Legal Ghost

Episode Transcript
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Music (00:00):
Just remember that death is not the end.

Lo Carmen (00:15):
I've been inhaling the incredible, haunting songs
written by Gareth Liddiard sincewe met playing in bands in the
early 2000s.
But it wasn't until I lookedaround at the pin drop quiet
audience when I last saw himplay and noticed that what seems
like at least half of them werestanding there with their eyes

(00:37):
closed, lost in some privatemoment of deep intensity that
Gaz had somehow brought to lifefor them and was then giving
them a kind of cathartic releasefrom, that I've really thought
about the role music plays inprocessing the darker stuff of
our collective experience.
And how even though his wordsare often very specific, they

(01:01):
have a power to plummet peopleright back into a very personal
moment of their own and feelmaybe less alone in a desperate
place.
Even though Gaz is a verycheerful, funny person, he can
write about the human conditionin all of its mess and brutality
and bleakness and ordinariness,which somehow makes it burn

(01:23):
with a vividness that few evercapture in song.
Alongside songs of his like I'mHere Now and Locust, his song
Shark Fin Blues, that, accordingto Wikipedia, Gaz wrote after
his mother's death as an anthemof sorts for the disenfranchised
and melancholic which hasbecome a genuine Australian

(01:44):
anthem, t hese songs all wonderhow to exist in a senseless
world that's lost its anchor,while trying to resist being
dragged deeper into the abyss ofdespair, with little to cling
to but meaningless platitudesand the debris left behind, both
emotional and physical.
I wanted to know if he'd speakto me about...

(02:06):
How music and songs work tohelp us transcend, alleviate or
make sense of stuff that's hardto talk about.
For a while we kept missingeach other and couldn't find a
time and then late one night, afew years ago now, Gaz texted
out of the blue and said, let'sdo it now.
We were both at the end of bigprojects and tired and both had

(02:28):
had a few drinks.
So a word of warning, it's apretty loose conversation.
And a further word of warning,if extensive profanity or talk
about suicide, drugs and thehuman condition are triggering
for you, you should probablygive this one a miss.
So death, death and...

(02:53):
Death andmusic...
Yeah, death and music.
So I tell you why I wanted totalk to you was because I looked
at your list of songs and Iwent, gosh, a lot of them have
got something to do with death,which is not actually that
common.
And that's coming from like alot of my songs have got

(03:16):
something to do with death too.
So I think it's kind of.
how some people choose toexplore it in songs and some
people don't.
And maybe you know more aboutit.
Do you remember the first songthat you wrote that might have

(03:37):
had something to do with death?

Gareth Liddiard (03:39):
Yeah, like...
I can't remember.
It's a song called Legal Ghost.
You said come in, wipe yourfeet And I walked in off this

(04:09):
street I got nowhere to beThere's a song called I've Been

(04:59):
Told I've been told Is this crapor some sort of loss Left me
yawning at the big unknown Whilehe folded all the tiles Like I
folded some way, some timesomeone I got I ended up doing

(05:26):
the task of sensing he'd neverwait an hour to come and kill me
tonight The doc said I foundpills by his bed and his liver
had bled I sweated to the coathanger from around his neck This
one accident This songcalled...

(05:56):
Oh, there's heaps...
just heaps, like...
But, um...
It's interesting you say that,and I was thinking about it the

(06:19):
other day because I heard a songon the radio and it was talking
about death, but I think thiswas like fucking Smooth FM or
some sort of crappy Top 40station, and it annoyed the shit
out of me.
It was like fucking, you know,some top ten hit talking about

(06:41):
death.
And then I realised, oh, fuck.
Oh, my songs are full of thisshit.
Oh, no.
Is that what I've been doing topeople?
Just putting them off.
But hopefully I think...
Hopefully mine were a bit lesskind of sledgehammer fucking,
you know, corny.

Lo Carmen (07:02):
Yeah.

So, yeah.
I mean, there's heaps.
There's like Dekalb Blues,which is a Lead Belly song that
we did.

Lo Carmen (07:09):
Oh, is that a Lead Belly song?
I didn't know that.

Yeah, yeah.
It's a beautiful song.
It's...
It's all about that.
It's all about, you know, adead girlfriend.
What else?

Lo Carmen (07:21):
What, as in it's a cover or you took it and changed
it?

Well, there's a few versions that he did and I
would just move them, move bitsthat I needed in and around it
and, yeah.
And, I mean, the music itselfis different from the Leadbelly
music but the lyrics are prettymuch...
I think just all lifted fromhim.
Yeah.
Yeah, it was the decal bluesmade me feel so bad.

(07:50):
I get thinking about all thetimes we had.
Yeah, when I was with you, itwas a golden time.
The days along, you're alwayson my mind.
Yeah, Dekalb blues made feel sobad.
Yeah.

Music (08:10):
Yeah.

She would not have no heart When I was with
you, Lord It was a golden timeWhen I was with you, Lord You
took up all my time

Music (08:40):
And I'll chase my baby

You know, he was the sort of human jukebox.
He didn't write a lot of hisshit, but he definitely wrote
Dekalb Blues.

Lo Carmen (09:05):
And why did you relate to that?

Oh, when I was fucking...
Oh, man.
I mean, in WA, you leave highschool when you're 16th year.
Yeah.
Or the year you turn 17.
So I moved out when I was 17and then hooked up with this

(09:30):
chick who was amazing.
Just blew my fucking mind.
And then three years later shedied.
And that's like, so we had likea on off thing, but mainly on.
And when I was 21, nearly 22,she died.
She was 22.
And

Lo Carmen (09:51):
That's gotta be pretty traumatic.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
But that was where I went frombeing, you know, someone who was
obsessed by music and kind ofwithout really knowing it
completely, like fucking just.

Lo Carmen (10:05):
Obsessed as in you were playing it or like just
listening or playing?

Both, both.
But like sort of a congenitalkind of thing, like I was from
birth, like I was music and allmy parents and shit going.
It's weird what he does.
I've tapped to music and shit.
Yeah, and I can remember, Imean, I remember I was in, when
I can first remember beingalive, I was in London and I

(10:33):
remember hearing Heart of Glassand I remember hearing Another
Brick in the Wall and all thatstuff and just going, whoa.
You know, it was like this sortof someone casting a spell on
me.
And, yeah, so I've just beenheavy into music and when I was
young I would get those Casiokeyboards and I would just rip

(10:58):
them open and rewire them sothey sounded weirder.
Yeah, which is now like a thingpeople do, you know, circuit
bending and shit.
But I was just doing it to tryand fuck it up and make it sound
even

Lo Carmen (11:12):
That is a very cool skill to have.

Yeah, well, it wasn't.
I wouldn't say it was a skill.
It was pretty sort of kind of.

Lo Carmen (11:19):
I'd be scared of electrocuted anyway.

No, it's got batteries.
They've just got batteries.
I've been electrocuted properlyand you can't get electrocuted
off a Casio.
Yeah, so I was always into it.
But then when Cherie S died, Ifinally took myself seriously.
I didn't feel like, you know,if I was listening to John Lee L
Hooker or Blind Willie Johnsonor Stravinsky, usually I would

(11:48):
feel like, You know, they werequalified or something.
I mean, they obviously were.

