Photo: Carsten Windhorst
Andrew Stockdale is scanning the glamorous, shiny bedroom of a central London hotel looking for somewhere to sit. Considering there are only two options – neither of which includes a bed (curiously, the room appears to be lacking one) – it’s not a decision the Wolfmother frontman is taking lightly. He puts his hands on his hips and emits a sigh, which is followed by another one. Then – finally – a breakthrough. “There,” he says intently, before marching over to what he labels the “psychologists couch”.
It turns out to be an apt choice for Stockdale, who is in town to preview Wolfmother’s forthcoming second album ‘Cosmic Egg’ at an intimate pub gig. As one would expect from a band whose 2005 self-titled debut was both praised and maligned by critics for its grandiose, Led Zeppelin-echoing classic rock riffs and emphatic vocals, ‘Cosmic Egg’ is a bold, brash and blisteringly loud – very loud – listen. But it almost never happened at all. After three years of constant touring and acceptance speeches, the highlight of which came at the 2007 Grammy Awards when the band collected the award for Best Hard Rock Performance, Stockdale suddenly found himself on his own last summer when fellow Wolfmother co-founders bassist Chris Ross and drummer Myles Heskett quit citing “longstanding frictions”. While the departing pair outlined plans to form an a new band, Stockdale vowed to continue with a new line-up – or, at least, that’s what his record label said in a statement at the time. In reality, it appears the singer was actually unsure as to whether to continue Wolfmother or not.
“Well, um, yeah, I guess I just became overcome with strategy, eh,” he says, deconstructing the situation. “Psychology, politics and strategy from all these different angles. And then I was just like, man, it’s just music, eh. I remember New Years Eve at the end of 2008 and I was like, I am so glad 2008 is finished, that was a tough year.”
He’s not kidding either. Although Ross and Heskett officially announced their departure in the days immediately after the group’s fraught set at Byron Bay’s Splendour In The Grass festival in August last year, the origins of their decision, Stockdale says, can be traced back to when Wolfmother re-grouped in Sydney following an eight month break to begin work on their second album. Even then, there was a lot of “confusion and uncertainty”, according to Stockdale, who eagerly flew down from Brisbane as soon as he received the call from his bandmates.
“We were almost there, eh,” he says, recalling the period. “It was like the last day before we sent the demos off to the producer to start the record that Chris just decided he wanted to do something else. So I was just like…at that point I just didn’t put up any resistance, I was like, 'Cool man, I’m glad you made a decision'. Because we were just…”
In limbo?
“Yeah, sure. Even if it was just a matter of, like, making coffees in a café or something. At some point I just needed to know what I was gonna do, rather than just waiting for the phone to ring or someone to kind of say, 'Yeah, we don’t know.'”
Stockdale looks sincere when he admits that the eventual split was “disappointing, but also a relief”. “We were trying to be really nice,” he says. “The nicer we were to each other the more transparent it was. We didn’t even argue.” The singer suddenly smiles and adopts a mock voice. “We were just like, 'Oh yeah, it’s going really well. Yeah, this is great, that drum part’s fantastic, that guitar parts really good.' And you’d just be like, 'Ah fuck, we’re just past our used by date.'”
The same can’t be said of Wolfmother’s new line up. Now a four piece with Ian Peres on bass, guitarist Aidan Nemeth and drummer Dave Atkins, Stockdale says his only requirement in the search for Ross and Heskett’s replacements was that they possessed “a bit of passion” and “emotion” – two traits his former bandmates appear to have lacked towards the end. He fondly remembers Wolfmother MK-II’s first rehearsal. “We just put all the amps in the car and went in and turned all the amps on and made some noise and jammed till like twelve and went and got a kebab and a beer and I was like, Man, this is like a good feeling, eh. Just the band, like, everything aside and all the stuff that had happened, it’s good to just…it’s something that I enjoy as a person.”
With renewed vigour, Stockdale and the rest of Wolfmother travelled to Los Angeles in March to record ‘Cosmic Egg’. The album, produced by Alan Moulder (Nine Inch Nails, The Blonde Redhead), picks up from where ‘Wolfmother’ left off. Its songs range broadly from the “stoner rock” of ‘California Queen’ to the wistful romance of ‘Far Away’, which Stockdale seems particularly attached to. “Yeah, I guess it’s like with touring and stuff like that it’s kind of like a warped lifestyle,” he says of the song’s lyrics. “You’re in hotels, you are by yourself and I guess it’s just like, you’re far away but you’re still…you’re not slipping away, you’re still with all of the people that mean something to you but it’s just a part of what you’ve gotta do I guess.”
Stockdale, who was born in Brisbane 33 years ago but spent his childhood in both Australia and London, says he’s well aware that critics will be quick to compare ‘Cosmic Egg’ to ‘Wolfmother’ because of the band’s line up change, but in the same breath he claims that he’s not worried either. “Maybe it’s cool, maybe it’s a challenge to do something when the odds are stacked against you just for the hell of it.” He smiles.
Despite all of the uncertainty of the last eighteen months, Stockdale comes across as unnervingly ambitious throughout our interview. Indeed, it’s only when I ask him where he thinks it comes from that he seems to struggle for an answer. “For some reason I think I’m lazy, eh. I think I’m lazy – but maybe that’s what people who are driven or have ambition think, they always think they’re lazy or they could be doing more.” He stops to think. “I’ve just always had that and the same with doing guitar solo or singing and writing a song, I kind of feel like, 'Would you mind if I just get into this, really get into it?' And when people can’t do that I’m just like, 'What’s wrong with you? A what point in your life don’t you live…decide to live', you know.”
With a new moon rising for Stockdale and Wolfmother, it seems like appropriate advice.
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