Glenn Richards

Fri 5th Nov, 2010 in Features

With Augie March on indefinite hiatus Glenn Richards dragged his older brother Chris Richards and Drones duo guitarist Dan Luscombe drummer Mike Noga into old warehouse to record his ‘solo’ debut Glimjack.

While on tour with Claire Bowditch, Richards took a moment to tel FasterLouder about his new record, the influence of Nick Cave and why he often just makes up answers in interviews. Hopefully most of what he told us it true…

How are you feeling about the new album?
I’m happy with it I’ve been with it for a hell of a lot longer than anyone else so it’s nice to know that it’s out there today. I only got a finished copy two days ago so its fresh as something you can hold in your hand but it’s being received really well critically

The name of the album Glimjack is interesting what does it mean? I read that it was related to stealing but I’m not sure how true this is.*
I can’t remember where I read it, it’s hard to find anything on it… you need to go to a library because you can’t Google it.

I read there were little boys in Victorian England who would approach carriages with people getting out looking for hotels or bars in the middle of the night and there wasn’t much street lighting and these kids, for small amounts of money, would lead them to where they needed to go but a lot of the time they would take them to an alley way or dead ends and there would be a gang waiting there. So it’s a calculated risk. I’m sure a lot of drunk rich guys got rolled that way and I liked the idea that the soul of the record could take you down various paths, and sometimes it will take you to get you to where you’re going sometimes it won’t; it’s a nice metaphor for the album.

The first single is Torpor and Spleen, and it has an upbeat sound but when you read the lyrics it has a pessimistic outlook…
It is a little. Two things were occupying my mind when I wrote that song, one was pretty simple: at that period of time as a songwriter you stop touring on one album and try and get your head around writing another one and it’s difficult. Touring knocks a lot out of you so it doesn’t leave you with much to write down or feel about so you experience boredom and frustration so that you know torpor and spleen… torpor is lethargy and being static and slow minded and spleen is the resulting anger.

The other I was kind of alluding to was trying to figure out what’s going on with those gangs of kids carrying knives and virtually trying to kill people for the fun of it. What kind of conditions produced this thrill seeking? It’s bizarre, and the songs kind of about that

Have you read And The Ass Saw The Angel by Nick Cave?
I started reading it a few years ago, I got right into it, moved house and lost it.

I ask this because the birthing scene described in the song sounds similar to the one in that book.
You never know how things are going to come out, if anything a lot of the record and that song especially reminded me of when I was writing Strange Bird when I was listening to a lot of Birthday Party and early Nick Cave stuff and living in St. Kilda, so there’s a lot of the darker stuff on Strange Bird that came from that and a bit of that in this album too, I think you’re right

Painter By Numbers, is that commentary on religion or alluding to anything in particular?
It’s meant to be light hearted and kind of self referential. The character is saying stop populating the world with the wrong kind of people who will follow in your footsteps and create trouble for the rest of us, it’s sort of a vain request and musically it’s prudy so I hope that the joke comes across. You need to look at yourself and your own habits that you can develop; you can have bad days when you say to yourself are these people deserving of being born, they are effectively ruining everything. It’s a very general and stupid way of thinking.

With this record, did you say it was an ice rink where it was recorded?
Just the size of one or maybe even bigger. My brother in law Nick who engineered the record went to see it a year ago, it was an old textiles factory. It’s a great place that overlooks the whole city and it was a three to five year lease which really isn’t that much more than a decent house so he said yes on the spot lots of bands been there. We took over in the middle of winter, it was freezing and we got to do things the way we wanted to which was a nice change.

19 songs were recorded and only 15 made it onto the album, what’s happening with the other four?
They just didn’t make the grade and they may end up being ones sneaked out onto the internet but there are one or two I’m still doing vocals for and finish them and probably release them on iTunes as bonus songs or even keeping them for another record.

This isn’t a solo album it was you playing with another band, so what was the difference between this album and making one withAugie March?
The main difference, to begin with all of us in Augie needed a rest from the way we were doing so I wasn’t going to do another Augie this time around. The guys who I made this record with were old friends and my brother as well, for years we got drunk and talked about making a record together whether it was a muck around thing or what we ended up doing it didn’t really matter. So what we did was we didn’t listen to it a lot with demos we just went in and rehearsed really quickly and just kind of hammered them out so as soon as they sounded like real songs we left them alone, and that’s something that perhaps at Augie we…we were never that precious, we could have done more takes for a song to get it right but we didn’t over think things which is what we did with Augie.

Did having Dan Luscombe and Mike Noga from The Drones influence the sound to be a little heavier?
It’s obviously these great musicians, Dan and Mike came closer to what I would have preferred in some of theAugie March stuff, they’ve got the right kind of aggression and know when to keep things simple and straight ahead. Often what I’m doing is complex enough and all it needs is a simple approach to set it off, and I kind of knew what I was getting with those guys and Dan’s become quite a great piano player so he was very useful in there. Likewise, my brother is a very similar musician to me so I surrounded myself with people who think in similar ways as I do about music, and then Ben Bourke playing bass, he’s an extremely talented bass player so that kind of anchors everything

How long did it take for you to write the songs for the album?
It wasn’t really that long comparatively, it’s usually pretty hard you’re always thinking there’s just one more song this album’s missing something I think that’s why I end up with so many songs on records, but I think the bulk of it would have been probably three to four months before we recorded so it was pretty quick. Often it would take over a year but this one came together reasonably quick, I just worked really hard.

Are you going to be touring soon?
There’s a launch in Melbourne, Sydney and Adelaide. Adelaide was a last minute thing, a venue there said they had a Saturday night open. To be honest I don’t know why we’re only doing those towns this year but early next year we’re going to be doing a full national tour so, there are guys in other bands we just need to work around each other.

Do you get sick of doing these interviews every day?
Because I’m on tour at the moment and I’ve been doing all the press while I’m on tour it does get tiring, and talking actually does more damage to the voice then singing but it depends on the day. I usually enjoy them if they ask the right questions, and you’ve been asking good questions but I imagine by the end of it I will be sick of it because I can’t share it around to other people.

You must get asked the same questions every day and get sick of answering them?
I just make stuff up

I was reading through some other interviews and someone asked you about your Wikipedia bio that said you hated cats and that turned into a whole strange thing.
I don’t know whether I should do anything about the Wikipedia page, I don’t think there’s anything true on the whole thing but it’s kind of funny. I don’t mind it’s something I used to do when I was younger, when I was asked to do an interview that didn’t actually involve being asked any questions, you know just filling out a questionnaire, it was really lazy journalism, kind of like you do the work for me. When I got one I’d give the most kind of ridiculous answers I could, but at the same time make it sound like it was quite possible. And then I’d get calls from relatives asking ‘did you really get married when you were 16?’. You’ve got to keep yourself interesting.

Glenn Richards album launch shows:*
Friday 5th November – Corner Hotel, Melbourne
Friday 12th November – The Metro, Sydney
Saturday 27th November – Governor Hindmarsh, Adelaide