The Avalanches

According to our proficient leader, Australian powerhouse producers, The Avalanches aka Robbie Chater and Tony Di Blasi, single handedly changed his perspective on how to deliver music. Their debut album Since I Left You, which is celebrating its 20th anniversary, not only "cracked our skulls open", it's also one of Quest's "top 10 albums of ALL time". This duo has left no stone unturned when it comes to mastering the creation of a sonic landscape. How do they do it and why? Listen as The Avalanches break it all down on this week's episode.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Quest Love Supreme is a production of I Heart Radio.
Ladies and gentlemen, Welcome to another episode of Quest Love Supreme.
I'm your host Quest Love with Us. We have fragmented Supremas.
We gotta over in the house. What's up, brother, I'm

(00:21):
still here, man, What up? What up? What up? We're here,
sugar Steve, Yep, I'm not fragmented. I've never missed a
show except the ones you told me not to attend. Wait,
when did I band you Steve that that purple round
table drunk? Oh you're holding that against me? Yes, but
let's move on. Shots fired in Um, Ladies and gentlemen.

(00:47):
I will say that, Um, probably our guests have single
handedly at least changed And I'm making this an introduction person,
I'm making it about me, not about you are the audience.
I'll say that our guest today of single handedly probably
changed my trajectory or changed my perspective on how to
deliver music. And that's pretty much all I can say. Um,

(01:12):
I heard their tape you album and it just cracked
my skull, cracked all of our skulls open, uh in
a way that really hasn't uh really hasn't done that.
Probably since the days of of Prime Bomb Squad productions
of like Public Enemy and Ice Cube, or even the

(01:33):
three behind Rising and Daylas Soul Is Dead albums of
the early nineties. I'll say that Rick Rubin has taught
us on the show, uh, that editing is necessary for
smart pop music making, and you know, the ability to
leave the basic necessities for you know, for the most

(01:54):
part of that theory that you know with self editing
has worked miracles for pop music in the last seven years.
Is but our guests have done the opposite of that,
and they've left no stone unturned. UM as far as
a sonic landscape there forever classic debut album, now twenty
years old, called Since I Left You, It is probably

(02:16):
personally one of my top ten favorite albums of all times.
UM with over one thousand mind staggering samples and sound bites. UM,
I'm gonna invest We all got to investigate how this
was made. When he found out that they wanted to
come on the show, it was it was an instant
yes on my part. Uh yeah, yeah, I'm just honored

(02:39):
they're here to to share their story with us, because
I don't even know if I can properly explain to
you how important there art is. But ladies and gentlemen,
please welcome to Quest of Supreme the Avalanches. We have
Robbie and Tony. Robbie, what's your last name? Robbie Tata? Welcome?

(03:05):
Where are you right now? How is it over there
right now? Yeah, it's pretty good. We had we had
like a really hard lockdown last year, but but we're
coming out of it now. It's just really good. And
we just played our first live show in three years
on Friday. Yeah, it was incredible, it was It was

(03:27):
so amazing, you know, just to be with the people again,
and um, you know, I don't know, it's just it
just felt like at the start it felt really strange,
like you know, there's a little bit rusty, but then
you kind of get into it for twenty minutes and
you're like, I remember what it's like. Instead of being scared,
it's like this joyous experience and yeah, I mean, we've

(03:49):
just missed it so much. So it was so good.
So it's hard like working your muscle memory for what
the show was when you well with this particular show,
was it was it crap it from scratch or was
it the show that you were developing around the time
when Covid first hit us. No, it was from scratch,

(04:09):
so it was a lot. It was like our hometown
first show back, brand new show. All the equipment too,
has been like in storage and all covered in dustin
you know, it was like it was like family and friends. Yeah. Yeah,
we had a few technical issues that we that we
were that seems like every like whenever there's a first show,

(04:31):
there's always a few things that go down or go wrong.
But in the end it was it was really incredible
and were not so much love from the audience. And
I would imagine that the amount of research that you
have to put into your product as far as your
creativity is concerned. That I mean, was this time off

(04:53):
with covid. Was it a total time off for you guys,
or was it just like okay, let's just go back
to wi head and create new product or did you
just stop period and just you know, kind of see
what happens until the world opens. It was tough. I mean,
we went we were finishing an album as as COVID hit,

(05:15):
and uh we kind of got that done and got that,
got that ready to go. But like Melbourne's Lockdown, we're
in it for like two days. It was one of
the hardest lockdowns in the world. And you couldn't You
could only leave your house for an hour a day. Um,
there's a curfew in the evenings am to five am.
You couldn't go outside your house. Were you guys get

(05:37):
it right? You actually did it right, and you know,
the world would have actually caught up to you guys.
And yeah, because after some point, once we saw your
numbers go down, and then like a whole bunch of
movie productions and a lot of my friends in the industry,
we're going to melt, you know, going over over there
to Australia, to New Zealand. You guys were just doing

(06:00):
it right. So yeah, you had to be strict with it.
We had to be strict. I mean, the payoff was
like we got to do a show, you know, like
now you know, and things are opening up. But at
the time it was hard and we thought, well, we've
got all this pretty time will be creative. But it
was pretty intense and the city was, you know, a
ghost town, and and really it made me learn how

(06:22):
much that we rely on the collective energy and other
people to to feed our creativity. So even though we
had this spare time, like we didn't write a lot
last year because it was just kind of getting through
day by day. You know, the lockdown was I'm very uninspiring. Yeah, well,
I was going to say, you know, I still want

(06:42):
to jump right to since I left you, but I
do because I don't know about that. Guys personally, I
do want to know the origins of of of the
group and of YouTube musically before you even like what
built to that moment. Could you just give us a
basic kind of an overlay of what your lives were

(07:03):
into creatively, like growing up, well, both of your were
DJs for starters, Like what got you interested in DJ culture?
Like how did it hit you over there? We actually, uh, well,
we grew up in different suburbs of Melbourne and then
both ended up in the same country town during high
school and that's where we met and became friends. Since

(07:24):
we weren't DJs. Initially we were like bad punk musicians
and musicians we say punk because we were so bad
it was noise noise. It's kind of like the Beastie
Boys story, like the year and then you know that's right,

(07:45):
and we so we would just I mean, I had
no money or whatever, so we were buying old guitars
and broken guitars and organs in junk stores, and then
we started to find all these old records and it
just sort of grew from there. I was doing it,
uh called a film's school course at university, and they
had a big studio for all the film scores um

(08:06):
and of course everybody doing that course wanted to be
like a famous director, so nobody wanted to do the soundtrack.
So I just had the studio to myself for like
three years, and there was an old and sonic sampler
in there that I learned how to use and started
sampling all these junk store records and it just grew
from there. Really. Yea, So how are you when you
made the transition to DJ oriented music, like away from

(08:30):
punk and more into what we now know as DJ culture.
I guess it was like a gradual process between the
ages of like sixteen and Okay, was there a particular
record that just spoke to you that said, like, Okay,
this is the direction I want to go personally for

(08:50):
both of you, was there like the one particular album
that was But for me it was like some of
Prince Paul's productions, The Bomb Squad, The Things You Meant
and yeah, yeah, so Prince Pile, he just remixed that
since I left you. I was excellent. Yeah, because you know,
like the records we're finding in junk stores were just strange,

(09:11):
weird records. They weren't like sort of cool, like a
lot of the beautiful funk and soul records from the
States never made it out here, you know, so we
were they were junk store records, a lot of lounge music,
exotic and strange stuff like that. And Prince Paul, I think,
showed us that, you know, you can use anything and
you can make music with humor from from all these

(09:34):
different bits and pieces, and we were like, we can
do that, you know. And also we love like the
Beach Boys and sevenies rock and stuff, so we would
imagine if we like take his sort of approach, but
like try and make like pop songs with it. And
that's how the whole idea began. So how did you
two meet each other? We made in high school. I

(09:56):
I was from Melbourne and at eighteen went and moved
to the country town where I met Robbie and it
was it was a very very for the for the
early nine is very backward kind of place, like country
Victoria and sorry. It was just like a lot of
football players and they were all the cool people and
stuff like that, and like so the people who are

(10:20):
into music kind of gravitated to each other. So so um,
we kind of started hanging out and the first thing
I remember, but Robbie was like, I was into all
types of music, but he played me my Bloody Valentine
and that just kind of broke my brain of like
what the hell is this? And I was like, all right,
this is this is really cool. I think I like