Lo Carmen (11:53):
What, like they knew more than you, you mean?

Yeah, and they had more of a right to do it.
You know, I'm not talking aboutvirtuosity or any shit like
that.
But when Cherie died, I...

Lo Carmen (12:06):
Just like experience.

Well, yeah, I just went, you know, the world
can get fucked.
The world can, you know...

Lo Carmen (12:17):
Because you felt like you'd gone as deep as you...
can go

Yeah I hit the bottom I hit the bottom and I
suddenly realised the world canfuck off and I don't owe anybody
anything and I can do exactlywhat I want and this is all
again like musically speakingbecause that's I was obsessed
with music like like you know myfirst my first girlfriend

(12:46):
before that you know technicallyhad to almost raped me because
I was just listening to, all Iwould do is, if the music was
on, I would go, you know, Icould go to parties and if a
girl was trying to come onto me,I wouldn't even notice.
I just never noticed anythingapart from LSD, marijuana and

(13:09):
music.
And that's what I'm saying.
All I am is music.
So when Cherie died, mygirlfriend died, my second
girlfriend died, I just went,the world can just go and suck
on an exhaust pipe.
I'm going to do exactly what Iwant.
I'm just going to do this.

(13:29):
Yeah, and was completelyliberated.
I didn't need to check off anyboxes or I didn't need anyone's
permission or anything likethat.
So that's, you know, yeah.

Lo Carmen (13:41):
Was she into your music?
Before she died, like withoutsomething you shared together?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And she was really hip.
She was into, you know, sheshowed me things like I think it
was her that got me into, youknow, birthday party and stuff.
I mean, we'd been into shitlike Stooges and, you know,
suicide and all that shit inhigh school.

Lo Carmen (14:09):
Wow, that's young.

Yeah.
But, yeah, but being inPerth...

Lo Carmen (14:13):
That's young to hear that stuff.
Or is Perth a pretty hip placemusically?

Nah, we just had...
Well, in school there was a guycalled Ben who was this...
He was an autistic kid who'snow an autistic adult who's,
like, down in the south of WA.
But he, you know, being...
I don't know, he was like ayear or two younger than us.

(14:42):
And his autism, you know, hislittle spot on a spectrum was
just this mad obsession withmusic.

Lo Carmen (14:52):
That seems quite common actually.

Yeah, yeah, it's a good one.
And he saw us coming from amile off and then so he would
just hip us to, okay, this isIggy Pop, this is Tom Waits,
this is Suicide, this is...
Tim Buckley, this is, I mean,it goes on and on and

Lo Carmen (15:13):
God, those people that do that, show you all the
cool stuff.
You never forget them, do you?

Well, you had that.
I mean, your old man was likethat, right?
Like your old man had someserious taste.

Lo Carmen (15:25):
Absolutely.
But, I mean, things likeSuicide and Stooges.
I learned all of that from TexPerkins, actually, when I was
young.

Yeah, right, yeah,

Lo Carmen (15:36):
In my early 20s, I was really close friends with
his girlfriend and hanging outat his house a lot and there'd
be this music playing and I'dgo, fuck, what's this?
Oh, this is the Stooges.
You haven't heard this?
He'd make me a cassette.
I'd go home and listen to itand go, this is so good.
Those moments where people showyou really great music, you

(15:59):
just don't ever forget.

Oh, no.
I remember right after highschool and with Cherie, my
girlfriend that died, we werewatching Rage.
It was quite a funny night.
It was always warm in Perth andI grew up on a beach so I
didn't really care aboutanything and I just listened to

(16:20):
music.
I liked Charlie Parker and Iliked John Bonham and I would
just– wander around.
And I used to wear tracksuitpants.
That's all I would wear andjust get around.
And I went up.
No top.
It was warm and no shoes.
And I

Lo Carmen (16:38):
I bet no undies either.

Yeah, no undies.
And, yeah, just walking aroundlike an idiot, like, and just I
went and I was at Cherie's sharehouse really early on.
So I was like 17, trippingballs on acid.
And it was late at night and Ithink it was the Cruel Sea they
were on.
And Tex, I remember he said,all right, this next thing's

(17:05):
called Armenia.
It's by a band calledEinstürzender Neubauten.
This is, and I remember this,he said, this is the only band
in Europe that rocks.
And then that clip came on andit literally changed my life.
I just went.
Because I was into Black Flagand, you know, real manky kind

(17:26):
of, you know, the proper punk, you know, New York Dolls.

Lo Carmen (17:31):
That did crazy things to your brain.

Oh, my God.
I was so like, fuck, thisis so cool.
It was the most outrageousthing I ever saw.
So, yeah, he was responsiblefor turning me on to something
that was life-changing.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But, yeah, this kid, this kid,this Benny, this kid at school
just– showed us so muchincredible music.
So we were educated early.
But Cherie, back to yourquestion, Cherie was, yeah, she

(17:56):
was into, you know, RowlandHoward, like solo Rowland
Howard, Birthday Party, all thatstuff.
She was into Psychic TV,Throbbing Gristle, Misfits, you
know, yeah, she was down withall that.

Lo Carmen (18:13):
The full catalogue of all the cool stuff.

So, yeah, and then...
But she died when she left asuicide note and said, good luck
with your music career.
It's weird.

Lo (18:27):
Really?That's what she said?
what

y s Yeah, I've still got the note.
It's a weird thing.
It's like in my life, my lifeisn't.

Lo Carmen (18:37):
Did you suspect it was going to happen?

Yes and no.
But you don't kind of, whenyou're 21, you don't get how
full on it is.
Like she was a chronic, thiswas when heroin was huge and
like,

Lo Carmen (18:53):
yeah.
was such a thing.

Yeah, but I could never do it because I'm
allergic to codeine.
And every time I say that.

Lo Carmen (19:04):
Oh, me too.

Are you allergic to that shit?
Yeah.

Lo Carmen (19:08):
I mean, that's not why I never did this.
I was just always scared of it.
I just never did it.

Well, yeah, I'd had friends die before her.

Lo Carmen (19:16):
That's crazy.
So after she died, was music away to be close to her?
Like did you write songs tokind of conjure her up?
Or to say things to her thatyou couldn't say?

Yeah, yeah, I would.
I would.
Yeah, without knowing, that'swhat I was doing.
Yeah, it was confusing.
Like it's not like that part ofyour life.
I mean, I don't know what it'slike to be a female, but as a
young male that grew up on, youknow, a surfing, heavy surfing

(19:55):
beach, like I wasn't incrediblyin touch with my feelings.
Yeah.
So I would kind of do it.
I remember a nun saying to meafter she died, a nun said to
me, all right, you're going tofeel really sad and then you're
going to feel, really angry andthen you're going to feel really
guilty and then you're going tofeel like even worse than all

(20:19):
those things put together andyou are you just you have to be
careful you have to just lookafter yourself and not kill
yourself with booze and drugsand i remember thinking who is
this idiot what the fuck doesshe know but uh Sure enough, she

(20:41):
was right.
All those stages.

