Brendan Wixted models his rockand roll.

Wed 5th Jul, 2006 in Features

The Model School is the brainchild of singer/songwriter Brendan.Wixted. His debut EP, Demonstration Disk, was self recorded and released in 2004. His debut full length album, Alarm Clock Radiation, is about to come out through Shiny Records, and with album release gigs coming up in July, FasterLouder spoke to Brendan about the new record.

Brendan’s not exactly living the rock and roll lifestyle. He’s called in today from his workplace in his hometown of Sydney. With recording and playing as a spare-time habit only, he’s pretty excited to have completed the album. “Yeah, its been a long time coming. Both as a record, and personally for myself, so it’s great to finally have it ready.”

Before recording the album, he visited Iceland. He even got to look at the pool-turned-recording studio which Sigur Ros used to record their albums. The temptation to record there was great, but in the end, the price was a bit too much. “I got an email back from them, and they told me it was $1000 a day. I really just wanted to record a demo EP at the time, with a view to expanding on it, and the costs racked up a bit quickly. Plus, I was on holidays, so with all those costs, I had to pass. But, maybe next time I will.”

The debut EP, Demonstration Disk, was recorded by Brendan himself on his four track. When it came time to put the album together, two of the songs, One Way Ticket and Sweet Tooth, were too good to leave behind. But according to Brendan, there was no question on whether to rerecord them. “Absolutely, they had to be re-recorded. I had no qualms with that. Because the first EP was my own recording, the drumming for the songs was provided by a drum machine. For the album, I had a drummer, so it’s almost a different song. I still have a soft spot for the old versions, but the new ones are far superior sonically, and work better with the album.”

On his upcoming tour, Brendan will have a full band, even though he recorded the album almost entirely himself. “Yeah, we’re going to have the classic four piece. But we’ll be playing with it a bit too, different instruments for different songs, plus one of our guitar players plays some lap steel, so there’ll be a bit of changing around with our songs.”  This is especially true for the album tracks which contain synthesiser or piano parts. “Yeah, we use a sampler live, the drummer plays along with it, and helps us keep the beat. But, although we’ve toyed with the idea of having a live piano player, it really hasn’t gelled with out current show.”

But the fans can expect something new during the show. “Yeah, theres a few songs which didn’t make the album, but as live songs, are actually better than the album tracks. So we’ll throw in a couple of those, as well as a cover or two. Plus all the usual lights and smoke machines. We really want to make people fell like they’re having a good time.”

One of the most noticeable aspects of the band is their accessibility. The cd liner contains all the lyrics for the songs, and the bands bio was written by Brendan himself. “Yeah, I really wanted to avoid clichés. I didn’t want someone else trying to embellish things. It’s definitely important for me for the band to be accessible. I think it’s important for bands to be direct about their music. And I’d seen some other people do it (write their own bios) and it worked out really well, so I wanted to give it a try.”

Another part of that is the band’s MySpace page. “Yeah, it has more info on it than our regular page. laughs. I think people are really used to MySpace now, that’s the best place to go for the current news on what we’re doing.

And the future for The Model School? Any plans to tour outside of New South Wales and Victoria? “We wanted to do shows in Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth, but it sorta fell through. We’d definitely love to do a full Australian tour, its just a matter of finding another band in a similar position to us, and hooking up with them to do a proper tour.”

Alarm Clock Radiation is available July 1, through Shiny Records

Catch The Model School, presented by FasterLouder, at the following dates;

Jul 7 2006 Hopetoun Hotel (Album Launch), Sydney
Jul 21 2006 Pony Bar (Album Launch), Melbourne
Jul 22 2006 The Hopetoun Hotel, Surry Hills
Jul 29 2006 Rebel Rebel @ Home Bar, Sydney

Contact venues for ticket information.