Drowning Horse are one of those bands that defy description. You can hurl the usual adjectives and genre tags their way — doom, sludge, drone, heavy, unbearable, crushing. But words fails to capture the absolute immensity of this band; that physical sensation, that veritable onslaught of emotional heft. It always comes down to language of the disaster — the torrent of depressive feeling and the earth-shaking power of the band’s climactic moments. On Sheltering Sky, Drowning Horse expand their sonic palette of devastation, balancing powerful moments of catharsis with subtle moments of reflection, realisation and horror. Here, ahead of their upcoming national tour, guitarist Michael Larkins discusses the demanding process of Sheltering Sky’s creation.
Matthew Tomich: To start off, could you walk me through the timeline of making Sheltering Sky, from the genesis of the first song to the recording process?
Michael Larkins: Sure. The writing process was probably from the end of 2012 until midway through 2013. We recorded a pre-production demo which was like a live recording at Studio Sleepwalkers Dread, which is Ron Pollard’s [of Tangled Thoughts of Leaving] studio. We did that over a weekend at the end of December. That was mainly just so we could plan out how the songs fit together. Once we heard that, we booked in for the start of 2014 to record track by track for each instrument. That took about three months – we were just doing that over weekends which we had free when Ron had time available in the studio. There was a lot of time in between where we could reflect on what we recorded, have a listen, see if there was anything which needed re-doing. So we did have a lot of time to go over it and make sure that everything was perfect. We didn’t finish the tracking until maybe around April or May. And then, again, we started mixing, and I don’t think we finished that until around September in 2014.
MT: So what delayed it – the year between finishing mixing and releasing it?
ML: It was mainly just time. We all work, we all have other bands and other commitments. We wanted to make sure that it was going to be perfect so we spent a lot of time listening over the mixes. Over the mixing process, a lot of that was done in the studio. We’d go back and listen to that mix for a couple of weeks, get in contact with Ron via email and say, “can you try change the levels on this instrument,” or EQ that a bit differently or things like that. We’d go in maybe a couple of weeks later and go over the tracks and listen to it on the studio monitors. It was a bit hard because Ron’s studio is in North Dandalup and that’s about an hour south of Perth, so it’s a long drive. Each session took about eight hours so it really took it out of us. We didn’t want to do it all in one block or it might destroy. We usually went there for about three or four session in a row. Some of the sessions we just went down with a couple of us, other times we were all down there. We spent a long time tracking. It was a lot different to our last recording, for which I think we did all the tracking in about four days or so. With Sheltering Sky, we really wanted to spend time and make sure we get the best out of what we were going for. In Ron’s studio, he has a great setup, so we could really capture the sounds and tones of our amps. We had a lot of time to experiment with sounds and different equipment.
MT: What kind of stuff were you experimenting with equipment-wise?
ML: I suppose more just using – the same way we do live, generally – Brendan [McGrath, guitars] and I will play through two different guitar amps, but instead of double-tracking any guitars, we just mic’d up two separate amps at once and got a really full sound. You can do a lot when you’re blending different guitar tones. We just wanted to have a lot of space to breathe for our instruments and Ron’s studio could capture that. It was a good way of mixing. It sounded quite natural in comparison to how we sound live.
MT: The thing that’s always struck me about Drowning Horse’s music is the sheer monumental heft and emotional weight of what you’re doing, both on record and on stage. Is the experience of making and playing that music as painful and exhausting as it sounds?
ML: I’d say yes. The whole thing with the band is we really want to play some devastating tunes. I mean, there’s not really anything uplifting about the music. With this sort of music, you don’t want anything to be positive or sound uplifting. You want it to sound quite depressing. A lot of the time when we’re rehearsing together or playing live, I get quite lost in the music. When I’m playing, it doesn’t make you happy or anything like that when you’re playing it, but I do get a lot of fulfilment and enjoyment out of it. After a set or a rehearsal, I do feel quite – I don’t know – quite uplifted in a different way. It’s an outlet for all negative energy. From that I feel a bit more positive once we’ve gone through it. It’s not like we really don’t look forward to rehearsing or playing the songs. We all need that outlet because we’re all busy and we don’t always face those sort of emotions or feelings when they come up so it’s a good way to get those sort of feelings out with the music.
