There are certain bands that incite excitement around their tours. COG is one of those bands and popular demand sees the band back on the road this October and November with their “The Viny Tour Continued” which hits some of markets they missed on the first run of shows.
I spoke with drummer Lucius Borich a few days ahead of the tours start where we discussed the first time vinyl release of 2005’s “The New Normal” and 2008’s “Sharing Space” that have been given a truly deluxe treatment to by Melbourne label Rare Records. We also spoke of the possibility of new music. COG’s brand of progressive rock make them a band to be experienced live and if they are in your area, please go and check them out.
Andrew : Good morning, Lucius.
Lucius : Andrew, how are you mate?
Andrew : Good buddy, how are you going?
Lucius : Not too bad.
Andrew : Firstly, thank you for taking time out of your morning to have a chat with me here at The Rockpit. It’s an absolute pleasure to be talking to you my friend.
Lucius : You’re welcome. Thanks for having us.
Andrew : The band is about to undertake “The Vinyl Tour Continued” which is the regional leg of the vinyl tour. It must feel great to have “The New Normal” and ‘Sharing Spaces” out on vinyl finally. How important is it to band to have these albums out again. Obviously, the fans have responded well.
Lucius : It’s like a milestone. I think it’s a completed the circle, if you will, given that it’s a vinyl too. Pardon the pun there but, it is kind of like a milestone. Just putting anything out there musically in a digital format just doesn’t feel like it’s the real deal. It could be quite a bit of a statement to some degree but you know take it or leave it or whatever. I grew up with vinyl. You know my generation did and there was definitely a tangible kind of relationship that brought us closer to the artist and closer to the music. You know, it was obviously a physical tangible copy of something, so it just felt like it had a lot of value and there was a lot of relationship and invested time in basically listening to music which you know really got you and you felt like you got closer to the music which was which was great.
For us to encapsulate it in vinyl just feels like it’s a completed circle and hopefully people out there will, will have that same experience.
Andrew : I’m very much like you. I’m a physical product guy. I grew up on vinyl and I’m back with vinyl and CDs obviously filled the gap in vinyls predominant absence. I show a lot of resistance to streaming purely because I don’t think the artist gets a fair deal out of it. Streaming is not a tangible thing. It’s not a physical thing. It’s not a document in time. Which is what I consider a lot of vinyl to be for me.
Lucius : Yeah, I mean, you know, if your needle breaks, you’ve got to go and fix it, if you love the music, you’ll spend the time. It just really gives that kind of push and pull, all that relationship with the music, with the physical, which I think is really, really cool. I mean, I’ve still got a lot of my vinyl. I’ve got to go and get a needle because I broke one of them, but I feel like the digital is just such a, how do I say it? It lacks something, it really lacks something. You know, you can say, yes digital is somewhat clearer to a degree obviously, because you haven’t got the sound of the needle on the record, but that adds a certain kind of warmth of tone or vibe to it, which is basically what we get when we listen to music through that kind of medium. Digital as in the CD wasn’t perfect either you’d be listening to your digital music and there were limitations on how it performed. Whenever you’re traveling or whatever you’re doing if the actual reception’s not good and it’s crackling and it’s like, I guess there is a similarity to some degree, isn’t there? I’ve been really trying to think about and just feel that and just kind of go, you know, there used to be times where you’d be listening to your vinyl and then all of a sudden there’d be a bump or there’d be a jump and it’d piss you off and you’d go, oh shit (laughs). You know, but the same thing kind of applies to the digital too. You know, you’ll be driving around and you want to listen to something and it goes all scratchy, so that kind of digital weird kind of sound seems to come in and there’s just not a clear thing going on at certain times. It’s the physical copy for me, it’s also something that you own as well. You have an additional connection to it, the ability to hold it and really immerse yourself in it, the packaging and the music. There is a responsibility to it as well. You need to make sure that your vinyl gets kept in good order and is well looked after. It still has the value there I mean as you know, there’s some vinyl now that’s worth a lot of money. Vinyl and the way it’s packaged you know kind of envelopes a different type of value if you will, compared to a modern digital medium and obviously there’s the sonic benefits of vinyl too.
Andrew : I think the key thing with these vinyl reissues issues and I guess I’ve got a little bit more of an insight as I’m friends with Doug from Rare Records and he basically had told me about the project as it was developing, the setbacks and the timeline of the project. Finally seeing the end physical product and the incredible job he’s done with replicating the artwork and just the attention to detail in everything to do with these releases was amazing. How hard did you and Rare Records work together in getting that right?
Lucius : Well, it was super frustrating to some degree too, I mean, and this is obviously what makes you feel like there is a lot more value and it’s worth more because you struggle to actually get it all to a point where the physical product is somewhat bulletproof, if you will.
