Karnivool

Tue 9th Jun, 2009 in Features

Sonically, Karnivool’s debut Themata and their recent sophomore release Sound Awake couldn’t be further apart. While Themata was pounding and direct, Sound Awake takes the listener on a more emotional musical journey. It’s the sound of a band that has – in the four years between both albums – reconfigured how they write record and play, all for the sake of making an album they believe in.

However, as rhythm guitarist Mark Hosking speaks of their new methods, he stumbles and stutters over words. While talkative up till now, he finds it hard to phrase the exact experience of bringing Sound Awake to life. It’s soon revealed that what he can’t bring to fathom is not joy, but pain.

“In hindsight, songwriting is a beautiful experience but doing it at the time was really painful. Especially for us, because we’re really anal people. I think we all know what we want from music and I think we put those five people in a room you are bound to have a few head clashes and people getting emotionally attached to parts that may or may not make it in the final process.”

That said, Hosking is quick to rebuff any theories there may be that tensions in the songwriting process may have led to personal tensions or vendettas. As well as strong personal friendships, he espouses the necessity of mediation. “A lot of people had different ideas on songs, no doubts about that. But it never really blew up into anything large. We have ways of healing situations. Ways of talking amongst ourselves, which is good. I think any kind of process where it’s this involved needs outlets that are good and set up early so we don’t get into stupid conversations and those things don’t happen.”

Sound Awake was the first time that Karnivool had worked as a single entity on their musical endeavours. Mark adds that the process of jamming and recording that they employed may not have been the smartest, despite being preferred for the sake of the new album.

“The way we write is pretty stupid. It’s pretty much us in a room jamming out sounds, jamming out things we like, recording most of it, listening back, finding the stuff we like, pulling into a jam room again and re-jamming it, getting out the stuff we liked from the stuff we liked – it starts getting really small at this point – then taking that piece and turning it into something good and reanalysing it. It’s just how we do it. We’ve tried other ways and some songs come together quickly and some songs take forever. We’ve always said, however long it takes, we’ll wait until it’s right.”

Mark is quick to note that it was the physical length of this process, in addition to constant touring, that led to the four-year gap between drinks for Karnivool fans. “When we released Themata, we pretty much toured flat-out for the crux of two years – Australia, America, anywhere we possibly could at the time. So when we come back from that tour and we find ourselves with enough time to set up a studio, get back in and start writing again it was a good year-and-a-half, almost two years since Themata had been released. Then we just kicked straight back into the process.

“I guess we have to apologise for that, because people are expecting music out of us but we just couldn’t do it any other way. As painful as it is to write like this it does, in the end, reap results that we are happy with. I guess it’s hard to change a broken horse.”

Despite its setbacks, the emotion brought on by the album’s new direction is one of the many positives of the band’s newfound unity in the recording studio. “There’s a lot more of us all in a room shooting ideas and playing instruments at each other; really challenging us individually and as a group to make something better. We liked Themata and we liked what it was but we just knew we could do better. I think this album encompasses us more as group, as a whole. Just by the fact that you put passionate people in a room and get them to play at each other, it’s a bit more emotive than any other way. I think that really shows on this album.”

One key facet of Sound Awake that the Karnivool faithful will note is its final track, Change, a musical link between the two albums. Hosking adds that the link was borne of the same desire to better the band’s output that laid the foundations for Sound Awake. “When we finished Themata, we had already started writing Change, the one that’s on Sound Awake. We basically ran out of time to finish that song and we love what we hand. It totally changed since then: it’s a completely different song. I guess that’s why we ended Themata like we did, because we also thought that Themata wasn’t the album that we all wanted to do. It was a great album but we knew we had something else in us.

“We left it open-ended with Change. The original plan was to put Change Pt.2 at the start of the album. But sonically that just didn’t work. It was a long song and it’d bore the hell out of most people as an opening track to an album. So we just had to find a way to fit it on the end. It’s funny; the vocals on Change Pt.1 are four-year-old [Ian] Kenny. But there are parts of the four-year-younger Kenny that you can hear in the background. Some of the breathing is actually the younger Kenny.”

As with any follow-up album, one of the biggest challenges was to overcome the high expectations set by their debut. Thankfully, one obstacle that Mark and the band didn’t have to face was the expectations of recording executives.

“The lucky situation we find ourselves in – which I think is through our very large push for independent music – is the fact that we did Themata completely independently. Only in the last three or four months after recording Sound Awake did we really get into a relationship with a record company. They didn’t really have much say in the matter, nor would they ever. I guess we just got a good loyal fan base from Themata. It’s just a good sign.

“It’s a very different album, but I think it’s still Karnivool at its core. The sheer nature of this music means you don’t have to be writing three-minute songs, thank god! You get a bit of freedom as far as musical terms go.”

Sound Awake is out now – read the FasterLouder review. Catch Karnivool at the following shows this winter.

Saturday 20 June – Tivoli, Brisbane
Sunday 21 June – Tivoli, Brisbane
Wednesday 24 June – Metro Theatre, Sydney
Thursday 25 June – Metro Theatre, Sydney
Friday 26 June -The Forum, Melbourne
Saturday 27 June -The Forum, Melbourne
Sunday 28 June – HQ, Adelaide
Wednesday 1 July – Metro, Fremantle