Wolfmother: A Pocket Full Of Kryptonite

“Hey, you gotta hustle if you want things your way!” booms the obese American businessman checking into an upmarket Shepherds Bush hotel, after his near-abusive demands for feather pillows attracts a smattering of onlookers.  The steely-eyed sharp dressers milling about behind him smile knowingly, having no doubt themselves hustled for far more than quality pillows.  He’s preaching to the converted, and it’s clear from a cursory glance round the archly chic lobby that this is the place where predatory go-getters in need of a break from scaling the food chain go to regroup.
 
It’s shocking that Wolfmother actually fit into this at all, and none are more surprised than the band themselves.  “Look at this hotel!” frontman Andrew Stockdale exclaims, as he sits back onto a luxurious leather sofa in the band’s expansive ensuite rooms.  “Last time we toured here we were in a little van driving around, it was January, it was fucking freezing, now we’re in a better hotel, we’re in a bigger bus, it’s summer time, we’re playing festivals - it’s the good times.   We made it through that tough stretch and now we’re reaping the rewards.”

Barely halfway through a year of relentless intercontinental touring in support of their first album, Wolfmother are already well on their way to surpassing all but the wildest predictions.  And really, who could’ve imagined festival goers warming so quickly to Wolfmother’s funked-up parallel musical universe in which Prince goes nuts, kidnaps Black Flag, and surgically reconstructs them as a Led Zeppelin replica gone thrillingly awry?  Well, non other than the same man who places himself somewhere between Superman and Beatrice Kiddo, the rampant death machine played by Uma Thurman in Kill Bill.  Explains Andrew with wide-eyed, borderline feral self-belief, “I was watching Kill Bill, and at the end of it (Bill) says this thing about Superman, that when Superman wakes up, he is Superman, and he has to make an effort to become everyday.  And Bill tells (Uma Thurman), 'you're a born killer' - that even though she's tried to fit into society, have a baby, get married, she'll always be a killer. And in some ways that's the same for me. I feel like when I'm on stage, that's who I am. That's when I can realise what I want to do, and how I wanna exist, and dressing up, and fucking things around and kicking things over,  that's where I feel like its my destiny or something like it,” he says with the glee of a kid who’s just been told he doesn’t ever have to grow up. 

But the 29 year old adult who’s all too aware of his responsibilities - girlfriend and 5 month old daughter - is never far behind, and he quickly becomes introspective at the near impossibility of finding a satisfactory compromise between the two “different worlds” of parenthood and rock-stardom. “That's hard,” he says. “I feel this connection to (my daughter), but I can't be around her. This is a once in a life time opportunity to do what (Wolfmother) are doing now, so I've chosen to do this.  She did come along last time, she came to LA, but it’s hard for her. She's five months old, and with the jet lag... Little babies need that routine.  And (having her on tour) was too relaxing in some ways. I'd be in New York and I'd be holding this baby in my arms, just chilling out, and then I'd have to go rock out to a thousand people at the Bowery ballroom in New York.”