(10:40):
this guy. I think I like his taste in music.
And so so from then then on we kind of,
you know, just had a few other little small bands
that we were in, and then we both moved back
down to Melbourne and started you know, doing the punk
thing just in our land room really badly, and and
it just kind of grew from Did y'all were y'all

(11:01):
in y'all folks involved in music in any way? Or
what did your your your parents do? No, I mean
my father would. My mom was a teacher, but I did.
I do remember being fascinated with my father's record collection
when I was a little kid, and where he would
let me, like, you know, handle the records. Are obsessed

(11:22):
with the line and notes, and you know he had
he was like into like the band and Bob Gil
and a Neil Young and and all that stuff. Single
songwriter stuff. That's right. Got I know that because you
guys um developed early like pre I guess that is

(11:43):
when you guys first started so without sort of like
culture colonialism, um, well not culture colonialism, but just the
the idea of like you know, now with the Internet, uh,
someone could release something in the entire world get it
at the same time where you know, really before in

(12:03):
seven like just it was regionalism, like certain parts of
the world had certain types of music or whatnot. Now
I know for Australia kind of the inside joke. And
again this is before like the the really the the
age of the internet spreading becoming law. Like a lot
of groups that were wildly popular, um from America from

(12:26):
that we're wildly popular in Australia really weren't that big
in America. And I always wanted to know I never
got to talk to anyone like specifically from Australia or
New Zealand to find out why, Like I'll say that
there was a point where like the Jurassic Five pre
Fergy Black Eyed Peas, Ben Harper, like those actsca damn

(12:49):
near sellout stadiums, and we'd hear it about the United
States like yo, man, you know the Black Eyed Peas
could sell out of stadium and Australia and this is
again back when they were just like a club, back
like a bar. You know that that's where but what
what what is it? I noticed with Australia especially for

(13:10):
their their embracing of like soul music, Like you guys
have that big giant soul festival down there where you know,
you guys have this this this festival for soul music
that's sort of like Coachella, but it's just like all
Neil soul artists and even now everybody from Kimber like
and again I've my friends have told me that, you know,

(13:33):
New Zealand and in Australia, like we tend to lump
just that entire area one thing. But you know, I
see this right, and you guys are like, no, we're
not the same. But but there's so many like minded
cool artists from down there that were like influenced by
a certain type of soul music that's very niche to

(13:54):
us here, Like what what was the what's the radio
like there? Like is it that turns you turn people
on into that particular type of soul music? Whereas now
years later, like a lot of these acts are coming
out better, like really incredible, like Hiatus, Coyote and Aname

(14:14):
a Billion. But yeah, what is it about? What was
the music atmosphere? Like it's a rock culture, I would say,
like when we were starting out, so it's like there's
the pub venues. You know, there's a very heavy drinking
culture in Australia. There's the pub venues, and all the
bands that we grew up with came through this pub scene.
It's like hard rock and roll, like a c D

(14:34):
in this kind of thing. I guess that's the Bad
Seeds became in The Bad Seeds as well, or the
Birthday Party came out of that that sort of dark
pub scene as well in Melbourne. But then something started
to change in the nineties exactly like you're talking about.
And I think it was just it was pre internet,
but people just just this passion for music that wasn't

(14:54):
like that, and and something just started, beautiful, just started
to grow. I don't know how happened, but it was
very very like when we started playing, every band we
played with was just two guitars, bassed player drums, and
so we rock up with a sampler and the sound
people were like, what's this? What do? What do we do?
And no one knew what it was. So I was

(15:17):
like in the way we were kind of breaking ground
in this country as far as like every little festival
we do, it was like every band is the same guitar, drums,
everything like that, and then we just have you knows,
nine hundred samplerents and shitty organs that work sometimes and
didn't and so so yeah, to your question, it was

(15:39):
a very rock and roll culture back then in Australia.
So it was that the hundred. Was that that your weapon?
That was the jam? Yeah? Yeah, because then they came
with the nar fifty, the name fifty I think that
was the one that fifty. We were loading. We were

(16:00):
loading off the songs of floppy disk. When we've played live,
every song was on a different floppy So we stopped
a song and then have to load for forty five
seconds and just I'll just try and make up some
stupid banter in between. Again again const you guys in D'Angelo. Okay,

(16:25):
that's good. To this day, D'Angelo still uses floppy disk.
I didn't even know that that can that still you
know they still made them. Yeah, you know, we had
to search the internet to find floppy disks finish we
just did. Yeah. Wait, so to this day you still

(16:45):
use it. That's your When we were bringing to pull
out the old samples for this show that we just
did so we wanted to bring back and really show
how we made the music. But we couldn't find floppy
disks anyway. Time had to order them online and arrived
like two days before the show, just in time. So
really we're not using that. We're kind of using computers

(17:08):
and now is there's our main backing tracks, so we're
not relying on the second loads anymore. But we use
the sample is just to trickle samples during the show
because that's the way we used to do it. I mean,
it's such a fun you know, what was the period
of which you guys discovered like breakbeat culture and as

(17:28):
far as like at least I would like to think
that you guys, you know, had to put a lot
of time in researching like all the sounds and for
for you know, for your arsenal of sounds, your drums,
your samples and whatnot. So at what point did you
guys discover at least like do away with kind of

(17:50):
your rock backdrop and get to what we know is
like breakbeat culture. I think I think it was like
a gradual process and all of a sudden realized like
I think we had, you know, all these big sounds
and big dreams in our heads, but you know, no money.
And then you start sampling an old orchestral record because

(18:10):
a lot of the records that we were finding junk
stores were like smalty kind of like junk, like Andre Kotskalanis,
strings and James all that stuff. But we were we
could find beautiful little bits and then realize we can
create these you know, big sounds with you know, for
for from a two dollar record. And we gradually realized, look,

(18:33):
we're not great musicians at car and we can't sing,
but maybe we can invent our own little world. Um
if we don't, if we just use samples, and it
sort of grew from there and then um, you know,
a whole bunch of records are coming out, like the
US Brothers produced the record, and you know, there was

(18:53):
early Chemical Brothers records, and all these records had breakbeats.
There was Yeah Day Last Soul, and even like the
fast Side records and all these kind of early hip
hop records, and we kind of in our heads. You know,
it's because we're so geographically removed from um the rest

(19:15):
of the world. You know, we would just get strange
little influences coming through before the Internet. So in some way,
weird way, like a bit of Prince Paul, a bit
of the Bomb Squad, a bit of Beach Boys, a
bit of my Bloody Valentine all kind of made sense
to us and we just kind of started developing our
own sound from there. When when you formed the group, uh,

(19:38):
was it instantaneous that you called yourself the Avalanches or
were you just like you know, DJ Rabbi, DJ Tony.
We had a few we had a few named incarnations
before we came up with the Avalanches. The Avalanche's name

(20:01):
was actually on it was the surf rock group from
the fifties, one of these bands we sampled and then
and we used to change our name every time we played,
and that that one just stuck, just stuck, just randomly
decided maybe we had a good gig the day that
we called uselves the Avalanches. And I mean, this is
an open we'll stick with this name because I think

(20:23):
we had a few gigs where we were different names.
What was the first product that you guys worked on
when you decided to form the Avalanches? It was like,
I think it was a mixed tape we made in
the studio. I was talking about it that the film

(20:44):
school studio that was to make to send around to
various promoters to try and get a gig, try and
get shows. And then I think they pulled a couple
of tracks off that and our friend put it out
as our first seven inch. It was called rock City. Yeah,
I think that was the first release. Yeah, even even then,

(21:05):
Like was your theory? What was the theory based on
how to create the music? Um? I know a lot
of times, especially with where we are today with hip
hop culture in America, you know, and I won't say
that flipping samples of course, you know, flipping is a

(21:26):
way of survival to a lease a void. You know,
lawsuits are getting caught out there, but um, I mean
there's there's definitely a slew of of producers that flip
just for the sport of it, you know, especially like
these post Ja Diller times where he could take something
make it so unrecognizable that you don't know it. So

(21:46):
but for you guys, like, were you guys even aware
of kind of sample cultured almost be an endangered species
in in the mid to late nineties to the point
where you know, now a lot of the back trap
from America is far from that. But were you guys
aware of it then or was it just you know, well,

