Wolves

Sat 14th Aug, 2010 in Features

This Saturday night, local indie-rockers Wolves will finish their set at Amplifier, soak up the party fumes and then shoot off to the international airport. A fair amount in one night? Well not really if you look at what they’ve accomplished in a year.

Frontman Adam Burford and drummer Jaise Robb are ambitious realists but ask them how they got their band name, how fellow act Wolves At The Door feel about mistaken cases of identity or whether they’ve got any fans and you’ll be greeted with laughter, followed by an almost semi-reminiscent, self questioning “I don’t know” as they look to each other for answers. One thing’s for sure though; the opportunity to record an album with legendary producer Silvia Massey (Tool, System of a Down, RHCP, Johnny Cash) was not going to be passed up by this determined five-piece.

“She’s a monster, she knows what’s going on,” Jaise says.

“Just watching her videos on Youtube of her in the studio with Tool and System Of A Down…I don’t know, putting ourselves up against bands like that?”

When Massey heard a few demos Adam had made in 2007 on her visit to Perth for the WAMi festival, Adam moved onto Massey’s radar but it wasn’t until Adam fired off an email to Massey before a visit to New York in January that the ball really started rolling.

“She heard what I was doing with Wolves and was really keen and said yeah, get in touch with me when you get back (to Perth) and we’ll make something happen.”

Both appear to have overcome the hype associated with the opportunity that lies ahead of them but then Jaise smiles in disbelief, “We were gonna release an EP in April and we were talking about who we were going to record with and Adam was like ‘well hang on, I’ve spoken to this Silvia chick and Reucas (bassist) was like ‘SILVIA MASSEY!? NO WAY, NO WAY!’ like freaking out. I’d never heard of her and hadn’t listened to much of the stuff she’d done. After he’d told us that, there was no question we were going to record with anyone here and release an EP when she’s offered to do an album with us for a fraction of the cost of what an album would cost us here.”

But don’t get them wrong, they love Perth. After all, they have grown up in the Perth music scene and it’s through its blur of connections that they formed, but Perth isn’t the be all and end all for musicians.

“You can get buckled down with Perth too. And it’s kind of like, the Perth mentality is, so you know: record an EP, release it, then record an album, release it and go no-where. There’s a lot of amazing bands in Perth that just do the motions like every other band and we kinda wanna break that mould a little bit which is what hopefully going to America and doing this album is going to do for us. We’ve played a lot of shows in Perth and hopefully from now we can play an equal amount of shows in Perth as we do over east or wherever,” Jaise says in a serious tone.

Adam comments that the rest of the band share a similar view, “We’re all pretty much on the same page with that… I don’t want a career at this point. I want my focus to be music and you know, see where it goes.

I think if she was so keen to record us she must see a market for us where she is so I guess ultimately best case scenario is that we can kind of hook- up something over there.”

“From this point on we’ve all taken the time out of our lives to go away for seven weeks and from this point on there’s at least a good year of solid, solid hard work where you just live and breathe band. I think that’s what it takes to get to that next level…there’s so many bands that just stay in the local level and get to a national touring level and don’t move for one reason or another whether it be work commitments or not being able to focus so much or whatever. I think we’re all pretty committed to the cause and really want to give it a good crack because me, Reucas and Adam, we’re all sort of 26, 27, you know, don’t want to be kicking around in local bands when we’re 30,” Jaise remarks in a ‘no bullshit’ manner.

Massey’s studio is between Portland and San Francisco and “out in the sticks,” according to Jaise. After visiting LA, Vegas and San Fran, they’ll greyhound up to the studio to spend four weeks recording and although the final result may be unpredictable, there are already a few plans underway for the remaining three weeks over there with a couple of shows in Sydney locked in upon their return from the US.

“We’re in the process of trying to organise some shows in NY so for the eight days after doing the record we are hoping to do two or three shows there through a contact that I know over there but that’s not concrete yet,” Jaise says.

With a view to putting ten songs on the album, Wolves have written 14 songs collaboratively which they’ll be taking to the studio along with their two demo tracks Bright Lights and It’s Alright.

“Everything happens as a band…Rach (violinist) or Reu will generally come in with a bit of riff or something and Russ will have a guitar line he’s kinda been playing with and we’ll kind of kick it about, thrash it about in the rehearsal room and see where it goes. Everyone contributes pretty equally,” Adam comments.