Lo Carmen (20:44):
Yeah.
And you remember what she said.

Oh, man.
But then I had

Lo Carmen (20:47):
Did you know her?
The nun?

No, she was her – no, I didn't.
Well, no, I got to know her alittle bit after.
There was a priest and a nunwho were friends of the family
of Cherie, and Cherie's familywas– dad was a vet and– Mum was

(21:11):
someone he'd met during hisadventures in Southeast Asia.
And they were Catholic for somereason.
I don't know why.
But the priest was great.
The nun was great.
The priest would ring me and hewould keep ringing for about 18

(21:35):
months.
He'd ring every week.
And he was really nice.
So I've never been chronicallycynical about organised religion
because there's, you know, I'vealways, it helped me realise
that with anything there's agood side and a bad side.
There's no utopia.

(21:56):
There's no perfect way of doingthings.

Lo Carmen (21:59):
Yeah.

But, yeah, like what she was talking about
was...
was true.
But then I always, you know,just put everything into music.
I just, my blinkers were onand, uh, I put everything into

(22:20):
music.
I literally live.
I mean, I just live and breathemusic anyway.
I can't, I, I can't not thinkabout it.
It just keeps coming into myhead.
Yeah.
Uh, it's, it's, it's weird.
So it really helped.
So if you're talking about metrying to conjure her or, yeah,

(22:42):
in a way I was, I don't know, Idon't know what I was doing.
I was kind of trying to figureout this.

Lo Carmen (22:47):
Like when you sing songs where she's in them now,
do you feel any sense ofconnection?

Yeah, I do.
I still think about her.
I think about her all the time.
Yeah, like, yeah.
Like...

Lo Carmen (23:05):
Do you ever imagine that she's kind of looking down
and going, yeah, cool, I'm gladyou're singing this?

I don't know.
I hope so.
I mean, I'm an atheist, but I'mnot...

Lo Carmen (23:18):
I'm an atheist too, but I have some weird kind of
romantic weird thing that I knowis probably shit, but I like it
anyway, of imagining peoplethat I've...
Loved that
Yeah, yeah.
Looking down.
Yeah, yeah.
I kind of have something likethat.
Like, yeah, it's more of a, Idon't know, a physics-based

(23:42):
approach to things, buttheoretical physics or
something.
But, yeah, I do.
But it's that thing as well.
Like, you know, I'll be playingat the opera house or something
like that, playing a song abouther.
Just thinking, fuck, I mean,she would have never guessed
that would be possible.

(24:04):
You know, it's weird.
Yeah right.

Yeah, so it's weird.

Lo Carmen (24:11):
That's got to be a nice feeling.

It's nice.

Lo Carmen (24:13):
A n f a nice kind of way of tribute.
Not that it's.
ever going to be a nicefeeling.

Well, no, but no.

Lo Carmen (24:26):
As nice as you can get in the circumstances.

It is, it is.
And it's love, though.
It's like, you know, there'splenty other, we've got plenty
other songs, love songs.

Lo Carmen (24:37):
That's a way of honouring people sometimes.

It is.

Lo Carmen (24:42):
Writing a song about someone who's not there.
Even someone, I mean, you know,I know you've written songs
about people that you don'tnecessarily know that have died
and you've given them a storyand and a existence that they
never had in their lives

yeah yeah it's it's all

Lo Carmen (25:06):
you've got a bunch of songs like that

yeah and they're all love songs they're

Lo Carmen (25:10):
all Like somebody's story grabs you and you write a
song.
They're all love songs tosomeone that
maybeyou don't know.

you don't know.
Yeah, and you can write a lovesong.
Yeah, you can write a love songto, you know, your spouse,
someone you love.
And then as well there's a sortof a more general thing where
it's like a species-centriclove, you know, and a you can at

(25:43):
least try to put yourself intheir shoes and, you know,
someone you've never crossedpaths with.
We all have a pretty basicexperience.
It's the kind of whole– thebasic premise to human
experience.
It's not a huge premise.

(26:03):
I know that people like tothink there's a popular thing
now where– People like, I think,with identity politics or
whatever, that experiences arespecific to specific identities,
but it's just, it's not fuckingtrue.
Like, at the end of the day,once you've lived...

Lo Carmen (26:24):
It's just human.

Yeah, once you've lived a few decades, you
start to realise everyone'sgetting the same shit, that they
get it in different ways, butit hits you the same way...
As you know, like we have humandrives.
Everyone's got the same drives.

(26:46):
Everyone has the same injuries,but those drives express
themselves in different ways.
The injuries come at you indifferent ways, but everybody
gets them.

Lo Carmen (26:56):
The injuries come from different places.

Yeah, and obviously there's a scale.
It seems like everyone's tryingto get to the bottom of the
scale to win, you know, with thewhole kind of, I don't know,
the fucking...
It's like a whole Olympics ofoppression, but everybody cops
it.
Of course, there's a guy inAfrica with his head down a gold

(27:19):
mine breathing fumes and he'lldie when he's 20, but you can't–
there's someone that diesbefore him as well.
You know what I mean?
There's a fucking French kid inNormandy that had a fucking–
bomb dropped on the house whilewe were trying to kill Nazis.

(27:42):
You can't, I don't believe

Lo Carmen (27:46):
Yeah, life's not fair.

Life's not fair and everyone cops it in some
way or the other.

Lo Carmen (27:52):
There's no rhyme or reason.

No, and at the end of it all, we all fucking
die, you know, which is a drag.
But then, you know, Mark Twainsaid he lived to a ripe old age
and he was like, Great thingabout getting old is you get
sick of this shit.
Yeah, he said you get sick ofit.

Lo Carmen (28:11):
What was the ripe old age for Mark Twain?

In his 70s or 80s, and he was sick of it by
then.
He was like, kill me, fuckingkill me.

Lo Carmen (28:20):
Really?

Yeah, so it's not all bad news.

Lo Carmen (28:26):
What's your favourite song about being old?

I don't know.
There'd probably be some byRandy Newman or...
I love that.
What's that song I sing often?
My shit's fucked up.

Lo Carmen (28:43):
Oh, yeah, Warren Zevon.
Yeah, yeah, that's a great one.

Music (28:48):
Well I went to the doctor I said I'm feeling kinda rough
He said I'll break it to you sonYour shit's fucked up I said my
shit's fucked up Oh I can't seehow He said that shit used to

(29:12):
work Well it won't work now

Lo Carmen (29:17):
Have you ever seen that Letterman interview?
Yes.
Yeah, yeah, the last one.
When he knows he's dying?
That's amazing, isn't it?

Yeah.