(22:11):
I think we were aware that the records that were
made in that way that that were rare, and we're
you know, defined find them that they would like sort
of these gems that would stick out, like if a
well made sample based record is just like such a
beautiful thing and they don't come along all the time,
you know. But we were we kind of thought, no, like,

(22:34):
we're a million miles from anywhere, no one's ever going
to hear this, so we will we can just sample anything,
and we were just doing that famous last words. I
was going to say, it's funny that he said that
all the way in Australia because that's also where I
was when I decided to uh play really Love because

(22:57):
I quite I didn't understand everywhere. Yeah, I thought I
was on something like local underground radio station that the
world wouldn't hear of, then that should happen. Yeah, we've
kind of got the same attitude to samples of just
like we'll just use it and it's quite soft. You

(23:20):
can't tell, Okay, So let's let's we're twenty five minutes
and let's cut to the goddamn chase. How that's my
first question is how can you tell us the story
of Since I Left You? And it's hard to explain.
It's really hard, even when you know that album so

(23:42):
perfect to me that even when I explained to people
who are, you know, just casual music listeners, like, they're
still not getting the genius that every last thing you
hear had to be manipulated and edited in a way
so that it fits melodically structurally. So tell us the

(24:04):
beginning of how you guys even thought to make this
this classic album. I think we I mean, I'll let
Tony jump in, but we were kind of doing gigs
in these rock venues. We're using samplers and our friend
Darren would m c over the top and we had
some live drums, and as we got into the studio
and more, we realized it sounds so much cooler if

(24:28):
we just remove ourselves from it. You'll remove our voices,
remove any live drums, and would do it just with samples.
And it was almost like like there was a bad
BEASTI voays or something to start off with with. It's
kind of rapping that was a little bit doctor Doctor
on kind of lyrics and a big kind of beast,

(24:48):
and it was, you know, some cool stuff. But then
you know, it was like, let's just make all the
melodies samples and use no voice. How long was that
a process of working on our record? How long did
it take you out of me? Probably like eighteen intense months,
but there was like maybe three or four years of
like collecting samples before then and finding your way. And

(25:10):
then it's almost like there's this I mean, there's two
sides to it. There's the technical side of how you
actually make it with the samplers or whatever that we
can talk about, but the other side of like how
you think, how you know, how you conceive it, or
the feeling behind it is harder to talk about it
because it's like we just hit this period of a
beautiful flow and it was really just a love for

(25:32):
music and discovery. And when I listened to it now,
that's what I can hear. I can hear it like
one year old me just so in love with music,
sampling and discovering strange old records. That that that I
think that joy is just still what people can is infectious. Definitely, Yeah,
it definitely can do for me. I think, you know,

(25:53):
at the time when when I discovered you guys, this
was when my band Little Brother, we had put out
our first record, The Listening, and uh A Mirror actually
had listed his uh I guess the top albums he
was listening to at the time in uh in Rolling
Stone and so he listed like like fifty cent Little Brother,
and then you know, the Avalanche sits up since I

(26:14):
left you, and I was like, all right, if he
if they don't the same list with us, I know
I should banging. So the motherfucker's gotta have song. So
I'm like, so, I'm like, that's how you got straight up? Yeah,
that was how I actually listened to him like I
had always seen but like you said, you know, y'all
kind of the rock culture and enjoy. So I just
thought they were like a rock band. I thought that

(26:35):
I was kind of like The Strokes or like, because
that was around that time. I thought it was just
that kind of you know, that that rock revival ship
that was popping at the time. So I was like,
all right, this is just another rock band. But then
I heard the album and I hadn't heard anything. I
just went into a blind. I was like, all right,
well let me check it out. And man, that ship
blew me then away. And the thing about it, like

(26:55):
up until that point, you know, Introducing by DJ Shadow,
I mean, we grew up on Bombs Squad and like
Prince Paul and all these guys, Dust Brothers, all those
guys doing that kind of collage and pay stuff. But um,
when I heard Introducing, I was like, oh wow, like
this is amazing, and it was something that kind of
took it for me, made it it felt like y'all

(27:15):
really made it more emotional. Like that was I think
maybe the first time sample based music instrumental in that way.
I was like, man, this is really emotional. But then
that was when I heard Introducing. But then when I
heard y'all ship and that damn three two hearts and
three four times, Bro. I played that ship man, I
played the MP three tags off that motherfucker. Bro. Listen,

(27:37):
I ran the record in the ground man, and uh
and and the thing you know when told you you
were talking about just kind of that spirit of just
you know, the you know that discovery. The thing that
I always liked about all all you guys records is
that it the way you use the samples, it doesn't
feel like in kind of just a bastardized way. It

(27:58):
really makes you want to search what you guys use.
It makes you more. For me, just as a love
of music, it just made me more curious to know
more about the stuff you guys use. And like even
like with Since I Left You, you know, the way
it starts is, you know, since I left you. But
then at the end when you bring back the just
can't get you since the damnage like that ship is

(28:22):
so fu dope. Yeah, So like, how do y'all plot
all that ship out? And like, I know the sample
you say you're using ones like the s you're using
the s not a hundred? Were you tracking it on tape?
Was it like was it pro tools at that time,
like how are y'all storing all these ideas? It was like,
it's not an hundred And then we got to S
three thousand, which had more memory. Three thousand, we were like, oh,

(28:45):
this is this is insane. We're gonna be able to
do anything. But this is no stuffing now. So and
by that I think by the time we're making Since
I left you, we had a ZIP drive for thee Yeah, yeah, yeah,
I know. It was literally just that and at a

(29:06):
shitty old turntable and two dollar junk store records and
but you know what, but the limitation is what is beautiful,
because then it drives the ingenuity. Yeah. And then we
had a there's an up code program called studio Vision.
There was a sequencer. I didn't have any audio, but

(29:28):
that ran media into the samplers and so that's how
we could sequence the samples. And it was all done
like that. And if I came to work again in
the morning, like there was nothing on tape, no pro tools,
I would have to load it all up again and
to hear what the song sounded like and to remember,
you know, or if I wanted to burn a demo,
make a demo would have to like bounce it, burned

(29:49):
it onto c D, put it in my c D
walkman and go for a walk or something to have
a listen to it like that where we're at. Yeah,
I was going to ask do you have all the
discs saved from that album or was it just like
once you track it and once it's on tape or

(30:10):
once it's you recorded, then you just unplugged your machine
and that's it. You don't say the samples, You don't
any of those things, Like is there a like if
I were to ask you, like, could you get the
either diners on stems from whatever? Ye? Pablo Cruise, like,
could you actually get the floppy disc some of them

(30:31):
I've got, I've got some and I've got I've kept
most of the records when I sold my record collection,
but I kept all the since I left you once
and and we just found the stems recently from because
we eventually tracked it to an early version of pro tools.
When we went to like a proper studio, we were like, wow,
this is like and they had like about four different

(30:52):
engineers helping us to get it from this from out
the back of our samples onto recording into pro tools
and then we mixed it from there. So we've got
those stems and some of the some of the floppy discs. Okay,
so what is the what is the accurate number? I
know that you know sometimes these stories can be uh exaggerated.

(31:19):
How many samples do you believe are on that album?
I've got no idea. I Reckon there would be like
I think I figured it out once by working out
how much there's five thousand con store and how many
samples in a program. And because it was every every zip,
every song was you know, the sample of memory was full.