We’ve had a few people saying this isn’t right or that’s not right. You know, you are doing it in an organic kind of way so to speak when it comes to pressing vinyl. Things can go wrong and that’s inevitable but we do our best to deliver the finest end product every time. We take a huge amount of pride in the product we deliver. When you are pressing vinyl you will always get some anomalies and certain aspects that kind of don’t always come out right. We didn’t cheat in the gram weight of the vinyl, the sonic texture of the vinyl, we went all out. We made sure that it was the best it could be, that’s why there’s three albums, you know, basically six sides for one of the albums, because you can only fit a certain amount of songs per side because we wanted the quality to be so good.
We wanted the quality to be the best you can get on vinyl and that means you can’t squash it onto one side otherwise you lose a lot of the sonic kind of value of it. So, we made sure that it was right up to spec in that regard. You have seen the product so you know we didn’t cut any corners. A lot of people just go for a quick product to sell and market and just to get something out there and think it’s cool, but they don’t go the extra yards of really putting the sonic aspect into it. We felt that given that we spent a lot of time writing the music and then recording the music we want to make sure that it sounds as good as it possibly can on vinyl. We refused to skimp on anything sonically. Some bands are Ok with their audio masters coming an MP3 source. Some people won’t care about that and some people will. Obviously, as a musician, an engineer, a mixer and producer myself I’m more invested in that side of the coin.
Andrew : Were you hands on in the mastering for vinyl?
Lucius : Tony “Jack the Bear” Mantz, mastered it in Melbourne and he did a great job and he’s been in the industry for 20, 30 odd years mastering and he’s very good when it comes to vinyl, you’ve got to master differently for vinyl than you do for digital. My part in it was all a matter of making sure that I went back and was happy with the original files of the mixes and then he got sent those. From there, he was able to complete the final mastering for vinyl. You can’t do it from, well, you can do it from a digital WAV file or MP3 and master it but I think the original WAV file mixes that are unmastered are better to master, because a lot of people will take the master and then they’ll physically put the digital master onto vinyl. If you get the original mixes that haven’t been mastered and then you master them for vinyl. It’s a slightly different process and there is such a noticeable difference in the end result.
Andrew : In another degree of separation, Tony is also a good friend of mine and it’s nice to sort of hear and know that friends of mine have worked on this project with you guys. I know the care and the attention to detail that these guys put into it whatever they work on and it’s a credit to the band for doing it right. It’s certainly been handled the right way. I’m just blown away by these releases on vinyl.
Lucius : It’s our pleasure, it feels great to have finally done it. You feel like you’ve really completed that circle and your music is encapsulated. Not just on like a hard drive or something, it’s a different kind of media which is great.
Andrew : In 2016 COG band got back together and did a national tour. That was the first time that I actually seen you guys live. You played at the Granada Tavern in Hobart, Tasmania and I just remember being blown away by the energy of the band, the power of the songs and the vibe coming from the crowd. I still consider that gig probably be one of my favourite gigs of the last decade. I was always aware of the catalogue but seeing you guys live is a whole different beast. There’s an energy and intensity that again I don’t think can be translated by a recording. When the band kicked off the first leg of The Vinyl Tour were you expecting the response to be the way it was?
Lucius : Given things change, people’s tastes change and attitudes change and what they like changes I think we’re pretty fortunate in the sense that when we started out we earned a great following. I don’t know how you’d start a band now. It’s a weird kind of playing field these days. But we built our following in a as I like to say, a boots on the ground, brick by brick, real gig by gig kind of thing, shaking hands and just absolutely going up and down the highway as much as we could. We played as much as we could to try and get better as not only players, but to just cement foundations for a community, with our sound, what we liked and our thought process the. We have always written about what we were witnessing in the world and what we were experiencing. So, you know whether that stays with you on life’s journey or not, some will tell you It kind of doesn’t, but we’ve been very fortunate that the people have stuck around and still find something in our music that keeps them coming back. Even though you put on a tour, you never quite know how it’s going to sell, it could be economical reasons. I think now there are big economical reasons where you could doubt that tickets are going to sell, but it seems like the music really speaks. You can basically see that what we did and how we built our fan base. The music itself has just lasted and the relationships have lasted; therefore people are excited to come and see the show, feel something and connect with what we do.
