Wolfmother

It’s a question interviewers often ask, even though the answers they receive are nearly always underwhelming. Perhaps surprisingly, artists are usually quite bad at putting their own music into words. They begin with, “It’s kind of…”, then say who else it sounds like, often citing themselves, then give an approximate genre and lift some line straight from their own press release. No such issue with Wolfmother’s Andrew Stockdale. In full, then, the band’s new album Victorious is:

“Like, err…” He clears his throat and pauses. “A high nervy epic journey through a black forest in Germany on a galloping horse that saves the village from the evil bosses and plants edible gardens where people sit around picking passion fruits and recline in their tepees with their Pocahontas women.” An overdue deep breath and high-pitched giggle.

It’s a fine synopsis that also demonstrates Stockdale’s approach to writing Wolfmother’s fourth album. “I just try and get it done really quickly, have it all done, don’t overthink it,” he explains. “I think personally, the best riffs are the ones that have that reckless abandon and that out-of-body experience where you don’t feel like you’re playing it. If you work quickly, there’s a better chance of that happening, but if you labour over it, it can sound too deliberate or forced. So I try to work quickly just to capture the excitement of a good idea before it’s overdone.”

By quick, he really does mean quick – as in, all songs written in around 15 days quick.

“Just press ‘record’ and start playing!” he laughs. “I did think, ‘I should make this one sound like Wolfmother,’ you know? So I went back to my old approach of writing big riffs and doing outlandish drum fills and cymbals. The actual concept of working quickly seems to work, get that momentum going.”

The result is big-production, bombastic rock – a return to form for a band some fans felt had lost its way. Victorious is, by the way, a Wolfmother record, although currently Wolfmother means Stockdale and a clutch of trusted session musicians. The 2005 debut Wolfmother was a full-band effort. Following the original lineup’s split in 2008, second album Cosmic Egg was written by Stockdale, but the touring band tracked it. “That was cool,” Stockdale says, “but making the touring party the recording party, maybe I jumped the gun a little bit with that.”

Then there was an Andrew Stockdale solo record, Keep Moving, in 2013, before Wolfmother’s last release New Crown (written by Stockdale and recorded live by the band) simply appeared on the internet one day in March 2014. Wolfmother had no label at the time – the record was self-produced without so much as a murmur of marketing.

“I started off with a major label and producer, and the first record was massive so I had everything set up,” Stockdale recalls. “I never really experienced doing the whole DIY thing. Maybe I romanticised about it. I thought, ‘Let’s try it. Technology has changed, you just put your music up, everything has shifted – maybe we should embrace the new wave of reaching people.’ I’ve done that now; I’ve got it out of my system.”

Now Stockdale is back with Universal, and Victorious comes with editable gif goodies, colour-it-in-yourself album art and a video for the lead single ‘Victorious’ complete with ray-gun-toting sexy space cadets battling evil interplanetary overlords. Appearances on Jimmy Kimmel Live! and a pre-Grammys warm-up show will follow in the coming weeks. Big label backing also meant the album was recorded at Henson Studios in Los Angeles with multiple Grammy-winning producer Brendan O’Brien. “I really enjoy the service major labels provide, the resource they have,” Stockdale says. “It’s all positive. I love it, bring it on, please do all the work for us!”

It’s now been more than a decade since Wolfmother released their self-titled debut, breaking big (five times platinum in Australia) with singles ‘Woman’, ‘Love Train’ and ‘Joker And The Thief’.

“I haven’t really looked back the whole time,” says Stockdale. “I’m always thinking about the next record and the next tour. When you get to ten years you kind of go, ‘Whoa! What?!’ You can reflect for a little while and look back, it’s kind of nice to be a bit nostalgic for a while – but only for a little while.

“It’s hard to believe,” he adds. “You tour, you write the next one, tour that and it’s like, wow, the cycle of a record – it goes quickly. The writing and touring balance each other. You take time off from touring, and then you write. It rejuvenates the touring, and then touring is exciting, so you have more you want to say, and want to create new music to play to people. It’s a healthy balance between the two.”

[Wolfmother photo by Piper Ferguson]