(31:42):
So it was probably like around three thousand because all
the little drum hits and little bird noises. I will say, man,
we all use the part that got me because, like
I mean, I listened to Reckon, I was like, okay,
that's dope, the part where I've realized them. I'm like, okay,

(32:02):
they know what's up when y'all use the ray kawin
Yeah exactly, I was. I was like, yes, yes, yeah,
so dope. Yeah. So your guests like I've read nine samples,
I've read four thousand samples. I mean, of course, for
the legend of it, four thousand samples is a way

(32:24):
better thing. And I believe, you know, I believe anything
but baseball guests baseball estimate. I think two two to
three thousand, like like when you consider every little drum
hit and everything, because it was it was a lot.
So Okay, when you're when you guys are at least
at the let's say the mark, let's say that you

(32:47):
have fifteen songs down already as you're creating this album
in your mind, are you like, there's no way in
hell we can ever clear of this or sell this
to the outside world, Like I mean, if this really
is it just a passion project to you? Yeah, I
think we were, but but I think we were just

(33:10):
thinking not even of the legality of the whole thing.
We were just like trying to put together this amazing
thing and dab it was just kind of record company,
you do your thing and just get it out. So
it was good for us because we didn't have that limitation,
whereas now we're you know, we have to be more
aware of samples we use and clearing and all that

(33:34):
kind of stuff. But back then it was still a
little bit of a you know a little bit of
a more of a free for all. I guess we'll
just say Robbie. Yeah. But also nobody knew who we were, Like,
we didn't. We didn't think anyone would ever, you know,
it would get a wide audience. So in that way,
we were free to do whatever, to sample whatever we wanted,

(33:57):
you know, like we kind of just didn't really like
I think as we were as it was growing, we
knew we were very passionate, and we knew there was
this beautiful thing, but we certainly didn't expect it to
be become what it was, So we weren't restrained by
thinking that, you know, we have a high profile and
people have got a lot of people going to hear
this record, and we've done an AP before that as

(34:19):
well and didn't clear one sample from that, So it
just kind of like didn't care, all right, so we
can't can't do that anymore. Yeah, when I was on Asshole,
when people came to about you know, samples and stuff,
what was it like? Were they honored? Were they like
like fuck you pay me? Like what was the what

(34:40):
what was the feeling like? Back then? It was it
was pretty nice. I mean some people didn't even know
what sampling was or you know, we would track down
someone who they inherited, like their grandfather's um catalog, you
know in the willis. They didn't even know they had it,
and we would find them and say, hey, you know

(35:01):
you own this music and um so. And some people
just were like a flat out no, like Rogers and
Hammerstein and people like that. Oh so there's someones that
did not make it. Samples samples that didn't make it. Yeah,
and then other people like John Klee, like he was
super cool because like, ah, that song two hearts and

(35:22):
three or four time it was going to work out
that like there was five main samples and they all
wanted each so we were going to get nothing. And
John Klee was like, no, no, we the sample owners
should all take a little bit less so the dudes
that made the song can get a little bit too.
And that never happens. That never it's probably never happened again.

(35:46):
Never happened again. Please this this never ever happens. This
is being unknown in Australia, people like come after me
for like a snare drum? Yeah, let alone and want

(36:06):
like it that's a snare drum? Um? Yeah, okay, so
when you're this This was on Double XL recordings correct
XL UK like double x I'm sorry forgive me recordings.
So when you played the final product to your company,
how long did it take for them to even start

(36:30):
the process to clear this? Because again, like I yeah, man,
usually okay, So the obstacles that I run into are okay,
say uh I create a song and uh okay. I
have this situation once where I used Hey Bulldog by

(36:51):
the Beatles and they wanted like the publishing, which then
left no space for like the other things I sample.
And I've learned, I've learned, at least in the last
ten years, that relationships are a key to making these
things happen. And oftentimes lawyers and red tape lawyers and

(37:14):
administrative people are kind of the the demons of the situation.
And half the time, if you can get to the
actual artists themselves, then you can, you know, sort of
iron out and make it smooth. So again, how we
we had this. We had this amazing lady called Pat Shanahan,

(37:37):
who I mean she would have been in the sixties
or seventies. She just passed away recently. Um, so she
would clear all samples for us and she's done, Like
the Bastie Boys Records and USTe and all stuff like that.
So she used to work at Ireland Records for many
years and had a lot of contacts just through the

(37:57):
whole industry, so women were clear in the sample. She
would be like, Hey, I know him, I used to
work with him and here right now. So she had
a lot of personal relationships with yeah. So so that
helped us so much. Um and and she would just
be able to get things over the line for us
that that, you know, if it was a lawyer or

(38:19):
anything on anyone else like that, it just wouldn't happen.
So well, I mean also lucky to have her, um
yeah record lady, and Yeah, she became a dear friend
actual to leave Pat She was just the most most
lovely lady. And I think she she worked with who
did you work out before? I can't remember, but she

(38:39):
sort of knew everybody in the industry since like the sixties,
had seen that there was a niche for someone who
just specifically cleared samples, and so I think she left
the record label and then the first record she cleared
was like the Town Looak Record or something like that,
and then she did Tea and then she did back
and the Beastie Boys and yeah, so she helped us

(39:00):
a lot. And then there were other personal relationships like
Richard Russell at xl UM help us clear the Madonna's sample.
Uh yeah, yeah that that was to be when even
when I heard it in the car. Now my my
story of hearing it. I heard that album on my birthday.
I was doing a DJ gig in Indiana and I

(39:23):
was born in January, so it's like cold, and um,
the guy that picked me up from the airport played it,
and um, you know because the album runs, uh sort
of as a continuous flow, like it doesn't go from
song to song. I just thought he was you know,
normally when the guy picks me up from the airport,

(39:44):
they're always like sneaking there. So yeah, no, no, no.
From like the from the from the airport to my
hotel room, I was under the impres and he was
playing me his ship and that's just that had me
wide open. And then like finally gave me the bad

(40:06):
news twenty minutes into it, like oh no, no, no,
there's some cats from Australia called the Avalanches. I was like,
oh man, I thought it was your ship, all right.
Never mind right, right, But what will wound up happened?
I asked him, can I borrow the CD so I
can hear it? And like, actually the same story with

(40:27):
little brother when I heard Fonte's things, like, I rarely
have dedicated so much hour, so so many, like a
lot of hours just to listen to product over and
over and over again. And I just I just couldn't
believe it. Well, because you guys worked on and what
what you said earlier about how limitation studio limitations makes

(40:52):
you more creative, that makes sense because a lot of
my favorite guys like use you know, with with Fonte's group,
what did you guys do everything on fruity loops? Everything?
It was fruity loops and a compact we had. We
had a compact computer, you know, I know pro that
was what we recorded the vocals in cool litter or
Sony acid like something real PRIMI. So what I want

(41:15):
to know is how do you how do you bend
samples to your will melodically, especially back then without you know,
the aid of a MacBook Pro too instantly you know
you could do that time stretching, and but how are

(41:36):
you able to bend these samples to your will so
that they melodically fit the song. And with with that
primitive equipment. How I think it comes back to what
you're saying about just how limitations can be really powerful,
because it was just like I just remember going this

(41:57):
this ACCLI sampler, I'm just going to get really fucking
good at this one thing, and that's all I'm going
to do, you know. And so once it just becomes
almost invisible, so you're not even thinking about how to
use it. You know it so well, and so it
was just just literally tuning samples in the sampler so um,
you know, you might have started with a drumbeat and

(42:19):
kind of a beginning sample in the beginning sample just
kind of gets you going. It might not even be
there at the end. But then it's just literally getting
samples in tune, um, a whole bunch of samples just
on the mini keyboard that are living in the sampler's
memory and around, playing around, and then going, oh that
might be a verse, that might be a chorus of
kind of stuck. Save it, put it away, maybe give
it to Tony Hills see if he can find a

(42:41):
sample for it, And slowly and slowly the layers build
up so it's just using your ear tuning samples by ear.
So that is not easy to do. People that is
that is that is not easy to do, which leads
to my next question. So when I asked the Bomb
squad how they created Nation of Millions, I guess Keith
Shockley explained to me that basically the process that they

(43:03):
were doing, they would have jam sessions. So the way
that the engineer was set up was Eric Sadler had
his sampler on his side of the room, Keith Shockley
was probably on turntable doing his stuff, and then Hank
would have his bit and they would start with a
drumbeat and when they were satisfied their Their theory was

(43:26):
that if you took everything away, like are the drums
banging enough? Like the drums have to be perfect. Once
the drums are there, then each chef would add their
particular ingredients into the musical stew until it felt complete
and felt right. So how how do you guys source

(43:50):
or like what's the back and forth or the work
process too, adding things like you know, whose idea was it?
Like oh I got this horse noise over here, or
even or even with even with the first song on
wild Flower where the kid is talking. I don't know
if that's a sound bite, and you guys manipulated his

(44:13):
voice to go right and key with that intro. But
you know, even with the wild Flower intro, like how
do you guys, how do you guys communicate back and forth?
Like what gets inside the the meal and and and
also subsequently, how do you tell each other that doesn't work?

