When The Dandy Warhols first gained popular attention with the fuzz-drenched hooky single Not If You Were The Last Junkie On Earth, nothing about them screamed longevity. But with over a decade of experience, and six albums to their name (sixth album Earth To Dandy Warhols came out in July), the band have defied the odds with a live show which is always entertaining if not always polished, and just enough edge to their recorded work to keep fans coming eagerly back for more.

With the band returning to Australia in November for a tour that will include a headlining spot at the Fat As Butter Festival on the coast of New South Wales, FasterLouder spoke to frontman Courtney Taylor Taylor about the new album, recording in your own studio, and pretty much whatever else crossed his mind at the time.

As the interview opened, Taylor sounds a little worn down. It turns out it’s his seventh interview in a row, from his hotel room in Kansas where they are currently on tour. But regular media attention is all just part of the deal of being in a successful band. “Yeah man, I don’t worry about it. We’ve really learned to arrange our schedules to do something we haven’t been doing in a while. We haven’t done any [interviews] in a couple of weeks, so I just huffed a huge bong rip, laid on the bed, and just did it, you know?” Ahh, that’s the other reason he sounds fairly relaxed.

The new album Earth To Dandy Warhols came out in July, and Taylor confirms that the reception has been great. “It’s just great, it’s great, we’ve got great fans. It’s a huge relief to us and to the people who love our records. We’re at the point now where we’re getting better, a lot better, and owning your own studio, and working in it constantly, has been eye-opening. We’ve been doing a lot of remixes, we’re all becoming phenomenal remixers, in completely different ways. I think that what we might do for the next album is just bang out a super club record.

“It’s great to be in this position and just do stuff, and not have to work like it’s a precious thing. There’ll be no precious lyrics, no bleeding heart, angsty stuff, just take a month to make it. We can do whatever the fuck we want. Like, we were in Nashville yesterday and we decided that early in the new year, we’d come back and take all of the country songs off all our records and re-record them. We’ve got heaps, like Grunge Betty, Country Leaver, so much of it is country influenced, so we thought we’d re-record them as true country songs, and get some Nashville musicians to come in and help us out. And that’s the beauty of it – if it doesn’t turn out so good, and we only get six songs that we really like, then fuck it, that’s what we’ll release.”

“We’re a bit scary, you know?” he continues. “But then, that’s kinda like the world too. It’s scary, but great, frightening and horrible, but at the same time, beautiful. And you can do anything, as long as you believe you are free.”

By this stage I’m mentally drawing lines through my questions – we’re nearly halfway through our time, and one question down. But there’s one thing I definitely want to know. This is the band’s first album away from previous label Capitol Records – how did that change their process? “It was terrible. They would take our songs and remix them without us. They would edit my songs, and edit videos, and change photographs. It was just ay-ay-ay, we made such great work that no one ever saw, these photos were amazing, and they’d say they loved them, and then only use the extreme close-up.

“I’ve always said there is a difference between entertainers and artists. We’re not cut out for the entertainment world, we’re not celebrities. We’re not perfectly guarded in what information comes out of us, we never thought about that. We make stuff that tickles us, helps us, makes us feel better about the world. That is, was, and always will be the difference between us and boy bands, the difference between us and American Idol, or Australian Idol.

“In the grand scheme of things, we’re losers. We’re the kids who are a lot happier to sit at home and learn how to play guitars, pianos, drums, to record, to mix sounds together. I was 15 years old when I bought a four track, and I was always thinking, ‘Why can’t I make this sound like a record?’ Then I started to get into the Beatles, and they only had four tracks, and I wanted to know why I couldn’t make it sound as good as that. We’re the people who think maybe the world isn’t quite as great a place to be as your room.

“The entertainers are the people, the noble experiment. The amazing thing about us is that we’re just, these people, these people who can get along for this amount of time. We’re just four people who can make music together, and it’s just better this way.”

Taylor also produced Earth To Dandy Warhols, and has produced all of their albums, right since 1995’s The Dandy’s Rule, OK?. I asked if that element of control was important for him? “Oh absolutely. That was during the whole manipulation of crap that was going on. Ever since 13 Tales [13 Tales From Urban Bohemia] blew up, we became this band that was this thing. Suddenly we’re not this wierd little band that makes records – ‘Leave them alone, they’ll do their own thing’. We became a commodity, and it was all, ‘If they’re that big on their own, imagine what we could do with them?’ There were lots of people wanting to take advantage of us, and it was really difficult.”

Each of the Dandy’s albums, while retaining a core sound which is unmistakable, has explored different sounds and themes, and I asked Taylor if that was deliberate. “There’s certain things we need to learn every time. For 13 Tales we needed to learn about classic rock, Neil Young, old antique instruments, thick textures, these swirly shoegazer textures. On Welcome To The Monkey House, it was about hip hop, negative space, only three sounds going on. There was nothing happening in it, you can hear all the way round the sound, and so there’s no guitar coming in and covering up the bass drum, or covering up the vocals. It was a real experiment in space.

“For the new record, we thought, how far can we go using only rudementary sounds, not one slick sound? We wanted ugly sounds balanced into beauty, you know? All of the swatches blended into…something. This new record was an experiment. In our studio, we have expensive gear, and really old, fucked up gear, and we needed to learn how to balance, and find out, what turns us on about pretty perfect glossy sounds, and where are they appropriate?

The band will be returning to Australia in November for a tour, and they’ve been here quite a few times before. “Yeah, but not for a few years,” Taylor agrees. “And that’s way too long for us. Cos the first place that really got into us was Australia. Australia is a country of rock – it’s guitar land, guitar and amps land.

“Actually, I’m always surprised at how much shit pop music there is in Australia. But then at the same time, you can come over, hang out, be there for weeks, in the whole world. You can just go to bars, restaurants, friends’ houses, and then do that over and over again, and you’ll never hear any of it, any of that shit pop music. So it’s out there, and there’s lots of it, but you can go your whole time and never hear any of it, which is great.”

I can feel the call conferencer about to cut in for the wind-up, but Taylor’s on a roll, and who am I to interrupt? “There is this huge part of Australian culture which is cool rock oriented. Also, it was the first country where girls knew how to wear jeans. In the mid-‘90s, the rest of the world was looking pretty stupid. There were a lot of really big pants, and girls were wearing hip huggers, and old school denims, before bell bottoms blew up, and I couldn’t believe Australia got into that before anywhere else.” I know nothing about fashion, so I’m going to have to take his word on that.

Sadly, it’s time for the end, but I squeeze one more in – which does he like playing more, festivals or house shows? “You gotta do both, you know? But my favourite is where we headline small festivals, 10 000 people, in the outdoors. We just did a tour across Europe, which was all festivals like that, and you’re going on at like midnight, it’s just so great. But you gotta do both, you know? You gotta mix it up. Just like life.”

The Dandy Warhols land at the following shows, including two festival slots at Stonefest and Fat As Butter.

Tuesday 28th October – Metro City, Perth
Friday 31st October – Enmore Theatre, Sydney
Saturday 1st November – Stonefest, University of Canberra
Sunday 2nd November – Fat As Butter 08, Newcastle
Wednesday 5th November – The Tivoli, Brisbane
Thursday 6th November – The Palace Theatre, Melbourne (sold out)
Friday 7th November – The Palace Theatre, Melbourne (2nd show)