As for the lyrics, that’s Adam’s compartment.

“Before Adam joined, me, Russ, Reu and Rach would just get in a jam room and play and then after Adam joined it became a little bit more structured. Slightly. But everything is still being written in the jam room. No songs have been written outside and been bought in…which can be slower but I think better as a whole,” Jaise reflects.

He agrees that their energetic and diverse sound is a mesh of what they’ve all been part of before Wolves.

“Russ still plays very like a punk guitarist. He’s very into that. Even the motion and the performance, the whole thing is pretty punk but then Reucas is very indie in the way he plays as well as the way he sort of carries himself and Rach coming from Streetlight was an indie band sort of thing.”

For Adam, moving from solo performance into a group is a transition he admits he’s still grappling with.

“I’d never played without a guitar before so that was a bit of an adjustment. I had no guitar to hide behind…I think I’m still kind of finding my true comfort zone on stage. There’s still a few times where I kinda wish I had a guitar strapped to me but it’s good fun, different experience.”

They must’ve been doing something right though as after a mere two months performing around Perth, Canadian band Metric personally chose Wolves as their supporters for their side-show after Parklife last year. Adam and Jaise pin it as their favourite gig they’ve done in Perth so far along with Sydney rockers MM9.

“I was actually working the Parklife festival. I work as a tour-runner. They jumped in my van and I was like ‘oh what band are you guys from?’ and they’re like ‘oh we’re from Metric’ and I was like ‘oh my band’s playing with you guys tomorrow’ and they’re like ‘Wolves!’...and they said ‘we chose you guys. They gave us a list and we chose you,’ Jaise excitedly recalls.

Along with talent, it’s persistence and determination that automatically put Wolves in the competitive arena and it’s not something that just appears out of thin air. The idea of seriously pursuing a career in music didn’t happen for Adam until he went through what he describes as “cliché.”

“Well I always really loved music but it wasn’t until…I went through a hard patch and Smashing Pumpkins...I listened to them to death there for a while there and I kind of identified with a lot of that, what they were writing and singing about and I kinda thought, ‘yeh I kinda wanna be able to do that’ with someone else.”

Jaise reflects that his parents would say ‘what are you doing mate’ but at the same time were quite supportive.

“I can see the cogs turning in a different generation. An older generation might nod their heads and think ‘you’re crazy’ but I think music back when they were young…people who played music were crazy most of the time. Rock-stars in the 80’s were real rock-stars. I think music’s changed a lot since then and a lot of people can have mild success with the accessibility of music these days. Mild success is enough; you don’t need to be a massive epic super rock-star to be a musician these days,” he says.

It is strange to learn that the band’s name Wolves was one of “literally thousands” proposed and stranger that both Adam and Jaise have to ask themselves how the name came about.

“How did that happen?” Jaise asks Adam and laughs.

“We all just felt so stupid about it and then…at the end of the day we were just like let’s just go with Wolves,” Adam woefully concludes and then adds, looking to Adam for support, “I think we were depressed about it. We just hated everything.”

“Yeh, we had a gig coming up and so we obviously needed a name and so we went ok that’s the one we hate the least,” Adam half jokes.

But neither knew such a name would cause such confusion, nor that it was the height of popularity. All you need to do is type ‘Wolves’ into google and you’ll find the answer.

“Yeh, it hasn’t been a problem but there’s been a confusion with Wolves At The Door a couple of times. I don’t know if they’re happy about it or,” Jaise laughs off.

“We played a gig with them a couple of months ago with a band called The Chemist and they booked Wolves At The Door and us.”

“And their album name had some wolves kind of reference,” Adam adds.

There won’t be any name confusion at Wolves’ next gig though. Along with local bands Sleepwalker, Arms Like Branches, Japanese Tongue Sisters and 2010 WAMi award winner for best newcomer The Joe Kings, Wolves are planning on having a “really good party night,” Jaise says.

“We wanted five bands as well. We thought we’ll do a shorter set and get another band on…it’s not so much ‘WOLVES, HEADLINE’, it’s kind of like we wanna raise some money, we wanna have a good night, we want to have a farewell party.”

Then it’s into the unknown and they’re only a little bit intimated.

“What gives us confidence as well is that she’s (Massey) been interested in us and she’s invited us. But just knowing what’s done in the past, it’s like whoa,” Jaise reveals.

And after that?

“We’ll go wherever the music takes us I guess.”