HERE COMES THE FEAR AGAIN
by Scott McLennan
Critical acclaim doesn’t pay the rent or put food on the table. Prior to 2007’s third album Cruel Guards, Western Australian act The Panics had enjoyed five years of glowing reviews, alternative radio play and street press coverage, yet none of these facets had translated to strong commercial sales. Guitarist Drew Wootton admits with acrid precision that Cruel Guards was a last ditch attempt to convince their homeland The Panics had multiple musical riches to offer.
“If Cruel Guards hadn’t worked here, we would have just fucked off from Australia completely,” Drew states firmly. “We want to make music and we don’t think it is shit, so if Australia didn’t get it we would have gone somewhere else. That was the gameplan. If no one got it then, ‘Sayonara – hopefully you’ll get us in a few years!’. Thankfully it’s worked well and we’ve had a great response, so that’s lucky. We never wanted to feel estranged from our home as we’re Aussies and love it here.”
Despite winning The J Award for the majestic Cruel Guards and earning a top 10 placing in the Triple J Hottest 100 for lead single Don’t Fight It, lesser Australian artists and their flimsy rock songs remain on higher rotation on commercial radio.
“There’s a machine behind all the music you hear on the radio, so that’s another side of the business that we’re thankfully not involved in. That’s a whole different side of music that we’d rather not have any fucking part of. We want to be in this for a while and not be overnight success stories who are forgotten a week later. I think it’s been good that it’s been a slow process of people getting to know us over a period of time, since you get a dialogue going between people and they feel like they’ve grown with you.”
The excited response to Cruel Guards has extended to the US, with Kings Of Leon drummer Nathan Followill raving about the band during the recent South By Southwest music conference in Texas.
“Nathan Followill came down to see us at the Aussie Barbecue, which was one of the main showcases at South By Southwest and went all day with free sausages and that sort of thing. We had a bit of a chat to him afterwards and he had a few drinks with us. He seems like a really nice guy and a genuine fella. I’m sure there’s many bonds formed over alcohol in Texas that week. Hopefully we’ll be able to do some shows with them – that would be fun.”
Although Cruel Guards only clocks in at 10 tracks long, Drew suggests that very little extra material from the sessions remains unreleased.
“We left two songs off, since we felt they didn’t stand up compared to the others and they didn’t carry the record in the way that we wanted them to. They might appear as B-sides, on the next album or might just be forgotten, but we’re not one of these bands that writes 50 fucking songs and then culls them down – we make sure that every fucking one gets 100%.”
But your debut album, A House On A Street In A Town I’m From, had a bit of experimentalism left in tact though?
“Absolutely, but I think on this record in particular we took them and elaborated on them to make them songs rather than just keeping them as weird little bits. We wanted to make a record that had weird bits that were contained within songs.
“Certain songs such as Don’t Fight It and Get Us Home have pretty much stayed the same the whole time. They started off with all the string samples, so there’s not even any real acoustic dry version of those songs. We created a soundscape and then Jae [Laffer, vocalist] made words that fit around it. Not every song starts on an acoustic guitar or a piano – they come about it in different ways and go from there.”
With the title track’s mysterious suggestion of the ‘cruel guards’ appearing when events take a turn for the worse, the lyrics of Cruel Guards seem ominous when dissected. While hesitant to offer details, Drew admits that the basis of the song is particularly dark.
“Jae took a lot of those lyrics from a certain drug he was taking at the time, so they do come from a strange, dark, detached place and I can’t elaborate on it too much since I didn’t write them and I didn’t feel those things, but I know that’s where he got most of those lyrics. The feeling from that song came from the side effects of taking a particular prescription drug. You’d have to talk to Jae about the lyrics – he lets me in on bits but it’s mainly a puzzle in his head.”
The sweeping strings and atmospheric layers of Cruel Guards make it ripe for an orchestral overhaul, so will the promotion of the album potentially culminate in a special event featuring The Panics with strings?
“Absolutely,” Drew confirms. “The WA Symphony Orchestra has been one that has been talked about, since we’re from there and would love to do it over that side of the country. Hopefully that happens this year. We’d like to do it like the Hilltop Hoods and release a live one. It would be great to do it over in WA since a lot of the songs and sounds have been inspired by where we’re from. I’m a massive fan of the Portishead live disc they did with a full orchestra and I think that sounds fucking amazing.
“We’d love it to happen – it would be mint.”
The Panics play the Governor Hindmarsh on Sun May 18 with Whitley. Cruel Guards is out now through UMA.