Lo Carmen (29:29):
Excuse me, I'm just going to slide in here to tell
you more about this and youshould really look it up on
YouTube if you...
Have the time and the interest.
The great singer-songwriterWarren Zevon's last interview
that aired in October 2002 wason his good friend David

(29:50):
Letterman's Late Show.
Between non-stop joke-crackingbetween the two of them, Zevon
fairly comedically slips intothe conversation that he's been
diagnosed with terminal lungcancer and he doesn't have long
left to live.
I really wish I could play youthe interview, but I don't have
$3,000 to pay Letterman, so I'mjust going to have to kind of

(30:10):
paraphrase.
He mentions that the title ofhis new album is My Ride's Here,
that there's a song called I'llSleep When I'm Dead.
His previous album was calledLife Will Kill Ya.
He's got a song called Mr.
Bad Example.
He says, I guess artists havesome kind of instincts or, you

(30:31):
know, feelings about things thatcan't be put into words.
And that he took copies of hisalbums to his doctors and says,
this is why I'm not so shocked.
And He also says, I don't knowwhat the connection is.
I don't know why I was writingthose songs, but you know I've
always written them.
Letterman asks the notoriouslyhard-living Zevon if, from his

(30:56):
perspective now, is thereanything that he knows about
life and death that he wants toshare.
And basically he says, 'enjoyevery sandwich'.
I've watched that quite a fewtimes and I love how he talks
about how in some ways his songskind of pre-empted his story.

Yeah, hedid.

Lo Carmen (31:22):
And he's quite amused by it, like he finds it quite
bizarre and audacious.

It's a story in itself.
It's fucking funny.
Yeah, he was always makingthose little arcs, those
storyline arcs in songs andsuddenly...
He can see the big arc, youknow, the big storyline.

Lo Carmen (31:42):
He can relate.

Yeah, yeah.

Lo Carmen (31:43):
Yeah.

But, yeah, man, like, fuck.

Lo Carmen (31:47):
Have you ever written a kind of premonition song?

I think, yeah, probably heaps.
Yeah, heaps.

Lo Carmen (31:53):
Do you use songwriting to make sense of
things?

For me they work like dreams work, you know,
the way dreams seem to sortthrough shit.
Mm-hmm.
I mean, dreams are insane.
They, you know, phobias,whether it's fear of flying and
then desires, whether it's, youknow, money or just a fucking

(32:20):
holiday or someone, you know,you might have the hots for or
you didn't even know or youdon't have the hots for.
I mean, the other night I had adream that Fi came out said,
oh, I'm gay.
I was like, oh, yeah, cool.
And she's like, I would like toadd a third person to our

(32:44):
relationship.
And I was like, oh, yeah, okay.
Who's that?
And she goes, it's Lorde.
You know the singer?
Anyway.

Lo Carmen (32:58):
Had you been listening toher?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And I've never been a fan ofLorde.
I don't know.
I'm not against Lorde.
I'm not saying– I don't care.
I just don't fucking care.
That's not my–
Right.
It just wasn't in yourworld.

– No, no.
But then–

Lo Carmen (33:13):
But suddenly there you were in a relationship with
t Lorde.

And she was– Lorde was

Lo Carmen (33:17):
– And how was that?

It was really good.
Lorde was really nice.
She was beautiful.
I just thought, wow.

Lo Carmen (33:23):
She is really nice.
I've seen interviews.

Okay.
But then the rest of the day–I've never seen interviews with
her.
Anyway, for the rest of theday, it was hilarious.
I was talking to the girls inTFS, just having a laugh, just
going, I've literally, todayI've literally got a crush on
Lorde and I don't know anythingabout her apart from the
pictures I've seen on theinternet occasionally.

Lo Carmen (33:46):
That is a very weird thing when you have a...
dream like that and suddenlyyou see people
in a whole new light.
But then, I mean, getting backto the point is like...
Yeah, let's get back to death.

Well, back to songwriting, I think when I do
good stuff and I don't always dogood stuff, like anybody, like
half of it's crap, half of it's,you know, good, I guess, or
something, like...
The good stuff, the mechanicsof it seems to work.
It seems to work shit out likea dream works shit out.

(34:29):
It doesn't come up with ananswer and it doesn't, you know,
kind of have a punchline maybe,but it just somehow it almost
sweats it out.
It sweats out that thing, youknow.

Lo Carmen (34:46):
Gives you a perspective.

Yeah, but not an answer, not an answer, just a
perspective.

Lo Carmen (34:53):
No, just a new way of seeing.
I mean, I feel like asmusicians we end up knowing a
lot of people that die tooyoung.
And I don't know, sometimes Isee some of those people in
dreams and it's– It's reallynice.

(35:15):
It's like this really sweet,pure little visit.
Just a moment of, I didn't knowyou were here.
I thought you were dead.

Yeah, yeah.

Lo Carmen (35:25):
Oh, no, I just popped down.

Yeah.

Lo Carmen (35:28):
Yeah, great.
Yeah.
That kind

of thing.
Oh, man, yeah.
It's

Lo Carmen (35:32):
really weird.

I get that with my mum.
I get it with my mum.
I get it with friends.
I get it with, yeah, I get tosee them.
Yeah.
And it's, I mean, there's that,so back to
Einstürzende Neubauten, they,There's a beautiful song, and
the chorus sums it up.
There's a place around thecorner where your dead friends

(35:54):
live.
I mean, that's a beautiful songabout that.
That's a great one.
You bump into them every nowand again, you know.

Lo Carmen (36:06):
Personally, I feel like the older I get, You know,
the list of people that I knowthat are dead and that are alive
is kind of getting a little bitmurkier in terms of how many
are on which side.
And it almost doesn't matter.

Yeah.

Lo Carmen (36:26):
Like my relationship to them doesn't change.
Yeah.
whether they're dead or whetherthey're alive, I still feel
exactly the same.
I just maybe miss them a littlebit more because I know that it
won't be next year or in twoyears that I see them.
It'll be, you know, in someother realm if I ever do see

(36:46):
them again.

Yeah, if that works out,

Lo Carmen (36:49):
If that stuff happens or if we just turn into dust
and disappear.

Well, it's hard.
I mean, obviously it's hard toknow.
I mean, I remember, you know, Iwas...
I was holding my mum's handwhen she died and I just
remember thinking, yeah, I wouldhave been 25 or 26.

Lo Carmen (37:09):
How was that?

Well, it was wild

Lo Carmen (37:17):
Was it just the two of you or was it all your
family?

Me and my sister and my mum's sister,
Anna, yeah.
And, yeah, it was wild.
But I just remember thinking,all right, like, you know, I'm
not going to live forever.
So fuck it.

(37:41):
I'll see you next time or Iwon't see you.
All I've got to do is this nextblink of an eye, which amounts
to a human life, and I'll bedoing what you're doing and
that'll be

Lo Carmen (37:56):
Yeah.

Yeah.

Lo Carmen (37:58):
Was it nice to be with her?

Yeah, it was.
And it was profound becausethat was the person that brought
me into the world.

Lo Carmen (38:12):
Yeah, how amazing.
Into the universe.
To see her out.
Do you think that was reallycomforting for her to have you
there?

I think so.
Yeah, yeah, I think so.
Yeah, it would have been, yeah.
And, yeah, it would have been.
But, yeah, it's a wild thing.
Existence is a wild thing.

Lo Carmen (38:35):
Yeah, that's a...

It was a profound, I would say, profound
experience.
And it was crazy because itwas, you could say, was it sad?
I don't know if you've beenthere when someone dies, but...
You kind of, especially someoneyou love.

Lo Carmen (38:52):
I haven't actually been there at the moment that
somebody died.