(44:36):
Like Okay, I don't know that fits or whatever, or
is it just like whatever works thrown in? I think that,
I mean definitely. Robbie is the great producer of of
the records. And it's almost like where, you know, we
used to have all the other members in the bandoned
we you know, have a little sample, you know, lookes
a couple of things that would go together or something

(44:58):
like that, but then kind of give him over to
him where he's putting it all together and you know,
chopping up everything. And I mean it's just what he's
amazing at. He's just doing all the layers and incredible
production work and you know, the horse noises and all
all that kind of I was just like the hell

(45:22):
that because no no I heard. I was like it
was like DJ Muks and Cypress Hill and you know
that squeal noise he had. I had to try to
make a noise like that. And then I was watching
a Western movie and there was this horse. I was like,
that that might work. So how did you get the
horse to clear the samples? The horse to this day

(45:52):
still doesn't know that he's on the record. UM, well,
not just with music. H How did you guys even know?
Because because movie sound bites are also um a big
part of the kind of the structure here, How did

(46:13):
how did you guys even source or even figure out
clearing all of the non musical elements of the song
that had to be clear, Like I'm certain that with
movie dialogue? Or was it just like the wild West?
Like if they come to you, then you admit it?
Or never mind? This is please don't recriminate yourself. Never mind.

(46:40):
I got my answer. This is quest love supreme, not glass.
Oh my god, never compare me to would you like
would you like our answer? Or the record labels answer?
Never mind? Never mind, forget it. One thing I was

(47:00):
I was curious to know, um for two things. One um,
just the making of a wild flower, because you know,
if we've read a lot and if you guys have
talked a lot about the Makative since I left you.
Wild Flower was like other than D'angelo's Black Messiah, that
was those were necking that. Those were like my two
most anticipated records of that decade and just as long

(47:23):
and I remember it, you know, I was We've been
hearing about it for a while and I was like
it dropped and I was like, holy sh it, this
is really here. And you know, it was really inspiring
me because it sounded like you guys picked up like
right where you left off. It didn't even you could
listen to since I left your wild Flower back to
back and uh, aside from the cameos, you know, you
would sound like they were done at the same time.

(47:44):
So I was curious to know just you know, working
on that record, and you know what took so long?
A what took so long from since I left you
the wild Flower in too? Uh? The you guys picking
your mcs, because you really picked you know guys that
weren't you know, you know, Danny Brown and Camp Blow
and you know what I mean, like you guys work
with some kind of unorthodox people, So how do y'all

(48:07):
go about choosing it? That? I mean, Camp Blow. That
first Camp Blow Saturday Night was like my favorite record.
We'll just play that NonStop, and some great sampling in
that record too, So we actually sampled Camp Blow and
Since I Left You, So it was really nice to
kind of go full circle and then work with them.
Whenever we played a live we'd always have a bit

(48:29):
with Luccini wood Um coming after a song, So massive
Camplo fans. Before you answer Frante's question, how how did
you guys? How did you guys deliver the album live?
Like how does that even happen? Or what's the stor
like I only saw you guys when you guys finally

(48:51):
came to the Tonight show for the Wildflower album. That's
the first time I got to see you like actually perform.
But when you're when you made since I left You,
then how do you decide how to deliver this in concert?
We still when we were touring Since I left You,
we were still like in life ban mode because that's

(49:14):
we still had that element from you know, when we
were starting out, So we would sort of do like
kind of like it's like a big party with live
drums and kind of like I don't know, space guitar key,
but most of everything was just like on a mini keyboard.
Did we have the samples that would just be that

(49:35):
key chorus right horse? So I was just triggering live
and then the drumma playing along to it. So there's
no like you know, time code or anything into a
computer or anything like that when we did to us
Since I Left You, So we were still pretty organic
in that way. One of the guys in your band

(49:56):
man hold me. I'm a big fan of Giant. How
did you how do jacop and what's his role in
you as man? Oh? Yeah, he was part of our
touring group for around the wild Flower era. We came
and did costello and and we I think we heard
his first EP and it was really cool and then
he did some vocals on Wildflower and then we're like,

(50:17):
come come on the road. Yeah, And so he also
he also did a um it was a Since I
Left You. He put a band together about fifteen musicians
and played Since I Left You front to back and
did it live around Australia and we were like, oh,
let's let's go check this out. And it was kind

(50:38):
of like really weird to just be you know, we
haven't played yeah, and we didn't played so well. We're
just like, hey, we should get back on the road,
and like it was really it was really cool to
see and from now, I mean, you know, we developed
a relationship. Now he's really dope. I'm a big fan
of man. Yeah, but what's the gap between the first

(51:01):
album and wild Flower? You know that eighteen years, sixteen
years whatever? Um, what what happened? I gotta admit I
thought they threw you guys under the jail. I really
admit I was like, they got thrown under the jail.
You an't got our money? Yeah, yeah, I mean, I mean,

(51:23):
there's many ways to answer that question, but the short
answer is like the was, like, you know, you make
since I left you with no money, no equipment, you
have a success, You get an advance to make your
second record, you buy all this equipment, and then but
it doesn't flow and it doesn't happen sitting there around

(51:44):
with compressors all day and like outboard gear, and we
had none of that before. And it took a long
time to get back to that point of realizing it's
not about that, It's just about your imagination a turntable
and a sampler and you can addle that it later
in the studio, but it was like, you've got to
write the songs, the beautiful songs first, you know, and

(52:05):
all the gears. But you know, we were young and
we had to learn that ourselves. And now we're back
to like I don't have the studio in my house anymore.
Like I just back to the same sympathic So you
purposely wanted to go back to square one. Yeah, it
took us sixty years to realize that, but eventually, and

(52:27):
the thing is like, like in all honesty, as at
the time went on, kind of since I left, you
started to growing stature, So we were a lot of
pressure started to build. And then that pressure, you know,
came a little bit from the record company, just from
fans in general and everything when's it's going to happen,
And that got to us a lot as well, I

(52:48):
think as it went along, and you know, and then
like Robbie said, we kind of just got back to
the essence of what it was all about, and almost
just in our own personal journeys, kind of decline in
our minds and stop with all the pressure within ourselves
and just let go of all that that gulf of
all the equipment and from that point, like, it didn't

(53:09):
take that long at all to finish. I'm just curious, what, So,
what equipment did you use for Wildflower and the new one?
Specifically same the same, No, we use pro Tools for
this one. We were using Vision for since I left
in which that program actually they stopped making so and

(53:33):
Robbie was still using that up to two thousand and six.
It ain't bro how long did it take you to
learn how to master UM updated equipment or were you
just stubborn, Like I'll never if it's this or nothing.

(53:56):
I was stubborn for a long time. But now I'm
just like pro Tools and I just edit in pro
Tools and it's just like second nature to me again.
So it's just like it's just like a tape recorder,
and it reminds me of like when I was like
fifteen and learning how to make tape loots and stuff.
You know, it's like, as long as long as I

(54:17):
keep it simple, you know, it's what what's the What's
what are the pros and cons to you know, and
pro Tools You're now able to see your music and
your samples UM and back in the day you couldn't,
So what are the advantages and disadvantages to that, if any.
That's an amazing question because you're so right. I mean,

(54:41):
you can't see the way forms when the sampler, you know,
you don't see you're just listening and you're kind of
like looking at the window almost, you know. So it's
just a feeling thing. And it has been a big
change because you know, pro tools can greet everything so easily,
and everything can get tight, and like you can make
so many different versions of the one song, and it's
almost like you can again get two out of control

(55:04):
with limitlessness of things like pro tools and and even
just going back to wild Flower, the way you know,
we used to sample of just just pick up a record,
put it on, find a sample from a you know,
pretty bit simple like that. But but during world Flow,
we just for some reason would go, okay, let's just

(55:25):
collect samples. So we just collect samples without like thousands
and categorizing, without even really making songs. We're just like
we'll do that later. So it almost became like this
story an administration process of making music. Um So, so
that's just the limitlessness of that. Like, yeah, I was

(55:51):
gonna ask just in the sixteen years, you know, between
those records, um were your what would you guys main
source of the income? Like, how was I able to
stay going for that long? M It was a struggle,
you know, and it's it's certainly not not what people think.
It's like, you know, being in a band and like,
for example, the song since I like talking about sample clearance,

