Greenthief

Frontman Julian Schweitzer feels a strong sense of relief that the album is finally done, dusted and out there in the world, as it has been quite a long and arduous process to make it this far. But he is ultimately satisfied with the final results of their toils.

“Like any record, this one has a story to it – a big process, a scattered process,” he says. “But all in all, I’m really stoked with it. It is what it is, and I think it’s marked an honest place and time for us, of what it represents and where we’re at. I couldn’t be happier.

“We started tracking it maybe a year and a half ago. We did all these takes, and during that process we had a newish drummer, and I think we went in a bit early,” Schweitzer says. “We listened back when it was getting mixed and it just wasn’t gelling as well as we’d hoped. So we just deleted the whole thing and started again from scratch.”

After much reworking and rethinking, the album worked out better the second time around. “In the second batch of things, most of the songs changed. It turned out to be a bit of a different record. Which is cool, and I think it came out stronger as a result of the restart. But it was definitely one of those processes where by the time we’d got there, we were definitely ready to get it out there.”

Not only did Greenthief record a bunch of stuff, scratch those entire sessions and start again, the finished product ended up being recorded all over the place, with a number of different people working on it.

“We used lots of different studios, different people mixing it, recording it,” says Schweitzer. “One of the tracks was recorded in Brisbane, as a single, a year ago. We did two of the tracks with a producer by the name of Steve Schram – we had the two singles leading up to the release of the album dropping – and the rest of it was recorded in another studio.

“And then there was lots of different people mixing it – I mixed one of the tracks, other people mixed tracks, I think about four different people mixed the record!” he laughs.

Ultimately, Schweitzer feels that such a long and disparate process gave Tremors its best qualities. “There was a lot of faith in the mastering that it would kind of glue the whole thing together, and I think it did, but I think it’s a scattered record, and not necessarily in a bad way. It just comes back to what I originally said – it just marks a moment in time for what it is. It’s a bit of a scattered record, and that’s cool. I’m not embarrassed or ashamed to say that.”

Despite the diffuse nature of the album’s recording and mixing, the reaction to its content and its inherent diversity has been extremely positive. “Critics have seen that there’s a lot of variety on the record,” says Schweitzer. “I think someone referred to us as like being in a food court, where you can pick and choose your favourite food [laughs], but I’ve always liked records that do that. I think there’s been a lot of transition in the band, like when I moved down to Melbourne three years ago – new lineup, new people to play with – and the record reflects that.”

Greenthief have just kicked off an extensive Australian tour to launch the record, and Schweitzer is looking forward to the remainder of the dates. “It’s lots of familiar venues that we dig playing at, so [we’re] really, really pumped for this tour.”