Well, you kind of, you feel everything all at
once.
It's a pretty wild experience.
You feel, you don't just feelsad.
I mean, you obviously feelthat.
You feel completelytraumatised.
But you also feel everythingelse simultaneously.
And you kind of get what it isto be a part of the universe and

(39:17):
you kind of get a littleinsight into the mechanics of it
all.
It's beautiful in a majesticway, but it's unbearably painful
too.

Lo Carmen (39:35):
Yeah.
Every single one of us is goingto deal with some incredibly
profound death.
And yet none of us...

Not Jeff Bezos.

Lo Carmen (39:49):
Why is he not dealing with it?
Because he'll be in space orhe'll be on the internet or
something?

He's going to upload his bald head to the
internet, I

Lo Carmen (40:03):
think.
Has he got some really crazy...

I don't know.
Well, they're all trying to beimmortal.
They're all trying to befucking immortal.
But imagine being immortal.
Can you imagine that?
You know, the one thing worsethan death?
is being immortal.

Lo Carmen (40:19):
Haven't you seen Interview with a Vampire?
You know what it's liketo be immortal!
Yeah, but they are like, youknow, 2,000 years old, which is
nothing.
Imagine being 2,000 millionbillion 400 gazillion bazillion
gazillion gazillion squared byitself gazillion, bazillion,

(40:39):
bazillion, bazillion years old.
You know, that's what a mortalis.
But they would be fuckingunbearable.
Yes, good point, Gareth, very good point.

You would be going to every gun shop in town.

Lo Carmen (40:51):
Yeah, right,

right.
You would be scoring smack offevery cunt in town.
You'd be putting lead in yourhead, heroin in your vein.
You would just be like, fuckingkill me, jumping in front of
every cunt.

Lo Carmen (41:03):
No, actually be over that by then and you'd just be
lying there enjoying thesunshine, enjoying the rain and
trying to sleep every now andthen.

Oh, I don't know.
There's a great, do you knowBorges?
He's an Argentinian writer.
Luis Jorge Borges, he wrote agreat song called The Immortals.
Not a song, a short story.

Lo Carmen (41:25):
No, tell me.

He only writes short stories and they're
mind-boggling.

Lo Carmen (41:29):
Are they contemporary or from some other period in
time?

20th century, mid-20th century, and he wrote,
yeah, a great thing called TheImmortals, which pretty much
sums up what you would be likeif you could indeed prolong your
life for millennia, you know,let alone what's millennia,

(41:53):
thousands, what's a million,like for millions of years or
forever, like fuck that.
Yeah, so.

Lo Carmen (42:00):
Thousandia.
Yeah.

Thousandia, yeah.
But coming back to the thing, Ithink, you know, like I've
always really got into heavyshit like flamenco.

Lo Carmen (42:15):
Yeah.
I used to study flamenco when Iwas a teenager.
That's dark stuff.

It's dark as fuck.
But it's, you know, it's likeJim Morrison said.
People give Jim Morrison heapsof shit and I don't think.
I don't think he's a great poetby any stretch.
But, I mean, as far as justbeing a singer in a band, he had
his shit screwed down.
He was good.
And like what he said, it'sjust sex and death.

(42:43):
And he was probably justparaphrasing someone else.
It's sex and death.
Music is fuelled by sex anddeath.
And then, you know, the pepperin the sauce is things like, you
know, booze, amphetamines orheroin or LSD.
But the main thing is sex anddeath.

(43:05):
There's, you know, you are,your life force is your fear of
death.
You want to live, you want toparty, you know, and that's
because we're here for a shorttime.
What is it?
We're here for a good time, nota long time.
And then fucking...

(43:27):
And as well, you know, for aboy, I don't know what it's like
for a girl like you, but thereis definitely an element of– and
it's not something you do allthe time, but the peacock thing
definitely comes into it.
There are definitely times whenI am– What do you mean?

(43:50):
Well, I could be trying toimpress Fi or I could be trying
to impress, you know, likebefore I was– going out with Fi,
you would be trying to impressgirls, but not necessarily in
the way that you would readabout in the old-school Rolling

(44:11):
Stone magazine or you would readabout on Twitter now.
There is an artistic thing,which I think really comes out
in flamenco, where the peacockelement...
And the girls in flamenco do ittoo, where they strut their
stuff.

Lo Carmen (44:28):
Literally, yeah.
Like the chest puffs upandit's very...

i v So sex and death.
So they're doing that very,very sexy, attractive thing over
music which is really fuckingmorbid, which is all death
music.
it's all just so that's it imean you can't have art without

(44:52):
death you can't haveit.

Lo Carmen (44:53):
N o you can't, I mean it's it's what you've just said
is so perfect in terms of youknow the line of what actually
matters in life really does comedown to that but then in
between why do we make ah, whydo we paint, write songs?

Well, yeah, sure.
Like, yeah, okay, yeah, sculpt.
Yeah, I mean, there's all sortsof art forms.

Lo Carmen (45:22):
We try and make sense of stuff through things that
you can't define or you can'texplain.
And I don't know, maybe that'swhat art is.
It's trying to make sense ofthe unexplainable and maybe
that's...
Why songs that we write or thatwe listen to that make sense of

(45:49):
a world that we can't be in ora world that our loved ones have
gone to, that there's some kindof...

We do it because we can conceive of it.
You know that joke, why does adog lick its balls?
Because it can.
There you go.

Lo Carmen (46:11):
Good point.
Thanks, Gaz.

It's pretty basic.
That's exactly right.

Lo Carmen (46:17):
Yeah, it's pretty basic.
It is pretty basic, isn't Weneed to make sense of stuff.

We can conceive.
We have the faculties to do it.
So we do.
And then we can't quite do it.

Lo Carmen (46:26):
In this kind of exploration that I've had, I've
read a lot of stuff aboutfuneral songs and eulogies and
whatnot.
And I will admit, I'm a...
awful judgmental bitch and alot of those things that I've
read I've gone oh my god reallylike imagine if you died and

(46:49):
somebody played that um which isterrible and you know because
we're all different and there'sdifferent songs for everybody
and who who are we to judge whatsong sums you up or whatever
but it I don't know it just kindof fascinates me that there's

(47:17):
some things that justencapsulate perfectly how we
feel or what needs to be saidand there's not enough of them

I mean yeah yeah and there's so many ways to
frame that ... so like I got agood idea, t say like The people
I hang out with, say you guysup in Sydney or all the crew
down here in Melbourne, all mycrew in West Australia, old

(47:49):
friends, friends I know fromtouring all over the world, a
good song would be at a funeralfor me would be Stairway to
Heaven because it's apt that I'mclimbing a stairway to heaven.
But they would all just pisstheir pants.
It would just be the stupidest.

Lo Carmen (48:09):
I was going to say, is there an element of humour
there, right?

Well, yeah.
Everyone would just go, youknow what I mean, you could
punish your friends.

Lo Carmen (48:16):
But for a lot of people there wouldn't be an
element of humour to that.

Yeah, but for me there would be.

