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Wolfmother are big, in fact they are huge in quite possibly every way from their ridiculously over the top ‘fros to the thunderously loud rock riffage they plough with their guitars, drums and big muff pedals. They have swerved the current trend of 80’s revivalists and headed straight for the classic rock holy land of the 70’s, tracing a path between the likes of Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath while avoiding the clichéd posturing of fellow Australians Jet. Having conquered their homeland in barely twelve months they are due to land on the shores of the UK in 2006, so Gigwise duly caught up with front man Andrew Stockdale to discuss the primordial beginnings of the band.
The origins of Wolfmother begins at the start of the millennium reveals Stockdale, but it was a long time before the band was anything more than an extended jam session: “We met in 2000 and jammed for along time in a practice room with lots of different people,” he says. “It wasn’t until a year and a half ago that the three of us seriously considered being a band. We made an EP, started playing some shows and went on from there.” It was this EP and almost 6 months of non-stop gigging that started to get them noticed, garnering them a whole host of rave reviews from the Australian music press and a reputation for their energetic and explosive live sets.
One such show was seemingly so good that one audience member could hardly control himself when describing its brilliance to his girlfriend. “This guy was waving his hands around, giving hand signals Woody Allen style, trying to explain to his girlfriend what we sounded like,” Stockdale explains. “I was on the edge of the stage about to crank up some solo when he somehow managed to poke me in the eye with his thumb. I had to stop playing and the guy couldn’t stop apologising. This kind of behaviour shouldn’t be encouraged,” he laughs. Maybe not, but something about Wolfmother and their music seems to stir their audiences into aggressive behaviour, as the band later found out at Australia’s Homebake festival when fights broke out in the audience within two songs of the set beginning.
So Gigwise asks, what can audiences expect form a Wolfmother show, apart from the odd fight and eye poking? “Our shows are just something that seems to work, sometimes crowds can get bored 30 seconds into a set with some bands but not with us” Stockdale says. “Its like we’re some kind of natural phenomenon, we have a synergy. We’re not into staging stuff though – you ain’t gonna see me emerging from a huge sphinx on stage or have little gnomes running around us. You’re gonna see a bit of jamming, some sweaty people and some sweaty ‘fros.” So, that’s ‘fros, sweat, fighting and eye poking – a night in the life of Wolfmother sounds pretty damn interesting to us!
Having suitably impressed the music industry and gone on to sign a deal with achingly hip Modular label the three piece of Stockdale, drummer Myles Heskett and bassist/organist Chris Ross decamped to L.A. to work alongside Oasis and Dandy Warhols producer Dave Sardy. They rented an abandoned Hollywood recording studio called Cherokee and got down to the business of honing five years of freeform jamming and the resulting live shows into some semblance of order that would resemble a record. They then moved on to Sound City, where Nirvana recorded ‘Nevermind’, to put down the material.
Three months later they emerged from what Stockdale describes as “everyday non-stop recording” with their eponymous debut album. In fact they only took one day out during the exhaustive process but after the few hours they experienced the band knew they were better off staying in the studio, and avoiding any more exploration of the sprawling mass of the City of Angels. “We took a day off and hired two cars to drive up Mount Wilson just outside L.A.,” Stockdale reminisces. “It all went great until we were on our way back down. I was in one car with a couple of other guys and Myles and Chris were in the other car behind us. About half way down their car broke down and ended up perched on the edge of a 3000ft cliff. We had to ditch the car and after that we knew it was safer for us to stay in the studio.”
‘Wolfmother’ went platinum in Australia within a couple of weeks of its release last October and has set tongues wagging across the globe. However, Stockdale says that while this success is obviously welcome the band have no particular plans or lofty ambitions. “We just really want to keep playing our music,” he says. “We don’t have any real destinations in mind; we’re just enjoying the experience. We’re not really ambitious people; any ambitions we do have are put into the music.” Their plans for 2006 are simple: “Touring our arses off. Playing a lot across the UK and the US and seeing how life on the road treats us,” says Stockdale seemingly overjoyed at the thought of spending endless months in a tour bus.
One other plan Stockdale muses over for the future is inspired by the sight of seeing a legendary British front man highly under the influence of a particular natural herb. “We were at a festival in Australia and I walked out of van to see Ian Brown completely stoned. I can completely respect anyone who gets stoned by 9 o’clock. He was just sat there in the grass rolling spliffs.” Which leads to the prospect of a Wolfmother cover of ‘Fools Gold’, “We could do a stoner version,” laughs Stockdale. “Crank up the big muff and let it rip!” He then proceeds to hum the riffs down the phone with added pedal effects. Maybe Brown has inspired him in other ways too.
