Sandro
Ryan and Ben interviewed Gareth and Cameron of Melbourne three piece Sandro.
On the 21st of August.
Ben: Your first main release "Live by Rivers" which was originally out on Candle Records, is about to be rereleased.
Gareth: Yeah, it's being released on a label Called Brass Companion that is distributed by MDS. I think it was out last week or something.
Cameron: Last Monday.
Ben: It's the same record, nothing different?
Gareth: There's no difference. It is a pre-cursor to the next album which will be out mid September.
Ben: That's been recorded already?
Gareth: Yeah, it's all finished.
Cameron: All in the can!
Ben: One of the of things that really caught my attention was that "Live BY Rivers" was recorded in a Children's Church in Collingwood, what was the motivation in doing that as opposed to going into a studio?
Cameron: Well I used to clean it all the time so I knew of it's existence and I knew the people who ran the place I knew them well enough to get a cheaper rate and it had a nice sound.
Gareth: We played there at a party when we played in a different band years ago and it sounded excellent so Cameron came up with the idea of recording their. Which was the perfect idea. It was a great idea.
Ben: It's all natural room reverb? Was it straight to tape?
Gareth: Pretty much, we mixed it but yeah. But it was mostly straight to tape.
Cameron: Eight Track (tape).
Ben: For me it really makes the record stand out, gives it a real untainted natural live sound of the room. Which I guess makes it truer to the bands live sound?
Gareth: Yeah.
Cameron: That even changed the way we played the songs.
Gareth: Yeah, very much so.
Cameron: They weren't as quiet and when we got in there….
Gareth: You could hear everything ringing out and it kinda seemed like a good thing to do. We recorded
Everything there over two days straight. I think it lent it, well it's obvious but I think it lent it a really nice
Continuity, that may not have been there if we had recorded in a more traditional manner.
You know overdubbing things and stuff like that. Or in a studio which is a very dead room. You get lots
Of spill, to technically it's quite erroneous, but I think aesthetically ;I'm quite happy with it.
Ben: This new album that has been recorded have you gone for a similar kind of thing. Has that been recorded on location as well?
Cameron: No we used a studio, it's quite flat sounding in comparison.
Gareth: We recorded Bass Guitar and Drums live then we did more traditional things like putting the
Vocals on afterwards, we added piano and strings and stuff.. It's got a more lush sound in that respect but it's also got quite a closed in stagnant, claustrophobic kind of feel to it. We recorded it very dry.
Cameron: I think because the last album was so reverby we didn't want to go back and do "Live By Rivers" mark two. We went for something that was completely opposite.
Ben: Moving on to new things.
Gareth: You've got to keep it fresh for yourself or else you'll just get bored.
Ryan: What about the Seven inch you guys put out, what prompted that?
Cameron: Well the two songs on it were a part of three songs that we originally recorded for a Candle
Tape, which is the Candle label which the Simpletons are on and towards the end of the year Nick (bassist) and I had some money lying around so we just thought we would put it out on vinyl, just the two songs.
Gareth: …and that was recorded in Nick's studio. I can't remember if it was live or not.
Ben: On the back of "Live By Rivers" there is an inscription that reads "The above songs may be sung in public without fee or license. The public performance of parodied versions however is strictly prohibited."
Gareth: (laughs) ask Cameron.
Cameron: Not much at all really, it kinda fitted in with. It was just something that was on the end of an old piece of sheet music from the late nineteenth century and it just fitted in with the backs art I guess.
Ben: I was actually thinking that "Great, these guys have surrended their copyright to these songs!"
Like "Were just here for the music and music belongs to everyone".
Gareth: (laughs) We never even thought about things like that, you kind of expect that people aren't going to go a rip you off. You kind of hope, because really if they did, there would be nothing we could really do about it. But you like to think that most musicians or songwriters have the integrity not to do. They have, mostly.
Ben: How is Sandro received live, in the sense that your music isn't in your face aggressive, how do audiences react to that.
Cameron: It depends on the audience sometimes, who we are playing with. In our own shows it's fantastic.
Gareth: When we play with say a band from Melbourne called "The Dumb Earth" we really enjoy playing with them, because there is a nice synergy between the bands. To back up Cameron's point. It depends on whom we play with. If we play with a heavy rock band generally people are there top see the heavy rock band, unless their supporting us. ........and you tend to be sitting their not being able to hear the foldback, and it's quite difficult to concentrate. But if it's our own show it's completely different. We have been really, really happy about the way things have gone because there would be like silence a lot of the time, and it's like you can't force people to do that, it's just nice when it happens naturally.
Cameron: Well I was quite surprised at the last time when we played with "Something For Kate".
The crowd was quite into it at Melbourne Uni, and I was dreading that show you know "Uni Crowd".
And "Something For Kate", being main support! But it was really good. So it just depends you really never know. Punters are always a mysterious force you never know what's going to happen.
Gareth: This is so true.
Ryan: Are you still doing any stuff with Candle Records?
Gareth: We are not really doing anything with Candle anymore purely because we're sort of signed top someone else, and it was a friendly agreement with Candle and this is a different thing all together.
Ryan: Can you tell us a little more about the label you are signed to?
Gareth: Yeah it's a label called Brass Companion, it's a smallish, well fairly small label, a new label, "The Golden Lifestyle Band" is signed to them as well and there is a couple of other bands. It's all distributed through MDS.
Ben: Okay, this interview is going to be used for WARM COLA. I have to ask you a standard question that's been asked of all interviewed. If yourselves individually or Sandro themselves had to endorse a brand of Cola which one would it be and why?
Gareth: (laughter) That's pretty tough! Well… um…. I'm sort of (laughter) I'd rather endorse pretzels
But I wouldn't want to endorse Coke I suppose. I'd probably go for something like RC cola because they all taste the fucking same…
Cameron: Australia's choice, Payless
Gareth: Payless or RC. I think RC kind of rolls off the tongue nicely and I think they are just on the dollar mark so you've got to be happy with that.
Ryan: What about Cola cordial, what do you think of that?
Gareth: Pretty ordinary stuff.
Cameron: I sort of liked it for a while then I thought to myself, "Why am I drinking this stuff"?
Gareth: You really need the miracle of carbonation to get that cola satisfaction.