INTERVIEW: WOLFMOTHER - ANDREW STOCKDALE talks 'Rock Out' and UNCAGED!

It came as a surprise to almost all of us when it was announced that a new Wolfmother album was about to be unleashed into the world. These days of course publicity campaigns are well oiled machines of press releases, teasers and a slow drip feed of creative content. Well that’s not the way Andrew Stockdale has chosen to deliver ‘Rock Out’. It’s as surprising as it is refreshing and the album itself sounds great, but with no label or distributor and a digital only release it will be interesting to see how fans and collectors will take to this latest addition to the catalogue. We caught up with Andrew to find out more about the new album and also Wolfmother’s place on Australia’s newest Festival for Rock fans – Uncaged, hitting a city near you in January!

Andrew: Hello

Mark: Hi Andrew it’s Mark from the Rockpit how are you?

Andrew: Pretty good. Hey wait there, a hornet just came into the room – hang on! (pause) I’ve just got to get around that hornet / wasp thing!

Mark: Attacked by a hornet in the first few seconds of the interview, we’re in new territory here!

Andrew: (laughs) hopefully it doesn’t make a nest on the studio!

Mark: Attached by wildlife!

Andrew: (laughs)

Mark: Let’s go before he comes back. I guess I have to open with the obvious – what a surprise I don’t think anyone was expecting a new album?

Andrew: Yeah, well that’s part of the beauty of it I think.

Mark: I think so. I mean these days it’s normally months of lead up, press releases and singles dropping but you just went and dropped it in our laps.

Andrew: I’m glad to hear that. I have been talking to labels and of course it’s great to get an advance, it’s great to have a professional team working on it, but then you ask about a release date and they’re like “Oh maybe in like 8 months.” So I thought, “I don’t want to just sit around all that time. We’ve already had time taken away from us with all this covid stuff and now I can’t make music for 8 months?” I didn’t want to get caught up in all that restrictive, traditional roll-out of a record so to speak.

Mark: I actually love the idea that it’s just appeared out of thin air from a fan’s perspective. And it sounds great too!

Andrew: Cheers.

Mark: Wolfmother for Wolfmother fans.

Andrew: Thank you.

Mark: I remember first seeing you I think it must have been in Sydney in around 2006 and I’ve loved everything you’ve put out since. Back in those days of course we had tours like Big Day Out and Soundwave and now we have our own Australian Rock Festival ‘Uncaged.’

Andrew: Yeah.

Mark: And you’re gonna be there.

Andrew: Yeah, I guess it’s kind of even better than the Big Day Out and all of those other Festivals because they always relied on an international to headline and now here I am – I’m the headline! (laughs) So I’m a local, but I tour the world just like every other band. It’s just great to see that leap of faith by the Australian Music Industry in Australian bands. These bands can pull a crowd and make great music so let’s support them!

Mark: And great to see some younger bands on the bill as well. There’s some old and some new – a nice mix and Wolfmother are sat there in the middle, but I guess now you’re getting to be considered ‘old timers’ – how do you feel about that?

Andrew: Yeah it’s like when I put out the record I look at the charts and I see Rod Stewart who’s in his 70’s, there’s Queen – they’re no longer, and pretty much every band isn’t alive or is in their 70’s. I’m in my 40’s – so like you say n the middle ground, but Rock and Roll definitely relies on younger people having a go and reinvigorating it. But there is such a stigma of ‘You are no worthy’ – “you’re not Jimi Hendrix or Led Zeppelin, you’re not AC/DC – who the hell are you and what right do you have to play this music?” So you can see why people to an extent feel why they can’t do it or they shouldn’t do it – but music needs to be reinterpreted and given new life!

Mark: Absolutely – and I think that’s what you did when that debut came out – not only making great new music but turning people onto some great music of the past.

Andrew: Thank you.

Mark: I just have to ask one quick question just to see if it’s a coincidence or intentional – the new album is called ‘Rock Out’ and has a single on it called ‘Humble’ – back in the 70’s the band Humble Pie did an album called ‘Rock On’ – is that a coincidence?

Andrew: (laughs) That is a coincidence. But I am aware of that band – Steve Marriott Right? I have listened to him.

Mark: Ok no big exclusive there then! (laughs)

Andrew: (laughs)

Mark: I actually really liked that track and the single of course ‘Feelin’ Love’ is one that really hits you squarely between the eyes! Do you have a plan in mind when you sit down to write a new album, or does it just flow?

Andrew: Sometimes there’s a little bit of a plan, and sometimes I completely ditch the plan because a plan can demoralize you (laughs) If you’re thinking too far a head and you’re reaching for something and you fall short you feel like you’re not getting anywhere and it increases the pressure, you know. So it’s kind of half way between the two – wanting to achieve something from the song but also allowing the song to work out what works well together. When you’re playing with the chords its like “Well this doesn’t work with that, maybe I’ll just go to this – you kind of have to follow your ear to find what chords will fit!” It’s like sculpturing a… sculpture! (laughs)

Mark: (laughs)

Andrew: You don’t know what’s there but you start chipping away at it and it starts taking form until you start to get a general idea of where you’re going I guess.

Mark: A great analogy, I like that. You made this album a little differently this time, not by choice but by necessity – how different was it? I think I read in the past that you tend to demo a few tracks then go out and flesh them out with the band…

Andrew: Yes.

Mark: Was it a similar process except of course that with lockdown you obviously couldn’t get together with the full band and play them like you normally would?

