Convicts, colonies, cannibals, politics and poverty – these are just a few of the weighty subjects tackled by this Australian indie rock band, and they do it deftly. You see, Liddiard takes his inspiration from writers such as Flann O’Brien, James Joyce, Louis-Ferdinand Céline and William Butler Yeats, and over the course of four studio albums, he’s positioned himself amongst some of today’s top songwriters.
The Drones’ music doesn’t fall into the drone category as their name suggests. Instead, their material is an ever-changing mix of conventional rock, noisy, atonal, blues-based music with a dash of traditional folk thrown in for good measure.
This is certainly not music to hold hands to, but hands down the Drones are one of the best bands around today. Their energy, passion and intelligence are traits to which many younger bands can only aspire.
Why I love them, and you should too...
The Drones formed in Perth, Australia in 1998, but it took four hard years before they released their first album, Here Come the Lies, in August 2002. During this period, the band relocated to Melbourne where they briefly lived out of their van before enduring an extended stay in a dodgy caravan park filled with drunks and ex-cons. This grim and squalid existence of their mid 20’s has ended up shaping the tone and subject matter of all frequent Drones albums.
In 2004, the band completed their second album, Wait Long by the River and the Bodies of Your Enemies will Float By. (This, by the way, happens to be one of my favorite album titles ever….) But the album’s release hit a snag due to some unforeseen legal problems. Thanks to the folks at the In-Fidelity record label, the album was eventually released over a year later, and 2005 saw the Drones’ luck change. Wait Long…. received critical acclaim throughout the country and ended up topping many end-of-year Top 10 lists. The highlight of the year, however, was when the Drones won the inaugural Australian Music Prize -- beating out Ben Lee, the Go-Betweens and Wolfmother.
“I’m recording, shut up!” So begins Gala Mill, the Drones third album, and that’s where the lightheartedness ends. Recorded in an old mill in Tasmania, the album both draws on and challenges the history and mythology of white Australia. It’s a harrowing yet brilliant album that captures the Drones at their fiercest and most subdued. It opens with the 8-minute epic “Jezebel” – a song named after a cow that ate nuclear fallout during Australia’s period of nuclear testing that was originally going to called something along the lines of “Death and Only Death.” It’s suffocatingly bleak, containing horrific images of radiation poisoning, war and the murder of WSJ journalist, Daniel Pearl.
There’s still no optimism to be seen by the time you reach the end of Gala Mill. The album closes with a sparse 9-minute folk song called “Sixteen Straws” that was inspired by the convict ballad, “Moreton Bay.” Over 30 verses with no chorus, Gareth Liddiard – using only vocals, acoustic guitar and harmonica – tells the sad tale of a group of convicts who overcome Catholicism’s stringent prohibition of suicide by drawing straws to decide which of them will kill another and get them all sent to the gallows. And when you see this song performed live, it’s hard not to be in awe of Liddiard as both a song-writer and a performer.
This brings us to my favorite album of 2009, and no this latest Drones release won’t make you want to run out and slit your wrists. Havilah was recorded at the Liddiard/Kitschin residence in the foothills of Mt Buffalo. With no electricity, the band had to rely on a diesel generator and managed to finish recording in only two weeks. The result is a brilliant indie rock album that is musically the Drones most accessible while continuing to showcase their lyrical prowess and unique political perspective. Highlights include “Penumbra”, a haunting song about Apollo 11 and the first moon landing, and “I am the Supercargo”, a song about cargo cults and the John Frum movement on the remote island of Tanna in the South Pacific nation of Vanuatu.
And what’s a post without a bit of random trivia? On a recent episode of the music quiz show, Rockwiz, it was revealed that Gareth Liddiard is a fan of war memorials and has been known to drag his band mates to many while on tour. What’s his favorite? Apparently the Soviet War Memorial in Berlin's Treptower Park because “it’s depressing for all the wrong reasons”…
Listen up!
Here are the Drones performing Kev Carmody's “River Of Tears” at the Cannot Buy My Soul concert in January 2008. Yes, it’s a cover, but it’s the best capture I’ve found of one of the Drone’s electric live performances.
And here is an acoustic version of "Oh My" -- one of my favs off Havilah.
Check them out!
Over the next week, the Drones will be playing a handful of dates around the US since they are over here for this weekend’s ATP Festival. At the end of September, they will then embark on another extensive tour of Europe that will take them through early December.
