Thursday, February 22, 2007
Tamas Wells
Labels: MUSIC
Six months after the release of the quietly adored 2004 debut album ‘A Mark on
the Pane’, Tamas Wells moved to the north of Burma to work on a community health
project. Finding an acoustic guitar and a sporadic electricity supply he set
about writing new material and recording melody and guitar onto a four track
tape recorder. Returning to Melbourne several months later with two hours worth
of half finished material (accompanied by the shouts of street salesmen and the
constant din of monsoon rain) it was decided that producer Nathan Collins
(Broken Flight, Adlerseri) and mixer Marcus Barczak (Small Knives, Smallgoods)
should be enlisted to translate these ideas into album format.
The two
hours of taped sketches were trimmed to eleven songs dealing with house sitting,
opportunity fairs, telemarketing companies, book clubs and back bench
politicians. They were then recorded live over several days in various living
rooms and halls in the west of Melbourne with borrowed microphones and the
simple accompaniment of piano, tambourine, mandolin and organ. The result of
these sessions is the new album ‘A Plea en Vendredi’ to be released in March 2006.
Tamas Wells talks about recording in Burma (Mar 06)
When did you decide that you wanted to be a musician and/or songwriter? How did you start going about it?
I had piano lessons when I was in primary school and though I hated the enforced practice/exam/reading music format I eventually started loving playing the piano.
Then when I moved to Melbourne to go to uni and started playing guitar I met lots of people who were writing their own songs rather than learning covers. I found that quite inspiring and started writing songs myself - which admittedly were appalling ? but it started me on a course toward wanting to create things.
What?s the best advice you ever received about making music, and who was it from?
I read somewhere in an interview someone saying that every note in a song should be seen as being some expensive extravagance and you the writer don?t have very much money! So only buy the notes that really count!.
I like the fact that this emphasises keeping the simple things in a song and not decking it out with millions of layers which eventually make the rest of the notes sound cheap and throwaway.
Who?s an Australian musician you particularly admire? Can you tell us why?
I love the attitude that many of my friends in Melbourne have toward music. They spend months making beautiful records (eg Broken Flight - On Wings Under Waves) and then are wonderfully unconcerned about the commercial success of the absolute gems that they have made.
It is soooo easy as a musician to become too attached to your own perception of what success will mean and forget that art and creativity is an end in itself.
What would be your dream local line-up for a gig, and why:
That is a tough question. There are a number of local acts that I very much enjoy - the above mentioned Broken Flight, Jack Ladder with an orchestra, Holly Throsby, Adlerseri, Dirty Three, Benedict Moleta to name but a few of many who would be on my dream bill (which may actually have to be a festival!!).
Can you tell AMO a story behind your latest release?
A Plea en Vendredi is our latest album, most of it was written in the northern parts of Burma where I was living for six months after releasing our first album.
I remember one song that I was trying to record onto the four track recorder which I had taken with me but it was the monsoon season and the rain on the tin roof was so deafening that the song was basically lost.
I have a terrible memory for song melodies so unless they are on tape they usually disappear.
What do you want people to get out of this record when listening to it? How would you choose to describe it someone who was unfamiliar with your work?
The records that I like most are ones where they may seem understated to begin with but ultimately have the most depth on repeated listens.
I hope that our album is like that ... so if I was describing it to someone I would say that it is subtle and that I have lots of Melbourne based artists in my record collection along with international acts in an Iron and Wine, Simon and Garfunkel, Nick Drake kind of vein.
What was the biggest challenge you faced when writing & recording this release?
I had forgotten how many times you need to demo a song before you figure out the best way to present it production wise.
Many of the songs went through five or ten stages of demoing where speed, bridges, keys were all changed, meanwhile other ones just seem to work on the first go. But there is something about having to wrestle with a song that makes the final product more rewarding I guess.
What do you think is unique about the Aussie music scene as opposed to the rest of the world?
The distances between cities is something unique to Australia - there is no getting in a car and driving to the next large city an hour away (as in Europe of the US).
No here touring means getting in your car and staring at a freeway for ten or so hours playing a show and then driving home... maybe that just adds to the resilience of the Australian musician!
Lastly, what?s the best thing about being part of the Australian music industry? The worst?
The best thing about Australian music is that ninety percent of the industry people you meet seem genuinely interested in the health of the scene and want to help you in any way they can.
This is perhaps because in global terms we have such a small music industry so people want to be supportive, which also leads to the downside of Australian music - that much of our small population seems bizarrely interested in glorified karaoke competitions and the like ? which leaves an extremely small number of people who have any interest in art.
A Mark On The Pane
A Plea en Vendredi
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