Having the vinyl for “The New Normal” and “Sharing Spaces” makes our set predominantly the songs from those albums. A celebration of those albums as we’re not really playing other songs from the catalogue of stuff that we’ve done. The journey that people went with us during those tours have so many good memories attached to them. There were so many good gigs that we all experienced together when those albums came out. I think a lot of people to some degree want to live those memories again and just immerse themselves in the music again with us. We don’t get to get together as much as we would like too and when I say get together, I mean, all of us, not just the band, I mean the community, the COGS; you know, we’re one part of COG, but there are all the other COGS, and that’s all the people in the room. We’re a community in many senses of the word. People have been showing up and it’s great, they are good times overall I’d say. Ninety percent of the shows have always gone to plan and everyone has generally walked away happy. We don’t know when we’ll play next, we never know when we’re going to play next after a tour. Any tour, any kind of gig can be the last one to some degree and we don’t take shows and tours for granted. I think some of the people out there that really like our music know that whenever it’s time to play COG and listen to COG and get together as the community is a special time.
That probably explains and describes a COG show from a punter’s point of view too. It does feel like a community. It feels like there’s a connection there.
Andrew : The continued leg of these eight shows for The Vinyl Tour Continued starts which starts Friday October 4, is made up of dates covering outer suburb markets like Frankston, Torquay, Byron Bay, Bunbury, Margaret River and Fremantle. Was there a lot of demand after the first league of The Vinyl Tour to hit these areas?
Lucius : Yeah, there was, we definitely got quite a few DMs and messages definitely wanting us to do those places. Because a lot of those places were ones that we used to go to religiously and built a following with over time and really supported us. It’s good to go back to those places and support the community there with music and also. It helps keep the pubs, the clubs and the venues making some money, but it’s mainly about people getting together and having a good time. There was quite a bit of, of demand you see it in the comments. Oh, when are you coming to here? Why is that on the tour? Why are we not on the tour? This round two continued was definitely part of making sure we could hit those other areas and making sure that those people were part of the experiences as well. It’s always costs a lot of money to tour, especially nowadays, it’s ridiculous. I mean, obviously it’s worth it and you want to do it, you want to get there, you want to play to the people you want to have the experience, but we’re not in a position like we were when we were younger to some degree to take a hit financially or just break even. It’s a bit more invested now and we’ve got to make sure that we can cover all the bases because we’re independent, we’re an independent band. We’re not funded by anybody other than us, the band and the people out there that like the music.
Andrew : I guess with having these, two runs of shows, does it put a fire back in the belly to want to go and record new music again?
Lucius : There’s lots of material, lots of great pieces of material that we’ve got floating around. Our problem is having the time to do it; so much music, so little time. It’s just a different playing field out there today. You’re not funded by a record company that gives you up front a certain amount of money and coin to sit in a room and write songs like we did to make those two albums “The New Normal” and “Sharing Space”. We were lucky enough to get an advance and we were also lucky enough to pay it back as well. As of right now we’re completely independent. As individuals we’ve all got different businesses, we’ve all got families and it’s just how do we find the time to try and get in a room and nut out all those riffs that we feel we’ve got. Our songs aren’t, as you know, they’re not three-minute pop songs or built on templates that people use on styles of popular music. We really try to explore things, so when you try to explore things, it takes time, and that takes money, and that can be quite a challenge. I’ve got my own recording studio at Keysound Studios in Byron Bay, which is my business and I produce and mix and engineer and other bands. Having the space to be able to write and record new music is a huge piece of the puzzle. We have the space, technology and infrastructure in my studio which is a really good situation to be in. We’ve got a great crew behind us. We’ve got a lot of great people who have been with us for a long time. We’ve obviously got other people as well on our team who can help facilitate us once we do drop some music and get it out there. We’d like to release new music. In the band I know Luke has expressed he’d like to do an album. I would love to do an album. Flynn, he’s just, he’s just got himself a new little setup at home and that’s a good indication. I think we’re trying to move in the right direction to do it because we’re creative people at the end of the day. The fire is always there in something whether it’s making the garden look good or creating something, trying to make some music, there are so many aspects of it. If we can find the time and we can narrow down some time to do it, which is can be pretty challenging we’ll try and get some new music out for sure. The mantra that we say all the time is time will tell. For the people who like COG and like what we do and would like new music the intention is there. We don’t just want to put out a song or two, we would actually try to hit that mark of putting out an album if we could. We want to get on it.
Andrew : Absolutely. Even hearing this is absolutely incredible. Unfortunately we have overshot time and I apologize for that, but there is just so much to cover and I have really enjoyed our chat. I will wrap it up now and I just want to wish you guys. All the best on this run of shows. I want to thank you for the music that you’ve given us over the last 20 plus years. COG has certainly been a part of my life that’s ingrained with memory. Thank you and congratulations to you all and hopefully we’ll see some new music from the band.
Lucius : No worries at all, mate. Thank you. We’ll see you around. Thanks, buddy. Bye.