Lo Carmen (48:21):
You know, like you're a cynical bastard.
I would think it was hilarioustoo and I would love that at
your funeral.
If somebody were to playStairway to Heaven.
I think that's a good idea.

I think, yeah, it would be reallyfunny

Music (48:35):
LAUGHTER

Tell Fi.
You can tell Fi when I die o

Lo Carmen (48:38):
Do you think she's got a list?

No, she's...
No, when we make up funny bandnames, whenever we make up a
funny band name or a funny songtitle or, you know, an idea like
a good funeral song, we alwaysfail to write it down and then
we can never fucking rememberwhat it is.
We're like, oh, yeah, we'llremember that.
We'll remember that.

(49:02):
It's like, no, you won't.

Lo Carmen (49:05):
I know.
No, you never remember thegoodstuff.

.
All through like the 2000s, youknow, when the Drones were
coming up, like me and Fi, weeither worked in this little
cafe, lunch bar that basicallyserved human services in
Melbourne.
So we either had all thesesortof...

Lo Carmen (49:28):
o What do you mean?
What are human services?

Well, it's like, you know, looking after
homeless people or people withchronic medical conditions,
people who were in need.
We were feeding all thesepeople.
They're all burned out,underpaid, burned out.
And then as well, the humanservices would pay like a
stipend or something like thissort of income to this little

(49:52):
lunch bar to feed homelesspeople.
And it was homeless people whohad really serious mental
problems like cancer not justsort of depressives, but people
who were really bent out ofshape by, you know, I'm not even

(50:13):
talking genetics.

Lo Carmen (50:14):
Life had dealt them.

Yeah, at an early stage.
And so we would, you know, Ispent almost a decade washing
dishes with just some of themost hilariously fucked up crazy
people.
standing next to me justtalking at me like like um you

(50:37):
know and they would uh like onewoman she had pet iron bars that
was her thing she would wearlike a karate outfit

Lo Carmen (50:47):
iron bars

yeah she would keep pet iron bars or like
spikes about 16 inches long shewould keep them they'll call her
pointies She was completely,I'm talking about, I mean, I
didn't even know how I woulddiagnose her.
Like I'm not an expert in that,but she was off the planet.
Like she wasn't, she was, shewas insane, I guess.
But, um, and then you would,yeah, she would, you would, you

(51:12):
would give her five bucks.
She loved VB was the best thingin the world.
Newcastle where they make, youknow, steel, steel city was her
idea of, of heaven, but shenever got to go there.

Lo Carmen (51:25):
Yeah.
Like the log lady in TwinPeaks.

P Yeah, there you go, yeah.
People like that.
And these people would come andgo.
A lot of them would be aroundthe whole time.
A lot of them would die.
And then after that job, wewound up having to work in this
fucking hospital.
The dole made us work in thishospital.
And so just cunts dying left,right and centre.

Lo Carmen (51:51):
What do youmean?

Well, we'd have to fucking rent TVs to them.
Have I not told you about thisbefore?
It's the most fucked up.

Lo Carmen (51:58):
No. Tell me.

We'd have to.
It was like the Liberalgovernment, when they pulled all
the TVs out of the publichospitals and then this company
came in that worked in New SouthWales called Hospital
Television Rentals, made it soyou had to pay.
And so you'd walk in.
I'd have a trolley with alaptop and Fiona did the same

(52:19):
shit.
Walk in.
All the wards, so there's AIDSwards, tuberculosis wards with
all of the vacuum sealed rooms,trauma wards, IC wards, fucking
like, you name it, the burnswards.
You go in and someone who'sjust had their fucking nose

(52:44):
burned off would be sittingthere watching TV and you'd go
in and knock on the door and go,hi.
I can see you watching the TV.
You've got to pay for that orI've got to turn it off.
And they were like, what thefuck?
Yeah, and it was like sevenbucks a day for just free-to-air

(53:05):
shit and then you'd have to payfor Foxtel on top.
So we would do that.
Oh, my God.
Oh, it was the worst.

Lo Carmen (53:14):
That's a really shit job.
Yeah.
But, gee, I bet it taught you alot about humanity.

It did.
It taught me a lot aboutnurses.
and how cool they are.
Although my step-mom was atrauma nurse, so I was kind of
ready for it in that sense, butthen it was more just the war of
attrition that nurses just livethrough day by day, let alone

(53:41):
with fucking COVID.

Lo Carmen (53:42):
Yeah, they reallydo.

d Well, we had to do this shit and just extort
people for money because of theLiberal government.
And if anyone out there is a...
fucking a member of the UnitedStates of America liberal means
right wing in Australia likethey were cunts like it was

(54:04):
fucked but the computers wereold we had these laptops we'd
wheel around on a trolley thathad all the you know you have
like a fucking a receipt machinean FPOS machine kind of thing
but you know learned how to

Lo Carmen (54:22):
did you ever come across people that didn't have
the money to pay

yeah well that's what i'm sort of saying i
won't say in clear terms butyou could get around if you
could learn a bit of coding youcould uh rig the system
otherwise you just go home andkill yourself like so i learned
how to do that because there wasnothing in it for me to make
more people pay for tv but thenyou know you'd go into some
rooms there was a where somepeople would put their money in

(54:50):
this little envelope you gavethem and they would put it next
to themselves on the bedsidetable and if they were asleep
when I came around and did myrounds, if they owed me money, I
could go in there and the moneywould be on the bedside table
and I could just take the money,right?

(55:11):
They'd left it there for me.
But the caveat to that is thatyou can't just take the fucking
money.
You have to wake them up andsay, hi.
I'm

Lo Carmen (55:21):
taking your money.

I'm just going to grab the money.
Don't want to disturb you.
See it.
But often.
Oh, my God.
Couldn't wake the fuckers up,you know.
And then a nurse would come inand just go, what the fuck are
you doing?
They're dead.
Like, it's just like, oh.
And then you take the moneyanyway.

Lo Carmen (55:39):
What?

Yeah, like, well, it's not coming out of my
pocket.
They would make me pay for it.
Yeah.

Lo Carmen (55:46):
Oh, like they were dead and you were trying to wake
them up.

Yeah, they were dead.
And then like because, youknow, people just die.
But you couldn't tell.

Lo Carmen (55:55):
It wasn't obvious.
They were dead.

Well, they look sick anyway.
They look sick.
Can I just say like someone ina heart ward who has like a
heart thing where it just, youknow, the aortas shred, they're
looking pretty bad while they'realive.
You could be talking to themand it's not like this job was–
bang, bang, bang, high pressurein a kind of velocity sense.

(56:20):
Like I could walk around andtalk shit to people.
So one day I was talking to afucking teenager man.
He was like 16 and we weretalking about music.
And the next day they justwheeled him out past me with a
sheet over his head and allthat.
I was like, who's that?
And they're like, oh, that's– Iwa s like, Jesus, that's

(56:41):
fuck...
And like, yeah, so like I sawso many people die.
Anyway, and then after this,back to all my mates, because we
had a huge share house, andthey'd all either had been
working or not working, andthey're like, how was your day?
And it's like, oh, yeah, good.
So it's just, you know, itsjust endless.

Lo Carmen (57:01):
So in that time, did you ever write songs to
kind of process that ?