(56:11):
like the song since I Left You is like I
don't own any of it, you know, it's all owned
by examples, So we don't get really royalty still eve off.
So it was tough, and we would get offers to
do some big shows in that time, but we kind
of thought, you know, if it gets to like two
and ten and we haven't put a new record out,
we can't. We don't really want to go and do

(56:32):
a show because it just seems like we're in all
these yeah, I mean credit cards. Well were you guys?
Did you ever appen or consider like just going back
to your roots and deejaying, like just doing DJ sets
as a duo, but without the pressure of here's our

(56:56):
new album, that sort of thing. We did that a
few times and and that was able to um to
earn a some some income. Um, we did like a
a couple of songs for a musical, King Kong Musical
that was here in Melbourne, So that kind of helped.
And we did have a lot of help from the

(57:16):
record company who had just signed to so it was
like an independent record company who had just been half yeah,
half bought out by Universal which has a lot of money.
So so you know, our man step a steep Pad
would really help us out by constantly asking them if

(57:37):
we can have a little bit more, and it's just
around the corner, you know, six months away, six months later,
it would be the same thing. So ess he was wonderful.
He was really good. I always wanted to know, Okay,

(57:58):
so I'm not I'm I'm probably closer to to Robbie's
theory on kind of staying uh intentionally ignorant to technology
so that it doesn't destroy me, you know, like I don't.
I don't. That's my excuse, Like I don't want to
learn all this technology because then I'll lose what I

(58:21):
had in my magic period, that sort of thing. But
I have to know. Um So when I first saw
the demonstration of I hope I'm saying this right, And
I prefaced all that to say, like I really don't
know the technical terms, but with the program Melodime, that

(58:41):
enables you to sort of like erase the DNA of
a song. Um, like if I can take a Stevie
Wonder song and erases vocals out of it and make
it just an instrumental that sort of thing. When I
first saw that, I saw it at Jazzy Jeff's house,
and the first thing I said to him was, yo, like,

(59:02):
I can't wait to see what happens when the avalanches
get ahold of this machine where they can now really
manipulate and bend sounds to the you know, like or
like Abelton, like the avalanches were Ableton. It's like that's
fucking scary. So like, have you guys even created songs

(59:24):
to that level? Like it's it's weird. I don't know
if someone has fully taken advantage of like it's to
me it seems so grandiose and so atimidating that I
haven't even I think maybe once last year I decided, like,
all right, let me let me take the Fender Rhodes
from this particular song that I don't have the stems

(59:46):
to and see if I can build a song from that.
But besides that, one moment, like I I kind of
thought I was going to be just a flood of
kind of a return or at least a part two
of the sample Wow wild West that was you know,
eighty six to ninety two, that sort of thing. But
what this sort of sampling have you guys ever been

(01:00:08):
Have you guys even decided or considered that level of
sampling where you start erasing the DNA of of samples
that exists to create new material. I hope I asked
that question right, yet totally totally. It feels like it's
a strange I also feel like it's a concept a crime,

(01:00:31):
so a little bit I feel every time I use it.
I asked someone last week to like, you know, you know,
abstract some vocals from a song, and even then I
felt guilty. So my heart was, you know, no, it's
it's it's it'll because it'll start off innocent now with
just music, but then who knows, like what they'll use

(01:00:54):
it for thirty years from now with identity theft. So
I think I'm kind of scared of jumping in that
pool because I feel like this is the beginning of
the danger period. But what is your relationship with that
level of technology and sampling. I don't think we thought
about it too much. I know, we bought Maladine maybe

(01:01:15):
three years ago, and I personally haven't used it once.
We were like, yeah, it's gonna be great. I kind
of looked at it right now, not now, but but
I don't know, I feel like that's kind of in
a way dishonoring the sample and the and the people
who played on it, and and I don't know, maybe

(01:01:36):
that's if that's just kind of an old fashioned attitude,
and then the future is just going to be like
taking out you know, Stevie never that one song man
if I could just give herd of the vocals. We
try and do that with filters, but who knows what
the future holds are. I don't know how Robbie thinks

(01:01:57):
about that, but I don't know, Like I think some
cool stuff like you mentioned Abelton and stuff like being
able to stretch a sample like a really really really
far way further than we have could, Like we've done
some of that kind of stuff. But I also love,
you know, the art form of like like say, the
vocal sample for Since I left you has got music underneath.
We just had to filter it and then I had

(01:02:19):
to chop it very finely, but you can still here
all these little bells and stuff, and it all adds
to this sort of magic. Even though attitune and stuff.
It's like it's kind of it's kind of beautiful that
way too. You know. I think things would get quite
clean and really like pristine sounding if you can like
forensically remove elements, but I don't know if it would

(01:02:39):
still have the magic. Yeah, and it take away like
the layers that you don't necessarily here but you feel.
And then if you do take them away, You're like
something's missing here, but I can't tell what it is. Yeah.
That's the thing with like sample based music is just
so like even when like trying to replace stuff for
you know, it's just like, dude, when you sample something,

(01:03:02):
you're not just sampling that song, you're sampling that day.
You're sampling the engineer, you're sampling the outboard gear. You know,
there's so many things that made it what it was.
And when you start manipulating that a lot of times
you can't kind of get too far away from home
to where you lose the magic. Yeah, And that's like
a spirited a spirit in the music. Absolutely Yeah, engineers

(01:03:22):
should get paid for samples. Shut up, Steve. Yeah, that's
real rap. I'm gonna start a petition on the Sugar Network. Hey.
Another question that I have, Um, I have a theory,
but I want to see if I'm correct. Um, what
was the What was the inspiration for the wild Flower

(01:03:44):
album cover? It was that cover. I knew it. Yeah
when I first last when when literally when I first
saw it, I was like, wow, Like in all alternative
world where Slide was was happy with his life and

(01:04:05):
everything was going swimmingly, this would have been the album
covered too. There's a ride going on and wow. Okay, yeah,
we actually got it. Found a world quoting champion who
she lives in Nebraska and she quioted that cover for us,
and we just took a photo of it. So we
wanted it to look real like the Slide cover. You know. Wow,

(01:04:28):
So that's an actual Yeah? Whoa ship? No? I thought
it was animated. You see. Oh my god, you're right
at it right now? Who? Yeah? Who got it? Yeah?
He still sleep bed you do. Congratulations around me. I

(01:04:52):
will be coming there for it. Yeah. Man, I wanted
to askall on the on the new record, man, bro,
where did y'all fiendy yo for real Sananda, Sananda Montreal.
You know it's been going back for the past few years.
But yeah, so happy. I can't remember how we got

(01:05:15):
in touch, but we had this song and Tony and
myself and collaborate on this record and he it was
like this beautiful piece of music. We had this factly
bunny in vocal and it was honestly not going to
make the record because it was like there's just no
voice that can that can fit. And I can't remember.
One day it was Tony and myself we just had

(01:05:36):
this idea and we were like, we wonder if we
could ever get in touch with him or if he
would know who we are and cut somebody got in
touch with Sananda, and it's been honestly the most incredible.
It's one of the most beautiful experiences of my life.
He warnest, I didn't know. He is incredible, been so

(01:05:59):
open hearted and just so generous with his time. That's
probably the most beautiful thing that like, people just don't
dial in a vocal and here goes. It's like so
generous with their time to go back and forth and
really get something that feels like it was meant to
be there. You know, he's to track that together. You'll
tracked that together? Or was he tracked it on his side? Yeah,

(01:06:21):
he tracked it on on his side. But there were
a lot of back and forth with emails and stuff,
and and his emails are an absolute joy to read.
It's is he's so eccentric but smart and expressive with
his emails, and he's just like Robbie girl, we goodn't
new email from Sanander and go send it. I want
to read it. It's like a high life. It was

(01:06:43):
so amazing to read. And then poetry, really beautiful, real poetry,
and just listening to his voice, it's like it is
one of the great voices in my opinion of all time.
Still incredible, Like I live that song and I still
just go what a vocal performance. It's incredible, incredible. So

(01:07:07):
on the other side, I guess maybe to the polar opposite, tricky,
what was that like? That was? I love him? Actually?
Actually we should have mentioned when we're talking about nineties
sample music too, like his first record, Massive Attack. Oh yeah,
Max and yeah, yeah exactly, And so that that was

