Liars - Banging the Drum!

Mon 1st May, 2006 in Features

It’s been just shy of three years since we last saw the Liars on our sunny shores; and the interval has been a busy one for the New York ex-pats. 2006 has seen the band take to the road to launch their latest studio offering.While this week, Sydney-siders have started impatiently counting down the hours until the band flicks the mic switch on as they come out to launch Home’s new rock night Rebel Rebel.

Semone Maksimovic managed to hold up the Liars’ frontman Angus Andrews, who still above all else, remains true to his homeland, speaking in a clear Australian accent.She finds Angus hovering out the front of a castle in Hamburg of all places, as he tucks the hair back behind his ear and thanks today’s technology for making the connection of this interview call possible. “This is my first international mobile call, so I’m really impressed that this is working, I’m not that techno” admits a shy Andrews.

Like most Australians, I can still clearly recall the first time I was lucky enough to indulge in my first  Liars’ live experience, as the colourful three piece took to the stage in support of Angus’ then girlfriend’s band, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, at The Metro Theatre in Sydney.

Andrews’ svelte figure was donned from crown to wing-tip in various shades of pink, broken up only by the grey pants hanging from his hips. Managing to pull off in style the first hipster mullet of the new century, he pulled the whole faux eighties look into place with a long silver ear-ring hanging below his hair line (a’la Madonna) daring to become the sexiest frontman to grace our stages since Michael Hutchence.

Full of charisma and intrigue, he didn’t just walk or dance around the stage, he slithered; then when you least expected it, he snapped and lost control to the music, the whole audience were silent and wide eyed waiting ‘til it was safe to take the next breath. That’s exactly how the Liars have managed to win their worldwide acclaim, despite the naysayers, the accolades and titles thrown their way weren’t due to Andrews’ then famous Karen O association, they were all earned in hard work and lots of sweat, for they are the Liars and there really is no comparing them!

In the three years since, the band have not only continued to ride their wave of success, but they’ve disassociated themselves from their central creative hub and stepped on from New York and relocated their homebase to Berlin to assist in their UK and European touring. “We’ve covered a lot of ground touring-wise from Berlin, so it was very functional in that way as well as being a really cheap city to be able to live, work and record in,” explains Andrews.

“One of the best parts about Berlin for me, is that I don’t speak the language and I feel like a bit of an alien (I don’t have many friends). So I spend a whole lot of time at home writing new material instead of being out every day and every night, Berlin’s also given me this great creative detachment, which really helped when we were writing for this album,” he says of the benefits the band have felt so far from the move.

The new record he was referring to, is of course the brilliant Drum’s Not Dead, an album that’s as arty and nu-wave as the band’s last two, but is also more focussed than what we saw from them on 2004’s They Were Wrong So We Drowned. They managed to excel a little further, really honing their sound into something instantly engaging on every track, Drum’s Not Dead is also very obviously more accessible to a wider audience, but without being untrue to themselves or selling out in any way. It’s an album the trio should be proud of. “When we moved to Berlin we just felt really artistically free again and like we had that suffocated New York feeling lifted off us.

“There is a lawlessness in Berlin where the punks rule and they’re dead set against handing over the city to any kind of fascist police force, so it’s fun all the time, you can pretty much do whatever you want and the creative/artistic community often do. So the move was also quite inspiring to us in that way,” reflects Andrews of the general feeling the band felt before entering the studio and why their sound found its path so clearly.

Another unavoidable subject that’s come across indie rock fans around the globe over recent years, was of course the public split of indie rock’s golden couple, as Andrews parted ways with YYYs’ Karen O. There have been rumours surrounding their break up since it happened and Angus moved his band abroad, but now for the first time he’s happy to clear it up and set things straight. “It was a very natural thing, we were just going in separate directions at that point, things unfortunately didn’t work out, so we moved on. We still remain friends and support eachother, but it was hard having to have that in the public eye” he reveals of the split, but as for his band’s move because of it, that’s just laughable, it was all due to touring convenience.

This weekend will see the Liars on their second ever Australian visit and things couldn’t make Andrews (an Australian native) happier, not only will he be returning to a supportive audience and to his family, he’ll be returning to the lifestyle he remembers from being a kid. “The last time I came out to Australia, I ended up making the move from New York to Jersey, ‘cause I had a taste of the space and quiet that I hadn’t felt since I was a kid. It was a good awakening to have had and coming home does that.” It seems that returning to Australia, has been something the band have deemed important for quite some time, something they proved when this year’s offer rolled in and they cancelled almost an entire European tour to accommodate a slew of Australian live action into their ever-growing schedules.

If you’ve ever been a fan of rock and aspired to culture yourself with something new and exciting, something out of the ordinary an experience that’s likely to stay fresh in your mind for years to come. Make sure you get on down to see the Liars as they touch down on a stage near you, this week!

The Drum’s Not Dead Tour
May 4, Corner Hotel, Melbourne
May 5, Prince of Wales Hotel, Melbourne
May 6, Rebel Rebel launch, Home nighclub, Sydney