Forget the Edinburgh Military Tattoo, rock and roll is where it's at for bagpipes. CHELSEA HUNTER sat down and talked tartan with Jebediah's Brett and Kevin Mitchell.
There can be no argument about it; the bagpipes are a massively underused instrument in the world of rock, which is something that has not gone unnoticed in the Jebediah camp. In fact it's a situation the Perth foursome have sought to rectify with their current single Fall Down.
"The funny thing is, I found out the other day, if you had to name how many rock and roll songs had used bagpipes, there's like AC/DC and then you could possibly name two others," Kevin Mitchell, the voice of Jebediah, explains one afternoon in the boardroom of X-Press. "You'd be really lucky if you could name a handful, so an instrument that has been used hardly at all has got this huge reputation for rock and roll. Like you put bagpipes on for a big rock song, it has had such an effect for the few times that it has been used."
His brother Brett Mitchell, the rhythmic backbone of Jebediah, concurs with these thoughts. "It has certainly got that freshness about it which traditional instruments particularly don't have," he adds.
"It's really loud and the Scottish used them when they were going to war and stuff, so maybe that's got something to do with it, it's rousing," Kevin continues, which would seem to fit in with the evidence put before us in the form of Fall Down. Like Kevin sings, "It's a catchy tune, hung up on melody" coupled with the exhilarating sounds of the bagpipes that encourages listeners to break free of that which constrains them.
The same disc that holds Fall Down also features Television Lies, a b-side that was recorded at Gary Garry Beers' Mangrove Recording Studios in NSW along with 14 other tracks, 11 of which will form Jebediah's third album. Like Fall Down, Television Lies contains messages of shaking loose the shackles, this time the ones that are created by becoming a slave to the TV. But Kevin says it is merely coincidence that the two tracks ended up side by side, there is no manifesto that he's trying to put across.
"We recorded 15 songs and we needed to pick two b-sides for the single," he explains. "The only lyrical theme that might run through more than just a few songs is just the summer references which came about from writing two thirds of the record during summer. I guess Fall Down and Television... well Fall Down is supposed to be a call to arms. They're probably more in line with the other songs on the album, just in the feel of it.
"I think the majority of the album is pretty up tempo, pretty fun, it sounds like we're having fun. It's kind of everything we wanted from the experience which is a reaction to the last record. Probably every album we make is going to be a reaction to the album before, it's just natural. Number four will definitely be different but I think coming out of Odway we wanted to make an album that was really well produced, that was our priority and we achieved that but at the cost of other things. So this time around it was like 'OK we still want to have good production but it is not such a priority that it should come before everything else', we realised that you can have great production but you can still have the vibe as well. We cut out a lot of vibe before. We wanted to have the sound of a band in a room playing together, not like it was coming off a computer."
Both Mitchell brothers say that part of the reason that the disc has come out sounding exactly the way that Jebediah have always wanted their work to sound can be attributed to having more experience ("Odway we were on our Ls and Shambles we're on our Ps. This time we've got our rock and roll licence," Kevin laughingly explains) and working with producer extraordinaire Magoo, whose work ethic was the same as the band's; ie it doesn't matter what time you start work, as long as you put the hours in.
"It was almost too easy, at the end of it we were like 'Man it doesn't feel like we've done any work'. Especially because the last one was such hard work and such a stressful, strained experience. It was just bizarre coming out the end of it thinking 'Wow that was easy'," says Kevin.
The homely surrounds of Mangrove also played a hand in setting the vibe for the band to luxuriate in. Just through the studio door was a kitchen, living room and beyond the hallway, bedrooms for all four members, plus visitors if they decided to drop by, to sleep in. Manager Heath Bradby started the culinary ball rolling but once he left it was up to the band members to share out the kitchen duties.
"Ness did most of the cooking, I did the least," Brett admits. "Chris and Kev came somewhere in between. I'm good at cutting vegetables. Also the thing is that someone like me couldn't cook for someone like Vanessa because she just wouldn't accept it, she's just too fussy. I'll eat pretty much anything that is put in front of me but I just wouldn't be game to even try to cook for Vanessa."