [laughs]… ‘Three Words’ is one I messaged you about only last week because for me it seems quite an unusual choice to open an album with. The title track kicks you right between the eyes in typical Starfish fashion but ‘Three Words’ is a real subtle opening song which I then discovered from you was co-written by Phil Collen from Def Leppard, which blind-sided me.
Adam: Yeah, it was actually. This song had more re-writes and hands on it than a football [laughs]. Zoran (Romic) and I originally put it together around the late 90’s and what you’re hearing now as the verse was actually the chorus. There was a whole different verse structure to it and then when Zoran & Darren went overseas to do some writing… we were estranged as a trio at that point… they got Phil’s wife (Anita Thomas-Collen) to record it and Phil loved the song but felt it needed a middle part or something so he wrote what is now the chorus ‘Three Words’ part but there was no call and answer. Darren showed me and I could see it was potentially there as a chorus, but it didn’t feel complete, so I came up with the call and answer part to go with that, so it’s been back and forward amongst many hands, but I think now it’s in the right hands and it’s turned out exceptionally well.
Sean: Now I’ve listened to the album more it works so well and really leads nicely into the title track which feels so much more like a Chocolate Starfish track to me. Its punchy, fun and really kicks you right between the eyes.
Adam: Most Definitely, yes! And the lyrical content of that one too is something I’m pretty passionate about in terms of there is an obsession with beauty on the external with the world, probably now more than ever before. You know, things like narcissism are higher than they’ve ever been and a lot of that is because of social media presence, and everyone feels they are under the microscope for every second of the day so people in general spend a lot of time on their external beauty but seems that very little is spent on working on things on the inside. So that’s what ‘The Beautiful Addiction’ talks about, the addiction to the external and not enough of the internal.
Sean: And with platforms like TikTok, Snapchat and Instagram it’s not going to abate anytime soon, sadly.
Adam: It’s like all things in life, they are all tools. Your either a slave to them or you use them for your benefit and I just feel a lot of people on social media are slave to it and it almost becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy that they have to look even more beautiful than last time or more “perfect” in inverted commas and of course it’s a losing game… you can never win it. I think if we spent just a tenth of that time on something like meditation or deep breathing or nature then you can become truly beautiful.
Sean: So true and an interesting observation. The album has a wonderful run of songs next with ‘Afterlife’ then ‘Valentino’ with that earworm of a chorus and then the stunning ‘Dolls House’ which I absolutely adore.
Adam: Yeah, ‘Dolls House’ is a special track and probably one of the more mature songs we’ve ever written. So, Norm gave me that piece of music and I knew it was special… It was really funny how these things work out. You know sometimes how you do a nickname for a song or a working title? Well, when he sent me the song it had ‘Dolls’ tagged on it so immediately my brain went to this dolls house idea of wanting the perfect life away from everyone else where you could retreat inside this dolls house so no one could find us or get to us… a little bit like that movie ‘Misery’ with Cathy Bates. So, a little bit like that, where she wanted to keep the writer all to herself and manipulate him and so that the outside world had no knowledge of it so then life could be perfect behind closed doors. So that’s what I wrote it about and when I sent the lyrics back to Norm, he called me up and told me he meant he though it reminded him of Goo Goo Dolls [laughs]
Sean: [laughs] Wow, isn’t it funny that one word led to completely different ideas.
Adam: Yes, it’s all about interpretation. Its incredible that it took me to that narrative which was nothing about what he meant.
Sean: One that we’ve already spoken about when we’ve been messaging is ‘God and I Know’ which is another unexpected wonder for me and a track I just keep going back to over again. Its stunning a quite possibly my favourite in this collection of songs.
Adam: Thank you. The back story to that one is that it is actually the song I wrote for my wife for our wedding back in 2003 so we’re looking at eighteen years ago now. During lockdown and having so much spare time, I was digitizing all our VHS tapes and as mentioned earlier, around that time the band and I weren’t really hanging out much, so the guys didn’t come to the wedding. So, I had all this footage, and I found the wedding waltz, so I thought I’d show the guys what it all looked like, not even thinking of using the song as a Starfish song. Tim & Darren started talking behind my back saying they thought the song was really good and they felt it should be a Starfish song, so they then presented it to me and said they thought the song needed to be recorded… it’s got a killer chorus and the whole emotion to it is right so let’s do it our way.
Sean: If the album opener is an unusual choice to kick it all off then we need to talk about the closer, ‘Storm in a Teacup’ which has that real chain gang kind of feel to it. I can picture you guys all being chained to each other in one long line, trudging across a muddy, misty field.