MT: You mentioned before that because of the time you had working on Sheltering Sky, you had to more reflect on it, and that to me comes across in the record. It feels a lot more meditative, like you’ve scaled back some of the more extreme elements and balanced them with passages that remind me a lot of Earth. Is that part of a dynamic move – to wind things back so those cathartic climaxes have even more power when they hit?
ML: I think it was more like a natural progression. The first album was all pretty much sludgy doom sort of stuff. Whereas with Sheltering Sky, we focused more on songwriting and structures. We still explored a lot of the heavy sort of stuff and doom stuff which we had previously, but we wanted to look further into portraying those emotions through sound. I think some of cleaner or softer parts of the album are some of the more depressing or depressive-sounding parts on the whole album. You don’t need to have heavy guitars or anything like that to sound crushing or devastating. I think some of those riffs are pretty destroying as well, just the soft parts. It was quite different to what we’d played in the past. I think you can still kind of tell it’s the same band as well. It’s just that real natural progression. It makes it a bit more interesting as well. You need to pay a bit more attention rather than just play a heavy riff or something like that.
MT: How much of the material from Sheltering Sky has been played live over the past couple of years?
ML: We started playing those songs around August 2013 when Whitehose came over [to Perth]. We’d been working on that material, as I said, since probably around the end of 2012. We had a permanent rehearsal space so we were jamming like twice a week for probably about a year. Over that time we were quite happy with the songs which we were playing. We didn’t play many live gigs between that time, I don’t think. We were just concentrating on writing. We just knew we had to put something out or we wanted to work on new material rather than just play shows which can get in the way of writing material. Out of all the songs we’ve written on Sheltering Sky, we’ve probably played maybe six of those songs. We don’t really play any of the older stuff any more. Not that I don’t like it – I still really like the older stuff, it’s just we’re pretty sick of it. We were playing a lot of live shows for a long time and played those songs to death. And with these songs, they’re a bit more interesting. We work better as a band when we play these songs. I highly doubt we’d ever go back and play a song like “Kings” or something like that, one of the songs which we wrote maybe five or six years ago. We just want to keep moving forward with the Sheltering Sky stuff and the songs just work really well live.
MT: Will you be playing each of those eight tracks at some point on this tour?
ML: I highly doubt it. With the situation with James [Wills, drums] in Melbourne, it can be hard to rehearse. Again, that’s why we don’t play very often. James has been in Melbourne for I think close to two years now. So rehearsing is quite difficult. If we do have a show, he usually comes back a week in advance and we have to rehearse four times in a row prior to a gig. I mean, we tend to record together, but it’s not the same as when you’re rehearsing every week. I’d say from the Sheltering Sky stuff, we might try doing at least half of those songs. They’re quite long songs as well – the shortest one is five minutes and the longest one is about 18 minutes. We might look at maybe three or four songs per set, but we’ll probably try and have a few different sets because I know we’re playing two launch shows. It’s not going to be much fun if you’re playing the same songs at both launches.
MT: Where does that name Sheltering Sky come from?
ML: I can’t remember [laughs].
MT: Because there’s a novel by the same name, and I know there’s also a King Crimson song that takes the name from that novel.
ML: Yeah. Brendan came up with the name based on the novel I believe. That’s where the name came from. Brendan had been reading the novel and I think and Kim and a few others had read the novel as well and they were all really on board with what was covered in the book. And I guess with Sheltering Sky as well, the theme is kind of based on isolation, both with the lyrics and the music. And I believe the book is about a similar sort of grim, isolated sort of area. So I think it all links in.
MT: Did you read The Black Captain’s review of the album that we posted on Life is Noise?
