The Devastations want you! Yesyou!

Wed 6th Feb, 2008 in Features

I think we’ve lost some fans as a result of making Yes U, yet there were a bunch of others who weren’t into us in the past who are now – Conrad Standish

Conrad Standish is a gentleman and all class. A ladies’ man if you will. He certainly won’t kick you out of bed for smoking and he may even light one up and get his pants off…

“I’ve got a cigarette and an ashtray. I’m gonna plomp myself on the couch and um…take my pants off I guess. That’s what usually works in interviews isn’t it?”

The Devastations have released their third long player titled Yes U. It’s seems to be a convenient title that screams out to the masses of consumers – œHey you, listen to something different’. And – œdifference’ is what this album is all about. Leaving the safety zone of their earlier plush Nick Cave inspired albums such as the beautiful Coal. Yes U is a more experimental and sensual venture.

A hypnotic journey with it’s electronic drones and synth beats, it’s an album that entirely reinvents the band’s sound as Conrad explained “We were very interested in making a synthetic kind of an album, our first albums were very much acoustic based, very warm and rich records where everything sounds like it should sound, where’s that was kinda the last thing we wanted to do with this record.”

On first spin of Yes U it’s difficult not to liken the sounds to early Cure ( Disintegration era ), INX and even The Church. There is almost an 80s spirit to the album, aside from the electronic whirls and buzzes surrounding the music. Producer Chris Coady was responsible for some of the shaping on Yes U but not necessarily the moulding “He was great” Standish explains “I wouldn’t say that he kinda affected the sound of the album all that much because we didn’t record with him. He wasn’t really acting as producer as such but he engineered the mixes. But he was awesome, I mean he’s got really fantastic ideas and I’d like to make as many albums with him as possible because he’s really really wonderful to be around.

“Half of the songs on Yes U we’d had for quite a long time, but they were just in different kinda guises. So leading up to recording Yes U we went through a massive rehearsal phase and reworked a lot of the songs, to make sure we didn’t repeat ourselves.” Conrad explains.

And if there is one thing The Devastations have not done is repeat themselves. In fact Yes U is such a departure from their previous records that the question of alienating their already established fan base arose, and Conrad addressed the issue with tact and honesty “I think we’ve lost some fans as a result of making Yes U, yet there were a bunch of others who weren’t into us in the past who are now, I mean a film maker wouldn’t just keep making the same film over and over again, and I don’t see why a musician should, it’s important for us to always move forward”.

The Devastations are familiar with putting the wheels in motion. The band left their hometown of Melbourne several years ago to pursue Europe, quickly settling in Berlin and sucking in the experimental German music scene. Yet now the boys have made the move to London. I asked Conrad more about these decisions and how it influenced the music

“I mean one good thing about London is that everyone plays here and I guess we’ve had the opportunity to see a lot of things we might not see if we were in Melbourne for example. Yet as far as an actual scene kinda goes and that’s a horrible word, there’s probably more interesting things in Melbourne than there are over here (London), but I guess over here there are just more interesting things passing through”.

Catch The Devastations while they’re in Australia playing The St Jeromes Laneway Festival, The Lounge and Lonsdale Street on Sat 24th Feb. Yes U is out now on Remote Control.