Biker the second album from Melbourne’s Exhaustion was recorded in their own studio next to a Hell’s Angels clubhouse. At no point during the recording session where they told to turn the music down. Exhaustion play one-percenter rock and roll. It’s loud, it’s tough, it can get ugly and intimidating. It's not something you really mess with.Though they may not be patched, the three musicians on Biker – vocalist/guitarist Duncan Blachford, drummer Per Bystrom and bassist Jensen Tjhung, who was recently replaced by Richard Stanley, have produced an album of bruising and punishing rock. It’s arty in places but it will still knock your block off.Stream the album and read a quick interview with Blachford below.Noisey: Was there any questionable activity near or around the clubhouse?
Duncan Blachford: Nah. When they moved in, they came around to introduce themselves. Later, they left an invite to their clubhouse opening party. As I was recording vocals around 3am, I’d hear a bike roaring into the driveway. After they shut off their engine, the surrounds were silent aside from the sound of my voice. There’s no sound-proofing there, so whatever I was doing was completely audible. It was a strange intimacy, having a biker hear my vocal sessions as I unleashed all sorts of horrors, in the middle of the night, in the middle of nowhere.Why the decision to call it 'Biker', particularly with the connotations the term has in Australia nowadays.
We threw a tonne of names around, each set more ridiculous than the last: New Folder, Repo'd Flowers, Turbo Dog, Melting Honcho Face, Car Boot Mum, Trancers, Biker Punch. I started laying out the artwork– that’s when it became Biker – I wasn’t sure it would stick. In hindsight, it’s perfect. The biker is symbolic of the outlaw, the free and the wild. That’s how I see rock n roll’s place in our cultural history, and it’s an aspect I still want from it today. Downloaded into i-Tunes the album is categorized as avant-garde but you seem to play with the more punk and hardcore bands in Melbourne.
I think of Exhaustion as a rock and roll band. After recent years spent playing only improvised music, I’m interested in cross-pollination between the avant and other scenes though. I've enjoyed putting together line-ups with people like Marco Fusinato, Ratsak and Exhaustion on the same bill, or Tony Buck and Sean Baxter playing alongside us, Eastlink and Beaches. Events like the sadly defunct Overground which operated as part of the Melbourne International Jazz Festival some years ago – were amazing: total low-fi clatter scum like xNoBBQx collaborating with renowned saxophonist, Jim Denley; and crust punks watching free jazz titans like Peter Brötzmann and Han Bennink. Unless you’re talking about genre exercises, codification should be the enemy of avant or punk. How much improvisation and looseness comes across in your live shows?
Improvisation is central in my approach to making music. I like what Alistair Galbraith has to say, “I’m willing myself out of myself; turning off power to whole suburbs of my brain. And I find it involves a monolithic lack of ordinary awareness – which is an invitation for things kept ‘outside’ to enter”. We have songs though, so there are launching points and places we can return to – and repetitious lock-grooves underpin a lot of the free/noise. We’ve recently been bringing in other people to collaborate live – sax, electronics, live processing – I like the wildcard element. There’s been a few iterations of Exhaustion now, and different players bring different attributes to it. There’s another LP coming out soon, us in freeform mode with Ian Wadley on bass, collaborating with the legendary Dutch free jazz saxophonist, Kris Wanders. That’s the type of experience I really value and I couldn’t see it happening if we stuck to the straight and narrow. Per is one of the best drummers in Australia at the moment. The opening ‘Blunt Eyes’ shows off his style nothing flashy but just real strong and solid.
Per’s great to work with, a real solid drummer who is very creative and open to new ideas. He made a conscious decision to step away from more traditional rock moves in Exhaustion – playing with bits of metal, doing durational pieces with subtle shifts over time – and octopus-style freeform drumming at breakneck speed. He pushes himself hard and is very involved with the creative process. Biker and Exhaustion are the sum of its parts, and better for it. The rhythm and vocals that are almost like howls on “Silver Fog” have a real interesting and haunting feel that suits the guitar feedback. How did you approach vocals on this?