(01:07:29):
stuff that was filtering through to us from from England
at the time too, so it was like he was
one of our heroes, you know, and the massive Attack Records,
and he was in Berlin making a record. He just
put that record out last year. It's really great record.
And he was just like, I happened to be in
the studio right now, what have you got? And we
would just send him a song. The first song the

(01:07:50):
next morning came back with full lyrics and and and
then he was like that was great, to send me
another one, and we ended up that went on for
like two weeks. We did like eight songs us together.
And then we got like a message from his management
to our management who didn't know anything about this, and
they were like, are you guys recording together? What you've
made half a record? What's going on? Like the paperwork

(01:08:13):
or something. But yeah, that was he was like just
he was on a hot streak making that record, so
he was like anything you can send me, I'm on
fire at the moment. And it is so good when
it's when it's just the artist to artists as well,
and it's not going through. So it was you know
that the management obviously didn't know it was happening or whatever,
and we were just doing our own thing without all

(01:08:35):
that and and that's that's you know, such a rewarding
relationship for us to kind of you know, we have
that situation with people we grew up listening to and
our heroes and everything, and I think it gets just
so much a more pure product when it's not you know,
through their people, through their people and all that stuff. Yeah,
like you guys, the people y'all picked. Man, you know,

(01:08:56):
I can't front like it is pretty much. I mean
it's like a dream, you know, just just me being
just the music nerd. I am like the people you
get on every record. I'm like, yo, like that was perfect.
When I saw that, it was you know, Terence Trent
Darby was on this one and then Tricky. But when
I saw this, y'all got fucking Cornelius. I was like, yo, dude, like, yeah,

(01:09:18):
they've been in my iTunes or some ship. Like, y'all
al must know what was I'm like, dude, they picking
all my guys? What was he like? Man? What was it?
What was it like? Working with him? But I don't
I don't know what to say about Cago. Really, he's
like he's a dear friend and we met him like
in two thousand and one or something, because he put
out that album Fantasm, Yeah, and we were making since

(01:09:43):
I left you listening to that album and just going,
this is my check. That was my ship my check exactly.
But it's kind of like Disney Severe exactly. Yes, because
Tokyo is the like same time zoners here in ten hours.
We go a lot to DJ and so we've become

(01:10:05):
friends over the years and he'll always show us like
record stores and everything. Is this sweetest guy. And then um,
he just happened to be in Los Angeles doing a
show when we were there recording, so that song just
came about like that was his birthday, but at the
time recording recording with him with a happy birthday. The
recording with him was so incredible the process because we

(01:10:27):
kind of had the beach just going and he just
had a guitar there and he'd be like, all right,
let's do some takes and just you know, just around
and so we sit there and go come docm. Then
the next take, the we just all started layering up

(01:10:48):
that you go there, We're all like okay, okay, and
then towards the end everyone's like, oh, we understand now,
So he had this whole thing and he said it
was like twelve layers of different guitar tracks that he
was just like making and it just I mean, that's
how that's him. Yeah, that that's so incredible to watch.
It was fantasma like fantasma like fantasma Like that sucked

(01:11:11):
me up when I heard it. And then the one
that like when I think it was at bad Graduate
College when he came with point like I played, I
still played that record, like, you know, I love that album. Man,
he's he's a nut. I love. Can I ask what
was it like working with Johnny Moore? That that was
another one that was done remotely. Um, but I still

(01:11:33):
remember the morning actually that you didn't get the nerd
out on any smith's questions or oh my goodness, I
think we would have overwhelmed him. I think, yeah when
he when he came to sitting with us, like I
think we I that's probably the only time like we
really nerd it out on like tell us more stories,

(01:11:54):
you know that's what. Yeah, But but we actually meant
we we saw him even before we approached him to
play on the track. We were like he was at
the next table at us at Fuji rock festival, like
just backstage, and we'll both just go go up to
him and ask him, no, you go on, come on
say something. For about fifteen minutes, we're trying to stuck

(01:12:18):
each other up to go after him, and in the end,
rom just like we're gonna do it, but you know,
we're going to contact eventually. And he was. He was
really great, and he actually sent us a message after
the Divine Core, which the song he's on it it
kind of got some play in England and he's like, thanks, guys,
my kids think I'm cool again. Now, Hey, if you

(01:12:40):
guys even considered a thought thought about releasing like all
instrumental versions of the last two records just for the
Avalanche Purists or whatever, like just to hear it, because
sometimes I you know, I know that you guys are
going through a progression and you're the the you know,

(01:13:01):
the metamorphosis of the group sort of blooming. But so
there's no just there's not an instrumental mixed version of
of of any of any of this stuff out there,
not no, but we have them. We have them. Yeah,
I think everything we can. Okay, that's really what you

(01:13:25):
want to ask. Yeah, I just want to see now,
um you do you do? You guys everything that you'll
try to do another all instrumental um project as far
as I know, you're probably working on something now and
just yeah we're starting another now. I think yeah, because

(01:13:47):
it's just like I mean, working with vocalists like that
proces is almost like it's still you know, an active
curation and almost sampling in a way. But I feel
like we're we're making a slight and back towards just
a sample place record. Well whatever, whatever the next record is,
I'm putting my bead in. I won't end on that motherfucker.

(01:14:08):
So just just talking. Yeah, whatever, let's do it. Man,
I'm dude, I almost feel like this is this is
probably the least that I've I've inserted questions in an
interview only because I feel like every question that I

(01:14:31):
want to know the answer to is almost like inconsequential,
like just okay that particular snere that you use on
this song and versus wait, I do I do want
to know who? Who uh decides the concept for your videos? Man,
especially with Frankie Sinatra, Like well just all your videos,

(01:14:52):
all your videos are just some next level ship like
who who comes with those concepts. It's mainly the video people.
So we get we get pitched some things and then
we kind of, I guess just picked the craziest one.
Really yeah, but yeah I was Frankie Sinatra I met.

(01:15:14):
I hope this doesn't sound bad, but we we actually
had a zoom or a skype with the producers who
were gonna be shooting the video and the French and
like we struggled to understand why okay kind of sounds

(01:15:36):
They've seen my lovely people. It's so sweet and the
lady had this beautiful voice. It was almost like a
movie like it was just my songs and they're like,
oh look, okay, whatever, Oh my god. Wow. Can I
ask one more question? Um So, in messing with loops

(01:15:59):
and sample and beats and things like movie dialogue and
horses and everything that you that you end up creating
your music with, um, how often do you go in
with with an idea, going for something specific, but then,
as quest Levin, I am constantly talking about, um, yeah,

(01:16:22):
some kind of happy accident happens and that ends up
something better than your original idea or different, And um
how often does that play into what we hear in
the final product. It happens all the time, and really
that's almost the whole thing. Like like we will talk

(01:16:45):
about like where we want to try and go next,
but but you can't predict the mood you're going to
be in and the record you're going to be sampling
at that time, and maybe just one little like a
bit of atmosphere at the end of someone's song or something.
It's like and you're just in the right mood to
hear how you could flip that moment if you put something,

(01:17:10):
if you put something in the wrong spot, and then
if you put it a bit behind or something, and
suddenly you're a rhythmic genius. That's also like our friendship
to it's like having to be able to tell each
other that, you know, that thing you made yesterday morning
in five minutes is like is better than the thing

(01:17:33):
is spent a month on when you had this big
concept and you know, yeah, you just captured some magic
there and that's we should roll with that, you know,
And I think that was that was also part of
wild Flower two, was like that magic of the five
minutes finding the great loop and everything, and then we
would just layer and layer and llowert and in the
end the initial things like this much of something that's

(01:17:55):
like that, and then we like we went through a
process towards the end of making it, we would took
a lot of that away and he started to shine again.
I don't know, Yeah, that's so dope. Um, Kurt vow Man,
how did you go with him his record? He's all right,
that's like I love that song and I always dug him.
How did you hook up? It was? That was like

(01:18:15):
the last song we finished for the record, and once again,
it was a beautiful piece of music. But we just
and I just played his records like all the time,
so huge fan and um, we just reached out, which
reached out on Instagram, and he was like down for it.
I think he might have meant messaged us about something
else in the past, and then we're like, we've got

(01:18:37):
this song and yeah, he just did this beautiful kind
of like poetic rambling spoken word thing that was beautiful.
I still remember the day that that arrived. Actually, it
was like, really, I'm like I remember the day that
that Robbie played it tunion after he put the vocals
into the track and we had that track for a
long time and it was just kind of like, what

