It’s mid-morning on a Tuesday, and Mike Noga – balladeer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and man about town – has just woken up to a harsh realisation.
“It’s my first day of promo for this record,” he says, “and I’m going to have to spend all day talking about myself. I honestly don’t know how to prepare myself for it. Thankfully this album is full of things to talk about.” From there, the Melbourne-based musician is eased gently into the process – mostly because the line of questioning shifts to the other people involved in the making of the album.
King is the third solo record from Noga, arriving five years after its predecessor – 2011’s The Balladeer Hunter – and two years after he left the band that originally brought his name to such a high standing today, The Drones. It was made possible through a successful crowdfunding campaign, is being released in Australia by indie label Cooking Vinyl and was produced by one Paul Dempsey, the mountainous figure behind Something For Kate as well as two solo releases under his own name. “We’ve known each other for years,” says Noga of his production counterpart, who also plays guitar and a few other instruments on the record alongside him.
“I had him in mind for a while in terms of having someone to work on this record with – we work together really well, and his approach is almost the exact opposite to mine. I can be quite lazy with recording and producing, and he’s a total nerd for it all.
“The whole process of making King has taken over two years, and I was living in London in the initial stages. I clued Paul in as to what I was doing, and sent him some songs via email. He was immediately into it, and ended up having quite a lot of input into the songs themselves within their final stages. I think I need someone like him to tighten me up a bit – my songwriting can be pretty loose. The more we talked about it, the more excited we got about the concept of this record.”
The album – a dark story about an estranged couple, Jack and Mary, who are lost in a world of rough nights and paranoia – is pulled together via narration from Noah Taylor, an expat Australian actor and musician who serves as an outsider, looking in on the world of the two main characters. “About midway through making the album, I could see it taking shape,” explains Noga. “The narrative in my mind is really strong, but I knew it wouldn’t be totally clear what was going on to the listener.
“Do you remember when you were a kid and you’d get a story that you could read along with, and it was also being read to you on a record or a tape? You’d hear this ‘ding’ every time you had to turn the page. I wanted to kind of do that. I needed someone that would guide the album a little bit. I didn’t want to give everything away, of course, but I realised there needed to be some semblance of an idea there. Noah used to come to Drones gigs all the time when we were over in the UK, and he seemed like a perfect fit. The album is set in 1950s suburban Australia, and he just strikes me as having that kind of voice – like he’s a cricket commentator or something. He can also sound really menacing, too.”
As King developed, Noga would take several key tracks from the record and perform them live without their given context. Rather than being a confusing experience, Noga sees it as being a positive attribute of the songs themselves. “It says a lot that they’re able to work both ways,” he says. “They’re able to stand alone without the narrative, and that’s handy when I play solo shows. It’s going to be exciting to see how it all plays out live, though – when we do this album launch tour, we’re playing the entire record from start to finish. We’re even going to try and include the narration parts in a pre-recorded sequence.”
Using the stage as an abstract yardstick, Noga has come a long way in his time as a musician. He began up the back, behind the drum kit for bands like Legends Of Motorsport and The Drones. He moved forward as a solo artist, slinging a guitar around the space once occupied by the singers he was backing. Now, with full-band shows imminent, Noga is taking the great leap forward – he will be a fully fledged frontman, with no instruments holding him back. “It’s actually a bit terrifying,” he confesses with an incredulous laugh.
“I’m absolutely shitting myself! I just wanted to get out the front and test myself. You feel very exposed. We’ve done about ten gigs in Melbourne over the last few months, treating them as warm-up shows, and I’ve found myself enjoying it more and more as time goes on. As nerve wracking as it can be, it can also be really fun. Once you’re up there, you get into the music and you get to dancing. I absolutely love it – I’m finally right up front. I’m bringing the full band pretty much all around the country. I can’t wait.”
Mike Noga’sKing is out Friday August 26 through Cooking Vinyl; and he appears atBrighton Up Bar on Friday September 16.