ML: Yeah. That was a phenomenal review. The Black Captain’s writing is just so above everyone else’s. That was probably one of the best reviews which Drowning Horse could ever hope to receive, and it was such a positive review but also such an honest review. There was a lot of thought which went into it. A lot of times you can read reviews and a lot of them are all the same — they all sort of focus on the same sort of points. But there was a bit about The Black Captain’s own experiences in comparison to the album as well, which was really interesting to read. I’m quite stoked with that sort of review. It’s just such a tragedy that he passed away. I don’t believe I had the chance to meet him but I’d always listen to Behind the Mirror and I know he’s been a real influential person in the heavy music scene, especially for a lot of my friends. He turned them onto a lot of different underground heavy music as well. He’s just got such a great taste in music. And for someone like him to praise Sheltering Sky and review it in such a positive way was just unreal.
MT: A couple of the things he and I talked about after I read that was the way religious belief as well as notions of space come into music – that the ritualistic aspects of doom become a form of worship in themselves, which kind of ties into what you said before about isolation being a big part of Drowning Horse’s music. Do you think you’re drawn to that extremity by being from a place like Perth that is so far away, and is so flat and geographically and topographically uninteresting? Do you think Drowning Horse’s heft and the depth of the music is a way of channeling that?
ML: It’s hard to say. There’s five different people in the band and we’re all quite different people.
MT: From your perspective then, when you’re writing your parts.
ML: I can’t really say. I actually really love living in Perth. I like the isolation. I like that it’s kind of dullsville. A lot of the people in bands move to Melbourne or something but that’s never really appealed to me. I’ve always loved living in Perth. I like how boring it can be. It sucks that there aren’t many venues. It sucks that not a lot of bands tour. I mean, Life is Noise has put on some great tours and they always come to Perth which has been a big change over the past couple of years. But previously there were never any bands which toured here. I guess the members of Drowning Horse are all in a punk/hardcore scene and there aren’t so many bands there and not so many people there. When you compare that to something like Melbourne, where there’s probably 1,000 people in that sort of scene. In Perth there might be a couple of hundred. Since there’s not a lot going on, it makes you want to play music and do something. I’m quite busy with work and other commitments as well but if I didn’t have the musical outlet, I don’t know if I’d stay in Perth either. I think it’s the perfect hub if you want to work on music. You don’t always have the same opportunities for constant performances but it gives you a lot of time to work on the music which you want to put out. That might be why there are a lot of Perth bands who are gems. A lot of people say that there’s a lot of quality bands which come out of Perth and it’s just because a lot of people in Perth put a lot more effort into their music because they have the time.
MT: Will Drowning Horse be going into hibernation again after this tour?
ML: It’s hard to say. Sometimes opportunities come up and performances do come up. We have passed up a lot of performances based on James being over east. Whenever we perform, we want to make sure we’re on top form and we play phenomenally. We don’t want to put on a poor performance. Sometimes if we get in two rehearsals and we haven’t jammed together for six months, it’s not going to be worth it because we don’t want to put on a poor performance. It comes down to if James can get time off work as well. We really like playing together and I think the time apart can be better as well. These songs have been around since when we started writing at the end of 2012 but they’re still kind of fresh to us. We look forward to rehearsing and playing more so than if we were rehearsing every week. It’s a bit of a treat when we do get together and we really appreciate the time when we can get together. I’d say we probably will go on a slight hiatus but who knows. James could come back. It probably comes down to what everyone’s doing. We’re definitely not going to end the band just after releasing Sheltering Sky, but performances will be hard to do since a key member is living in Melbourne.
Witness Drowning Horse on their Australian tour on the following dates:
October 30 – The Rosemount, Perth
w/ Space Bong, Craig McElhinney and Alzabo
October 31 – Mojos, Fremantle
w/ Space Bong, Foxes and Self Harm
November 5 – Crowbar, Brisbane
w/ Carnal Urge, Ripped Off, Frown and Idylls
November 6 – The Curtin, Melbourne
w/ Gentlemen, Mutton, Whitehorse and Scab Eater
November 7 – The Tote, Melbourne
w/ Space Bong, Extinct Exist, Contaminated and Tombsealer
November 8 — Newtown Social, Sydney
w/ We Lost The Sea, Thorax and Jxckxlz
Tickets are available on the door for each show.
. But only just.