Ah, heaps.
Yeah, heaps.
There's a song about that onthat solo record I did, that
Strange Tourist album.
The song Strange Touristmentionsit.

Lo Carmen (57:14):
Yeah.

Yeah, like yeah, it was just, it was fucked
up.
It was really fucked up.
And that was the last job Iever had.

Music (57:25):
working in a hospital renting TVs to the bored and the
blind it seems the DSS got sickof my BS and had my
unemployment privatized theymade a date with me in some
agency I went down there like afool in love they made a few
phone calls and I real cure alllike I was from miserable and

(57:48):
numb yeah I was working nightshift when he got there the
first time I'd seen a coma onthe ward well the

So what songs have you got
that don't have death in them?
I've got over 100 songs.
I don't know.

Lo Carmen (58:14):
What have you got? Anything?

I can't even remember my songs before agig.

Lo Carmen (58:19):
It's a lot, isn't it?

But it's not, I mean...
The songs I write about death,I would not.

Lo Carmen (58:27):
I'm not saying you're a maudlin guy.
I don't think you're a maudlinin any way.
I've got a lot of songs withdeath stuff in there and I'm not
maudlin.
I'm fun.
I'm very fun!

Well, I do believe that the people who
enter the most morbid shit arethe most fun people.
You know, you talk about theDirty Three, one of the heaviest
bands of all time.
Yeah.
They're fun dudes.

Music (58:54):
Some of them jump like flies.

Yeah.
Sue's Last Ride.
They're some of the funniestdudes out there.

Lo Carmen (59:01):
Absolutely.

You know, back to the Neubauten guys, we've
played gigs with them and hungout with them a lot, and they're
fucking hilarious.
Like they're the heaviest thingyou've ever fucking seen.

Lo Carmen (59:16):
When you hung out with them, did you tell them how
you learnt about them?

Music (59:22):
No.

I can't remember the first time we met
Blixa.
It was weird.
Me and Fi went into a Japaneserestaurant and he was there.
And as we were walking down thestairs into this restaurant, he
looked up at us and we lookedat him and we met a million

(59:44):
famous people or whatever.
And then he just came over toour table and said, Either I
know you or you know me.
And we went, oh, yeah.
And then we were– that was it.
We were off and racing.
And then it was– it turned intothis weird thing where Fi and
Blixa instantly ganged up andteased me.

(01:00:07):
That was the dynamic of theevening.
And then we've had–

Lo Carmen (01:00:13):
He's very funny.

Gareth Liddiard (01:00:14):
He's really funny.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah, yeah.

Lo Carmen (01:00:18):
And very droll.

Oh, droll as.
Oh, yeah.
But he knows Australians too.
So he's a German that's hungout with heaps of Australians.
So generally

Lo Carmen (01:00:29):
He knows how to work Australians.

Yes.
And understand.
So I can still just be myaccent's quite thick and
sometimes I change it forpeople.
I change it for some likeAmericans or some Europeans that
I meet.

Lo Carmen (01:00:46):
What do you change it to?

I kind of just more of the Queen's English.
I will talk a little bit more.
I would probably talk a bitmore like this.
But what was the question?
Like the Neubauten guys, theDirty Three guys, they're all
the funniest dudes, like theJesus Lizard guys, the guys from
Suicide, the guys that we'vemet all these people and played

(01:01:10):
with them and they're thefunniest people.

Lo Carmen (01:01:15):
Or the music that you love.
Do you feel like the songs thatyou love face up to death?
I mean, I feel like mostpopular music does not really
deal with death at all.
But I feel like a lot ofalternative music, for want of a

(01:01:39):
better word, does address it.

Yeah.
Yeah, the deepest stuff.
Like, yeah, I think, you know,say if it's really popular stuff
like Cat Power, you know,that's in there.
I mean, I'm not really up withextremely popular stuff.
Like, I mean, you know, there'sa lot of Rihanna stuff that's
in there, you know.

(01:02:07):
I think she's a real pop starthat has a lot of depth.
Like, I don't know.
There's...
I remember back in the 80s whenthere was shit like Eurythmics
and The Bangles and Pink Floydand that had that undercurrent.

(01:02:27):
You don't necessarily have tobe speaking explicitly about it,
but somehow mortality isfactored into it and it becomes
the engine of the yearning ofthe song to a degree.
I mean, say Unrequited Love.
If you could live forever,well, you wouldn't care, would

(01:02:50):
you?
There'd be more fish in theocean, and the ocean would be
endless.
So in the best stuff, there'salways some sort of recognition.
But what is popular, I don'tknow.
These days, pop music is just,I don't know.

(01:03:12):
Sometimes it's good, sometimesit's shit.
I think when it's good, whenit's got soul, when it's got
soul, the soul seems to somehowacknowledge that we're not going
to be around forever and ifit's a love song, yeah, the
yearning is come on, time isticking, you know, let's get it

(01:03:35):
together.

Lo Carmen (01:03:37):
Sometimes I've written a song about somebody
that's dead Just in kind ofthinking about them, just in
wanting to sum up who they wereand what their existence was
worth or without wanting to beheavy handed or morbid or
anything like that.
Just kind of wanting to tell astory about somebody, like you
were this person and thishappened and this weird thing

(01:04:01):
was happening.
call and I want to sing aboutit.
Honestly, it's not driven bywanting to sing about it.
It's just the words kind ofwrite themselves and then that's
what you do with the words.
You sing about them.

And to the casual observer, someone who's
not into the nuts and bolts ofsongwriting, they might think
what you've just said is morbid,but then they would do the same
thing when they're justthinking about summer holidays
and in high school or not evenjust thinking about time's gone.
I mean, you don't have tonecessarily think about someone

(01:04:40):
being dead, just that time haspassed.
That in itself is anacknowledgement of, you know,
reminiscing is anacknowledgement that we're not
going to be around forever, youknow.
And if we were around forever,yeah, I don't think we would or
we certainly wouldn't generatethe art.
that we do, and it's age old,that sort of art, whether it's

(01:05:05):
Homer or fucking Handel or, youknow, I don't know, fucking
Mozart, fucking Miles Davis, youknow, anything in between, like
it's all, there's some longingand longing for something that's
gone, knowing that, whoa,sooner or later, It's really

(01:05:29):
going to be gone.
And the horrible joke.
I mean, my thing is, like, thething that kills me is just,
okay, if what I suspect is trueand we do die the way I think we
die, where we're justannihilated, turn to dust, we go

(01:05:51):
back to the universe inmolecules the same way we came
together in molecules, you know,like...
You're not going to rememberany of this anyway.
So none of this is real.
You're not going to be– whenyou're dead, you won't remember
living.
So none of this existed.
It's weird.

(01:06:12):
I remember when Cherie died,like, you know, that was weird.
I went and picked up the carshe died in, went back to our
house, went into the room.

Lo Carmen (01:06:25):
What do you mean, she died in a car?

She died in my car, yeah.
She died of heroin overdose inmy car.
And then, you know, her clotheswere on the floor.
They smelled like her.
Her pillow smelled like her.
Yet she had ceased to exist asI knew it.