Andrew: Yes, this was definitely not about fleshing it out with the band. This was me sitting in a room writing the best riff I could – tracking the drums and the bass on a laptop. I did that for about three months – I’d written this whole record in January through to March of, I cant remember if it was this year or last year! (laughs)

Mark: (laughs) That’s what lockdown does to us!

Andrew: Then I kind of left it for a while – I sent the band like SoundCloud links. Then I brought Hamish the drummer over to my house to have a listen and we tracked like 70% of the record at my house in one day and then I went to work on the bass and the guitar. Then people were like ‘You’ve gotta put it out, you’ve gotta put it out!” But I just wanted another three or four and then anther one, so I just kept adding. In the end I added maybe five new songs that made the final cut – ‘Humble’, ‘Only Way’… Umm.

Mark: ‘Outside’ I think was one that came later?

Andrew: ‘Outside’… and then it got to the point where I probably had about sixteen songs and I got to get to work on deciding what would make it. “I’m trimming off this one – this one’s not good enough, get rid of this, get rid of that – I trimmed off like 6 songs to get it to 10 songs that I thought were decent.” Then I talked to a few labels but the just changed my mind. I was flattered to have interest from the labels – they were like “This is a great record, this is really going to go…” And I was like “Whoa yeah – here we go!” But then I though – I don’t want to sign a deal – I kind of like not being signed.

Mark: It’s interesting that you got the album down to 10 songs – that preconceived ballpark view of the length of an album – a physical format that you can hold in your hand and marvel at the cover and read the liner notes and all those retro things associated with it. But I think some may be surprised that there may not be a vinyl version or even a physical version at all? Plenty of people have asked me when it’s coming out on vinyl, but that’s not part of the plan is it?

Andrew: Well I know this sounds a bit hippy and altruistic, but I am a bit of an environmentalist – I’m not a purist by any shape or form but I do feel that shipping off a bunch of plastic in this day and age is slightly self-indulgent. You know, the whole digital thing is working and I have an electric car and solar panels on my roof so I’m trying to minimize my foot print do to speak.

Mark: Minimize your footprint in one way, but with an album like this you’ll be maximizing the impact!

Andrew: I like that! (laughs)

Mark: It will be great to hear it live too, I have fried in the States who were disappointed when the Primus Tour didn’t happen. That sounded cool. Covid of course has affected us all, but I’m assuming a year ago you would have been expecting that tour to go ahead?

Andrew: Well we were close to doing it but then I heard that there was a shortage of quarantine hotels and that me and the band could have got stuck waiting to get back at the end of the tour. I don’t know I just thought maybe it wasn’t the right time for an Australian band to be touring the States at this point – I wasn’t willing to put us out there when so many people still can’t get home. But I’d love to get out there soon and do it again.

Mark: Well it looks like we’re getting closer to some kind of normality. That hopefully means that the Kiss Tour will be going ahead that you’re playing on?

Andrew: Yeah, yeah, totally, I can’t remember when that is! (laughs) In all honesty I’ve lost track of all the dates – they’ve changed so many times!

Mark: (laughs) I think a lot of us have! I think it’s March but can’t remember the year!

Andrew: (laughs)

Mark: So it’s Uncaged in January – fingers crossed all goes well, the the Kiss Tour, then hopefully we’ll get to see you around Australia?

Andrew: For sure!

Mark: It was a great show last time in Perth – it’s been too long!

Andrew: We’ll definitely be over.

Mark: Just time for a couple of quick questions before we go. The first is – If you could have been a ‘fly on the wall’ for the creation of any great album from any point in Rock History what would you like to have seen being made?

Andrew: That’s an interesting thought. I’d say, maybe just off the top of my head any of the early Hendrix ones, because I’m… well first of all I’d love to see how late Jimi was to the sessions (laughs)

Mark: (laughs)

Andrew: I was listening to ‘All Along the Watchtower’ the other day and thinking – there’s a lot of acoustic on this – I love the drum sounds, that jazzy Mitch Mitchell feel, and that acoustic and how it mixes with the guitar and the aggressive fuzz tones. So something like that in New York – that would have been a good session to see!

Mark: Anything Hendrix for me, it’s hard to know sometimes the legends from the truth but all we know for sure is that it produced some lightning in a bottle.

Andrew: Yeah.

Mark: And the final question just to leave you with – a nice easy one – what is the meaning of life?

Andrew: The meaning of life (long laughs) Well if you’re having a good day like today that’s it. Be happy, healthy and cause no harm to others. Try to follow your dreams, follow your heart and… something along those lines I’d say! (laughs)

Mark: Thank you so much for your time Andrew, great to talk to you. It’s not everyday you get an interview that starts out with a hornet attack!

Andrew: (laughs)

Mark: Take care of yourself till we see you again.

Andrew: Thanks Mark! See you soon.

WOLFMOTHER are also headlining the UNCAGED Festival in January and February 2022. Uncaged (Presented by Silverback Touring) is the newest rock festival on the Australian festival circuit and packs a punch of musical diversity catering to fans of hard rock, alternative, pop punk, prog, metal and everything in between. The first line up offering features heavyweights, WOLFMOTHER, who headline Uncaged after spending the majority of their career touring and selling out theatres, stadiums and festivals the world over. Uncaged marks the bands return to Australian festival stages following their last major Australian tour in late 2019 and early 2020.