(01:18:58):
what did we do with it? Like it's the melodic
kind of thing. And then he played me the things
that kurked and I was just like, played again, that's done.
That's perfect. That that's exactly what I mean. You know,
just one of those things where you're like, you don't
have to m and are about it's like we have
to change it around a little bit, or maybe if
we cut this bit up perfect. It just felt so

(01:19:21):
good and it was just like, that's it, that that's done.
What made y'all come back? Because I don't be really
I was surprised to see that we got Avalanches album
in because after Wildflower, I was just back night we
would be another teen. I was ready to wait it out,
but y'all came back. I was like, all right, um,
what what led to the I guess the quicker turnaround

(01:19:43):
in records like where y'all at now in your lives
where you can kind of turn them around a little quicker.
I think we're just freed up from the long sixteen.
You know, we felt the pressure to follow up since
I left you and and and then once we made
another really great sample based recording, wild Cloud, that we
felt like, you know that that was a really worthy

(01:20:03):
follow up to Since I left you. We just felt
free and you know, we just got back to the
very simple flow of creating and not overthinking, and it's
just flowing really quickly. We've already got a bunch more
songs as well, and it's so it's so fun to
be an actual touring band and not you know, broke
musicians in the house is working on you know, play

(01:20:25):
Coach and we're doing glaston Room and like what we
should have been doing this ten years ago. So that's
that's like, that's inspiration for us and and Brandy, I
love it. Wait, my my last question about a guest
on your record, Um, what was the process of like

(01:20:47):
working with the Rivers Cuoma? Yeah? Yeah, And did you
there any Pinkerton found out moments or just you know,
that was so cool and I think we grew up
loving like, you know, we have a love for like
the Beach Boys, and here's someone who I can hear

(01:21:08):
that in his music and he's like, I can write
such an amazing hoop hook, yeah, you know, and I
mean Tony can tell the story. But I think we'd
already tracked the song and then he was in Melbourne.
Did we meet him beforehand, Tony or no? He so
he sent us like the vocal so he had like
sent a spreadsheet with three different lyric lyric paragraphs the

(01:21:33):
seats of all his hooks, just in a spreadsheet, and
he was like, choose one, choose, but we need to
hear the melodies, like we want to hear help goes.
So he's like okay, and he said the melodies for
each you know, little lyric thing he had, and a

(01:21:53):
whole bunch of hooks and you could choose one, he said,
he said three. No one does that did. So in
the end we were just like they're all really good.
Can we have them all? I mean, we worked them
all into the into the track eventually, and and you know,
like the outro and the verse of the chorus and

(01:22:14):
so that that made up the three different things. But
so we ended up meeting him in Melbourne and like
they were out they were supporting the food fighters of
Big Stadium, and we're like, okay, we'll go. So Robbie
and I spent a day like looking at all the
coolest bars to take him in Melbourne, and you know,
you want to impress him and doing these really cool things.
And in the end it was raining, and all he

(01:22:36):
wanted to do is like we got some umbrellas from
the hotel. He just wanted to walk around the city
in the rain. And then we stopped at the Starbucks
and had a coffee and spoke for about an hour
and then went back to the hotel. So I was, Okay,
I guess we won't be going to this cool bar
where there's like, you know, all the girls and all
these crazy ship We'll just sit in Starbucks. But in

(01:22:58):
that way, it was like perfect. Well actually, wait, uh,
speaking of your Beach Boys fandom, assuming assuming that the
woman who worked with you for sample clearances is the
same lady that cleared the samples for Paul's boutique. I
don't know which albums he did it for, but I
assume it's Paul's b because there's a lot of samples.

(01:23:19):
Were you guys even aware of Brian Wilson's hip hop
album that was produced by the Dust Brothers. The world
does not know about this? Um yeah, so uh, I
guess that the story is that, um, you know, I mean,

(01:23:39):
at the time when the Beastie Boys first signed a
capital I guess. Uh. Brian Wilson had gotten a copy
of Paul's boutique. It was kind of impressed because they
explained to him and like how the album was made
and how all these samples and that sort of thing.
He was really impressed by it. So he hit up
the Dust Brothers and said, um, I too want to

(01:24:00):
do uh an album, and he wound up making a
I think they made like five or six songs together,
and one of them I think was called smart Girls
or whatever. But it's it's Brian. Oh boy, I think
if you if you YouTube, I'm going to check these out.

(01:24:27):
Yeah wait wait wait almost no, no, no, no, Because
the thing is is that every time I tell the story,
I'm like, wait a minute. I know, I know for
starters that I actually talked to Brian Wilson about this
in person, and I talked to the Dust Brothers, but
even in my mind, I'm like, wait, did I imagine that?

(01:24:49):
But um, it's no, doesn't wait is it still on
on YouTube? Yeah? He he did it. He did a
song so smart girls. Yeah, smart Girls. Uh. The Capital
rejected the album, but it's still out there. It's it
came out and um yeah, Matt Matt Dyke like the yeah, yeah,

(01:25:14):
those those guys produced it, and um yeah it was.
It was the Brian Wilson rap album. It was called Swedensanity.
Yeah that's it. That seems like a fitting title for it.
Yeah it is. I just want to say, um, just

(01:25:37):
you know, like I try to keep my cool with
with guests, you know, half the time on this platform,
but yeah, man, I want to thank you guys personally
because I will say that, and hearing your record that's
what really planted the seat in my head on how
my DJ gigs should go, because I just ever thought,

(01:26:01):
I mean yeah, like again, I was raised on that
certain bomb squad type of hip hop that anything could go.
But when when when I heard this album, that's when
I realized, like, oh, anything can really happen in a
DJ set in a sort of a creative context. So

(01:26:22):
I will say that after hearing your album, and I
guess I heard it in two thousand, two thousand one,
like that's when I just totally wipe the slate clean
of what was current what was then my DJ sets,
and my whole goal was like, well, I'm just do
what the avalanche is do and just throw any and

(01:26:43):
everything in my DJ set, be it something normal, something
off kilter, something unorthodox, something you know, just I I
thank you all for that. Like, you guys were definitely
the impetus to like my my my DJ rebirth. I've
been running away with like the last twenty years. Man.

(01:27:03):
But you guys are a true geniuses. Man, I thank
you for doing the show with us. Oh, thank you.
That's really calm. Yeah, this has been so fun. Thank
you guys. Really all right, well are are you doing? Uh? Oh?
I was just gonna ask because I guess my last thing. Um,

(01:27:26):
the other artists like kind of soul artists in uh
in you guys regions so yeah, Australia, so like I'm thinking,
um of course highest Coyote um uh fat phrades dropped.
I know they're kind of more of a sky kind
of band. Lisa could call it, like what relationship do
you have with that community? Um? That the soul you know,

(01:27:48):
I guess R and B community. Um what's that like? Well,
we're just like kind of a couple of old men
who like made each other on the part bench it
every day and talk about the weather or whatever. Like
we don't like I guess we're often traveling, but we're
kind of not really like yeah, except that except to

(01:28:12):
say that there is just like it's just a very
warm music community here in Melbourne, very supportive. I think
it's maybe because it's so geographically isolated. It's like there's
there's just like, um, it's very supportive. Anyway, we always
feel very supportive. That's what's yeah, Steve, that's right. Yeah,

(01:28:33):
you left me out of the Michelle Obama episode and
the Jimmy fow anyone to great car Back, Great Back.
Do you have a question of Supree in Fontiglo and Steve,
we like to thank the avalanche is uh for for
kicking it with us? Oh my god? That yeah, man,

(01:28:54):
this is I never thought. Yeah, I'm I've only think
I've read an interview with y'all let alone, you know
and a half. So this was this is a dream,
Drew Man. Thank you guys. Yeah, seriously, it has been
so much, so good, so much fun. All right, thank
you guys, Thank you guys on behalf of Fontikolo unpaid
Bill and Layah and and uh Steve Quesse love and

(01:29:19):
this is question of Supreme. We will see you next week.
Let's go right, Thank you, Hey, This is shuld Is Steve.
Make sure you keep up with us on Instagram at
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it should be next to sit down with us. Don't
forget to subscribe to our podcast, What's Love Supreme, is

(01:29:46):
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