Pikelet interviews Richard InYour Mind

Mon 13th Sep, 2010 in Features

Fresh from delivering two of the year’s most acclaimed local releases Sydney psychedelic wonder boys Richard In Your Mind and Melbourne gal Pikelet are hitting the road together this September

Richard In Your Mind’s sophomore album My Volcano was described by FasterLouder’s review as “perfectly weird in almost every way possible”, while *Evelyn Moris’s second album as Piklet Stem is similarly odd and enticing, “full of electronic beeps and synthesised atmospheres, with an underlying basis of acoustic guitar and simple drum work”.

Pikelet did her best Jana Wendt impersonation as she grilled Richard In Your Mind’s songwriter Richard Cartwright about hung parliaments, all-you-can-eat food preferences, bedroom cleanliness and ‘Bacardi in the spa’ touring parties.

How are you feeling about our recently hung parliament?  Do you feel it has undermined your faith in Australian politics, or renewed it?  (How’s that for a heavy first question?)
Way heavy, real stuff eh. well I’m not sure if it has undermined or renewed my faith, it sort of seems encouraging that there is a range of opinions out there and due to the hung parliament, the validity of those differing opinions has had to be noticed and reflected upon.  Though i have no faith that an open considered dialogue will actually be the result. But hey you never know. 

Do you enjoy sport?  If so, are you a spectator or a player?
Not really no and neither.  I like watching people skateboard and wish i was a good skateboarder and i like walking around a lot, but i think being a kind of scrawny asthmatic kid during school always put me in the background whenever things became sport related, I never really had the confidence in sport so i turned my attention to other things.

Imagine you’re at a Sizzler… (Or Smorgys… One of those all you can eat places.)  What would be the food you’d keep going back to for more? 
Olives, of any kind, I’m not vegetarian but if I were it would be the olives that get me through it.

If you had a terrible office-job, where they always played mainstream radio – who would be the pop-star that would make you go totally postal on everyone in the office after hearing their music twenty times a day?
Occasionally at my job (I work in a St Vincent de Paul shop) my co-worker does put on mainstream radio and it all makes me wanna kill. OK some of it is all right a little bit but they literally play the same songs 8 times a day in a loop and then they put adds in there and it all sounds like harsh white noise and it hurts to think about, and i get a headache and i think I’m transitioning , oh no I’m turning zombie, the mind control has taken place, I’m bleeding out the ears.

How do you know when a song is ‘finished’ when you’re writing?  
Sometimes a song just feels finished,but i guess  i usually like to build a rough structure based around and initial idea and then i make sure all the sections support each other and when i can sort of stand back and think of the song as a whole then the writing is finished.  But then there can be months of experimenting and tweaking in the recording/mixing process and it can seem like a song is never really finished because there is always some other approach that might be awesome.

*How do you feel about really really experimental music… wankery or interesting?  (Sorry I know that’s a bit vague.  Run with it as you like.)* 
I think its interesting, don’t know if i enjoy listening to it, (of course this depends on what the experimental music is) but I’ve always enjoyed when great pop musicians incorporate experimental ideas into the conventional forms of pop music.

When reading street-press/music magazines/reviews etc… what is your response?  Do you enjoy musical classification and opinion?
I enjoy it if its done well, if it comes from an informed place and the writer actually has some skills in writing. Some times i think a lot of talking and classification can be damaging or at least frustrating. But its all a necessary process to get people interested in the work, but obviously there is no substitute for listening to the music yourself and forming your own opinions

Have you ever tried your hand at any of the visual arts?
I’ve dabbled in film making over the last 10 years or so making short films, and dodgy film clips.  My friend Phil and i went through a phase of making kind of improvised films that were really ridiculous, I should really put them on YouTube but Phil is a teacher now and i think he’s unsure about letting his students realise he’s a lunatic.

Is your bedroom generally messy?  If so, does this bother you?  Do you consider environment to play a part in psychological health and creative process?
My whole existence is messy, my bedroom is filled with crap, there is no floor space, our lounge room is usually piled with books and CDs records, bottles and dishes, my music room is just keyboards, leads and guitar cases strewn around the place.  I work in a Vinnies shop and that is just bags of other peoples crap that i have to go through and tidy.  So my whole life is tied to piles of trash and somehow it feels natural, its a constant battle. Its weird i kind of love it and hate it at the same time.
 
Who has been your favourite person to tour with/support/play shows with so far?  (I’ll probably be more fun.)
Touring with Cloud Control was great, they are the nicest bunch of people. One time in Perth we cooked a big communal breakfast where we were staying then bought a box of 16 Cornettos and went down to the beach and goofed around then we went back to the hotel and drank Bacardi in the spa, the whole time we couldn’t believe it and kept commenting that this could possibly be the best day ever, the show that night was good too.

Richard In Your Mind and Pikelet tour:
Friday 17th September – The National Hotel, Geelong
Saturday 18th September – Curtin Bandroom, Melbourne
Friday 24th September – ANU Bar, Canberra
Saturday 25th September – Gaelic Club, Sydney
Sunday 26th September – Gearins Hotel, Katoomba
Thursday 30th September – Spotted Cow, Toowoomba
Friday 1st October – The Coolangatta Hotel, Gold Coast
Saturday 2nd October – The Clubhouse, Brisbane