Dead Letter Circus

Tue 1st Jun, 2010 in Features

Fasterlouder chats to Luke Williams, drummer with Dead Letter Circus about the band’s debut album, the camaraderie of Australia’s prog-rock scene and the possibility of a rivalry with the similarly named bands Dead Letter Opener and Dead Letter Chorus.

Congrats on the album. The vinyl looks awesome – were you always intending to release it on vinyl?
I think the addition of the vinyl was great to showcase the album art in another format. We’re all so happy with the job that Cameron [Gray] did on it, we wanted to have the pieces on a larger scale. It’s also nice as a little keepsake for our really loyal fans and the ones that never kept up with technology advancements and who don’t know what the fuck a cd or mp3 player looks like… maybe we should have done a cassette version as well.

There’s a lot more of an industrial influence on a lot of the new tracks. What inspired this?
Well… since I joined the band in late 2007, we started to get more interested in having programmed sounds in the music to give another sonic layer. I mean, there were always electronic elements, even on older songs like This Life Awake and Alien, but I guess we started to think of the electronic element as more of a constant feature of the music. We all started to get a bit more tech savvy also with programmes like Reason and Battery and I guess we wanted to use those new toys a lot more. We’re all so into bands like Nine Inch Nails, Massive Attack and Radiohead who use that stuff so tastefully, so it was just a matter of time before we really started to have it appear more heavily in the music we were creating.

What gear did the band favour in the studio? In particular what kind of electronic instruments were used.
Well Kim [Benzie, leadsinger]got pretty shred worthy on a keyboard for songs like This Is The Warning and The Design. Forrester [Savell, producer] is a programming genius on Battery and Reason and even Rob [Maric, guiter] and Stewy [Hill, bass] got there fingers wet in the programming pie to!! It was delicious!!! I’m trying to re-create a lot of these programmed beats live now with the edition to my set up of a Yamaha DTX Multi 12 with various auxiliary triggers all loaded up with the sounds we used in the studio. This is really cool because it allows me now to play the electronic beats instead of just putting them on a backing track.

What track have you found yourself most satisfied with from a production/recording perspective?
We were all pulling our hair out over a song called Cage. We just didn’t know how we were going to put it all together in the end. It is a song idea from years ago that we could just never figure out how to make into an entire song. But with Forrester’s help and some deadline pressure we cracked the code on that bitch and it turned out to be one of the album highlights I think. It’s cool, because it’s a new direction for us style wise with the heavy industrial feel of the whole thing, but the end of it still gives me goosebumps and it’s just magic to play as a band!!!

Did you consider re-recording Next In Line or Reaction for the album?
No… never, I don’t think! Those songs are what they are. I don’t think myself or any of the other guys could really improve the parts on those two. I think we all said musically what we needed to say on those tracks so it would have been pointless to re-record them. They got a re-mix from Forry because we needed them to stand up sonically with the rest of the album. I guess if we were unhappy with something on those songs we would have re-recorded, but we still love them to this day.

The band’s leadsinger Kim Benzie has been quoted as saying that producer Forrester Savell “doesn’t mix your band, he produces his vision of your music”. How do to the songs develop and change once Savell is involved? Are there any particular instances of his work drastically changing a song?
Haha…. Drastic is Forry’s middle name!! He’s got no hesitation in flipping a song on it’s head, then spinning it around on it’s arse. He really pushed for the industrial feel on Cage. We wanted to rock it up all the way but he was persistent in keeping the electronic pulse through the verses and choruses. So we respect his vision for the songs and have faith in his ability to help us create fresh and exciting music. He is like our fifth member and produces like one.

Savell has also produced Karnivool, The Butterfly Effect and Birds of Tokyo albums – is there a risk that ‘Savell’s sound’ could blur the distinctions between the leading Aussie prog rock groups?
I think part of Forry’s job is to take an idea and embellish on it. He doesn’t have any one trick for making something sound great, just ideas on how to make whatever band he’s working with sound better. If all the bands he worked with sounded the same then his job would be very hard I think. For instance, he would never push Karnivool into a more electronic based direction that he has with us, because he simply would not see it working, and vice versa. He wouldn’t say to us “you need more riffs like Karnivool”. Because that’s not our sound and he knows that.

How does Dead Letter Circus view those other Aussie prog rock leaders – such as Karnivool, Cog and Butterfly Effect – rivals, friendly enemies?
All these bands are great friends. I see Karnivool, TBE and Cog as not only great mates and awesome musos, but as inspiration for where I want to be in my musical career. I think that’s why this scene is harbouring such great musos because when you see someone like Lucius from Cog or Drew from Karnivool or any of the players from these bands, it makes you say to yourself “shit man, I gotta get my arse home and practice if I’m ever gonna get anywhere close to being as successful as this guy!”

You’re touring with Sydonia in June, another great heavy Australian band. What are some other acts currently emerging that you dig?
I think touring with MM9 and seeing them use the electronic programming they do definitely made us wanna go for that kind of thing too. It’s great to have a scene where even a band who supports you like MM9 can inspire the shit out of you to wanna make better and more diverse music for yourself.

I’ve always loved Sleep Parade from Melbourne and Rook was such an amazing band as well. Calling All Cars has got to be one of the most cool rock bands out there at the moment and just a bunch of cool fuckin guys as well.
Electric Horse is another one that I’m stoked about because I was a massive Sunk Loto fan and I absolutely shat a brick when I heard Electric Horse’s song Ghost of a Thousand Eyes! I think that’s what it’s called. My other band Melodyssey is a bit of alright to I think.

Will the live show differ with the album now out (ie extra members on stage, sequencers), or can we expect the same basic set-up in terms of performing live?
We’re stepping it up a lot for the new tours. I’m gonna be incorporating an electronic set up on the drums so I can re-produce the cool sounds on the album without sequencing them. We’re also going to be touring our very own lighting engineer for this tour. I think the other guys might even be providing some sweet, sweet harmonies to the live set as well. We just shoved a mic in front of them at rehearsal and forced them to sing!! Turns out they’ve got voices like angels…who would of thought?

Finally, with Dead Letter Opener and Dead Letter Chorus also gigging around the traps has there been any talk about asking the others bands to change names to avoid possible confusion?
Not at all! It was actually a ploy by all bands to get more punters to the shows. We all thought that if we had very similar names, then whatever band got famous first, the others could ride off the coattails. Now when we play a show, we get at least 200 Dead Letter Opener fans to every one!! Thanks for that guys. It’s great for our business and helps us pay the bills a little easier. The DLO fans fuckin hate it, but it’s too late once we’ve got their ticket money!

Dead Letter Circus’ debut album This Is the Warning is out now