I’d been singing something different live but when it came to recording, the vocals didn’t fit. I was forced to take a different approach. Stretching the vocals out and over the music worked far better than forcing them to fit within it.
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Duncan Blachford: Nah. When they moved in, they came around to introduce themselves. Later, they left an invite to their clubhouse opening party. As I was recording vocals around 3am, I’d hear a bike roaring into the driveway. After they shut off their engine, the surrounds were silent aside from the sound of my voice. There’s no sound-proofing there, so whatever I was doing was completely audible. It was a strange intimacy, having a biker hear my vocal sessions as I unleashed all sorts of horrors, in the middle of the night, in the middle of nowhere.Why the decision to call it 'Biker', particularly with the connotations the term has in Australia nowadays.
We threw a tonne of names around, each set more ridiculous than the last: New Folder, Repo'd Flowers, Turbo Dog, Melting Honcho Face, Car Boot Mum, Trancers, Biker Punch. I started laying out the artwork– that’s when it became Biker – I wasn’t sure it would stick. In hindsight, it’s perfect. The biker is symbolic of the outlaw, the free and the wild. That’s how I see rock n roll’s place in our cultural history, and it’s an aspect I still want from it today. Downloaded into i-Tunes the album is categorized as avant-garde but you seem to play with the more punk and hardcore bands in Melbourne.
I think of Exhaustion as a rock and roll band. After recent years spent playing only improvised music, I’m interested in cross-pollination between the avant and other scenes though. I've enjoyed putting together line-ups with people like Marco Fusinato, Ratsak and Exhaustion on the same bill, or Tony Buck and Sean Baxter playing alongside us, Eastlink and Beaches. Events like the sadly defunct Overground which operated as part of the Melbourne International Jazz Festival some years ago – were amazing: total low-fi clatter scum like xNoBBQx collaborating with renowned saxophonist, Jim Denley; and crust punks watching free jazz titans like Peter Brötzmann and Han Bennink. Unless you’re talking about genre exercises, codification should be the enemy of avant or punk. How much improvisation and looseness comes across in your live shows?
Improvisation is central in my approach to making music. I like what Alistair Galbraith has to say, “I’m willing myself out of myself; turning off power to whole suburbs of my brain. And I find it involves a monolithic lack of ordinary awareness – which is an invitation for things kept ‘outside’ to enter”. We have songs though, so there are launching points and places we can return to – and repetitious lock-grooves underpin a lot of the free/noise. We’ve recently been bringing in other people to collaborate live – sax, electronics, live processing – I like the wildcard element. There’s been a few iterations of Exhaustion now, and different players bring different attributes to it. There’s another LP coming out soon, us in freeform mode with Ian Wadley on bass, collaborating with the legendary Dutch free jazz saxophonist, Kris Wanders. That’s the type of experience I really value and I couldn’t see it happening if we stuck to the straight and narrow. Per is one of the best drummers in Australia at the moment. The opening ‘Blunt Eyes’ shows off his style nothing flashy but just real strong and solid.
Per’s great to work with, a real solid drummer who is very creative and open to new ideas. He made a conscious decision to step away from more traditional rock moves in Exhaustion – playing with bits of metal, doing durational pieces with subtle shifts over time – and octopus-style freeform drumming at breakneck speed. He pushes himself hard and is very involved with the creative process. Biker and Exhaustion are the sum of its parts, and better for it. The rhythm and vocals that are almost like howls on “Silver Fog” have a real interesting and haunting feel that suits the guitar feedback. How did you approach vocals on this?
I’d been singing something different live but when it came to recording, the vocals didn’t fit. I was forced to take a different approach. Stretching the vocals out and over the music worked far better than forcing them to fit within it.
"Biker" is available November 11 through Aarght. Exhaustion launch the album in Melbourne on November 29 at the Tote with ZOND and Dribble.