Lo Carmen (01:06:45):
Right, so all of her things still
existed but she didn't.

Yeah, they were there, man.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I mean, can you imagine, like,that's it.
It's gone.
Bang.
She's gone back to theuniverse.
Like Yoko Ono says, we're madeof stars when we are.
We are born of our neareststar.

(01:07:12):
All those chemical reactionsand all that shit that comes out
of it makes us.
You go back to just being thesecomponent parts rather than...
The full thing, which could beyou, me, yeah.
So, I mean, it's alwayslurking.

Music (01:07:31):
You're the old sneakers on the floor The coat by the
front door The ashtray by themilk crate in the yard And
you're the dead phone in thehall All the blanks in my recall
The old toilet van I sold forparts You were the house that
they tore down It's now a vacantblock of land The ache I try to

(01:07:53):
shake when I drive by Andyou're the dog ear in the book I
didn't even know you looked atAnd then other times you're
furthest from my mind Then I getsomething in the post And there
is your legal ghost And it justgoes to show you know You're
kinda hard to leave behind Man,I don't want to go out no more

(01:08:14):
Just a thought makes me recoilGot a feeling when I want to
guess Come banging on your doorThey're either too smart or too
dumb They're too weak or they'retoo strong You said I'd be your

Lo Carmen (01:08:25):
Did you feel like she knew what was doing?

I think so, yeah, I do.
I do, I do.
Yeah, because her dad was inthe Vietnam War, so he...
I mean, he definitely knew whatwas going on.
So I think that by osmosis sortof went into her.
Yeah, she was very real, youknow.

(01:09:10):
But, yeah, so, I mean, that–but if you are– I hate that word
creative, but if you aresomeone who likes or is
compelled to create things ifyou are you know genuinely an
artist i guess like and thensomething like that happens to

(01:09:32):
you especially when you're youngit could be crippling if you
were older but at my age i wasyou know just a spring chicken i
was full of energy so all thoseemotions that should have
wrecked me didn't you know

Lo Carmen (01:09:52):
Yeah.

They were like fuel almost, but in a really
damaging way.
Yeah.
Yeah.

Lo Carmen (01:10:01):
But I feel like your songs have given a ton of solace
to people that listen to yourmusic.
Does that ever– do you realizethat?

No.

Lo Carmen (01:10:19):
I mean, you must hear it alot.

i To a degree when they...

Lo Carmen (01:10:22):
People must say that to you.

They say it, but I don't know.
It's so abstract from where Isit.
And I think even if I couldcomprehend it, I don't know what
I would do with thatinformation.
I mean, ultimately, I mean, artand everything, music, it's all

(01:10:47):
play.
You know the way animals playand they'll play fight and
they'll, you know, it'sviolence.
A couple of elephants or babylions or your dogs like play
fighting or something like that.
Like there are darker thingsthat they're kind of messing

(01:11:13):
around with.
I think art is a lot like that.
It's as heavy as it can be.

Lo Carmen (01:11:19):
Like playing with confronting stuff in a safe way.

Yeah.
I've got friends who are likesoldiers and war correspondents
and, you know, people whoactually do, you know, get into
a mud hut or a trench and getshot at and, you know, that's
different.
to what I do, you know.

(01:11:47):
But they'll be like, wow, love,this song is really moving.
And I'll be just like, wow, theTaliban was shooting at you the
other day.
Like it's play.
It's not– I just go, wow, Idon't know why that would help
you in that situation.
But then I've got a great videoof like an Afghan National Army
guy strumming away to aTropical Fuck Song song.

(01:12:12):
in an arm and hum V on hisKalashnikov, on his AK-47.
I can't remember which song itis, but he's going, and the
gun's half out the window, buthe's using the gun like a
guitar.
This is some fucking Afghaniguy I've met.
So it seems to have a lot ofpower, but for me it's play, and

(01:12:36):
play fighting is a part of playas much as, you know, say, I
don't know, There's other partsof play that aren't necessarily
violence orientated, obviously,that, you know, you might be
homemaking or you might bebuilding a car or building a
crane that you could move aroundor digging a hole in a sandpit.

(01:12:56):
But the particular play I dealwith is with all grief and with
all existential shit.
But it's still play.
And if it wasn't play, itwouldn't have that sort of, even
though it's morbid, it wouldn'thave the joy of, that carries
it across, somehow makes it aforce of nature where it hits
somebody else and then moved byit.

(01:13:18):
So it's, yeah.

Lo Carmen (01:13:21):
Yeah.

It's complicated, but it's simple.

Lo Carmen (01:13:25):
Yeah.
Well, I guess like grief,right?
You just got to feel it and getthrough it and live through it.
you can find something thathelps you do that, and that's
great.
And if you can sing...
Well,

yeah, it's like play fighting, but play
fighting with grief.

Lo Carmen (01:13:45):
Oh, my God, that's perfect.
Yeah, it is.

Play fighting with grief.
Play fighting with grief.

Lo Carmen (01:13:50):
WS ow.
You summed it all up, Gareth.
Nice one!

I do my best, but, you know, look, I'm
fucking...
If I haven't figured it out bynow, I'd be a fucking idiot.

Lo Carmen (01:14:03):
I haven't even begun to figure it out.
You're like way ahead of me.

Yee-haw!

Lo Carmen (01:14:10):
Gaz mentioned songs working like dreams for him.
From what I can tell, thefunction of art, in this case
songs, whether purposefully ornot, is to stare stuff straight
in the eye and put a name to it.
Much like how dreams allow usto see or work things out that

(01:14:30):
seem unsolvable or impossible inlife, or confront the most
terrifying things that we can'tcontrol, songs, art, give us a
kind of window into exploringsometimes unexplainable or
unimaginable feelings andexperiences.
They both occupy the samenebulous state where there are

(01:14:52):
no rules or expected outcomesand where sometimes the
experience of play fighting withgrief, as Gaz so eloquently put
it, helps us build up ourmuscle and connective tissues
and carry on.
Really big thanks to GarethLiddiard for talking with me
here.
And to hear more from him,please head to

(01:15:15):
tropicalfstorm.bandcamp.com.
Our conversation was lightlyedited for clarity and time.
It was written, recorded andedited by me, your host, Lo
Carmen.
If you'd like to talk moreabout things we've discussed
today, please head tolocarmen.substack.com and we can

(01:15:41):
get into it there.
Excerpts from sound recordingsby Gareth Liddiard, The Drones
and Tropical Fuck Storm, usedwith permission.
All details are in the shownotes.
The Death Is Not The End thememusic was composed, performed
and recorded by Peter Head.
The Death Is Not The End stingis from the Bob Dylan song, also

(01:16:02):
performed and recorded by PeterHead.
The repertoire on thisrecording is licensed by
Apra Amcos.
The artwork used on the podcastwas created by Craig Waddell.
Death Is Not The End is a BlackTambourine Productions
production.
Thanks for being here with meand see you on the other It was

(01:16:26):
nice to see you and I talk toyou.

Groovy doovy.
We'll see you Love you guysheaps.
Toodles.

Lo Carmen (01:16:35):
Bye.

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