Adam: Absolutely. You’ve just given me an idea for the film clip now actually [laughs]. Thank you. Yes I can too. Obviously you know I’ve been doing the Bohemian Rapsody shows and I wanted to do something with that tribal beat like in ‘We Will Rock You’ and another song from back in history that I have always loved is ‘Tusk’ by Fleetwood Mac with that wonderful drum beat and I wondered how I could combine those things but I also wanted it to be a vocal only track. So, I wanted both those two things of tribal beat, vocal only but also wanted it to be kind of a bit spiritual in terms of the sound of it like African/American spiritual, Aboriginal spiritual elements, almost like stomping in corrobboree in the same way. So that’s kind of what I was going for and the lyric just came to me one day on a walk. It was one of those things in lockdown where everybody was making more out of this problem than what they should. They should just relax a little and I was thinking that it is becoming a bit of a storm in a teacup [laughs] Everybody’s over the top OTT, everybody but me [laughs] I’m the only one staying peaceful through this whole thing [laughs]
Sean: Its quite a unique closer. I can’t let you go without talking about the striking album artwork. Its visually beautiful. What were the concept and thoughts behind that?
Adam: We were toying with what to do and we were coming up with ideas one of which was me with an IV drip coming out of one arm and a cigarette in my mouth, attached to digital music going into my ears and covered in tattoos… so we started with that, but it didn’t feel quite right. Then a friend of mine gave me this book which funnily enough was about addictions in the music industry, which was a reflection of people in the industry who often suffer from substance abuse and the like and there was an image in the book that was quite similar to what you see now on the album cover. So, I just googled “multi-coloured heads” on the internet and this image came up and there were thirty or so variants of it so we bought the rights to it and then took that image and we stretched it and manipulated it into what we wanted for our album cover so again it had a real good tie in to addictions in general.
Sean: Will this be available on vinyl because it’s certainly an album that will be joining my collection if so?
Adam: We are just working on the vinyl now actually. It first came out on CD, but vinyl is next, but we also have tee-shirts & stubby holders and I have to say the tee-shirts look magnificent.
Sean: It would look stunning on that larger artwork format and compliments the album as a body of work too.
Adam: I have had feedback from many people, from industry peers all the way through to fans, saying this is our best work since our debut so to hear that from people I respect both from those within the industry and long-term fans who know everything we’ve ever put out, is an immensely proud feeling.
Sean: You can’t ask more than that. We’ve mentioned Tim Henwood a few times during this interview and of course Tim also worked with you on ‘Spider’ but what does he bring to the Chocolate Starfish table as a songwriter & a producer?
Adam: He brings a lot. He obviously brings his song writing pedigree which has been so evident in the other bands he’s been in like The Superjesus, Rogue Traders, The Androids but as a writer he brings to me something similar that I had with Zoran. Zoran was pretty hard on me as a co-writer. If it sucked, he told me it sucked and for many years that was our working relationship – sometimes we hated each other for it and other times we loved each other for it. Tim & I are finally getting to that point where he pushes me really hard, he finds the gold in things that perhaps I miss sometimes which is great but also as a producer Tim does a terrific job. He’s really responsible for the sound of this album and taking it to places when we weren’t quite sure where we wanted it to go. I’m going to footnote this by saying as band members we sometimes don’t know what we’ve got but Tim seems to know when to step in and say, “Stop arguing boys. This is great! I’m one step removed and I’m going to tell you as your sixth member don’t screw this up!”
Sean: I always find it amazing, and Tim is a fine example of this, is that a songwriter can switch genres so seemingly effortless. You listed some of the bands Tim has been involved in but also Plasticine and one of my favourite Australian bands Palace of the King but to hear him switch from that to co-writing some of these is just mind blowing to me. It’s incredible.
Adam: It is. You find that when you’re on a quest or journey to keep exploring your potential, and I really believe this is a better album than ‘Spider’, mostly because we took some greater risks but also because we had more time. I mean we practically got ‘Spider’ ready for the Red-Hot Summer Tour but this time around we had the luxury of time and I think sometimes that can underrated. Its important to sit back and reflect on a song for a bit and then come back to it thinking, “You know what? We’re doing well but it could be better. So, let’s do it this way!”
Sean: As always Adam it’s been great to catch up and chat about this wonderful album. Thank you so much for your time as always and all of us at The Rockpit wish you all well and hope to see you back out playing some live shows very soon.
Adam: Thank you so much for your support as always Sean. It’s very much appreciated.
Sean: No problem mate. Take care.
Adam: Bye mate.
