b.l. stryker is perhaps better known
as Brendan, the guitarist and lead singer from local Melbourne oufit, Sandpit. Under the
guise of a high school nickname, b.l. stryker, Brendan plays low key shows at various
venues, but check the empress gig guide if you wanna see him soon. Brendan is quite a shy
boy, so I was in luck when he agreed to be interviewed. we spent a while drinking and
chatting about all kinds of things. if you want to know what we chatted about, then keep
reading. by the way, my name is nat and I did the interview. I also transcribed it a week
later and the sound quality was heaps poor, so there are gaps and I refuse to type with
respect to the english language, especially in terms of capitals, so excuse my grammar,
but if you’re that keep on picking on my typing, then contact me and you can sub my
articles. that could be fun. oh well, read on and enjoy the delightful company that is
Brendan.
we started off chatting about the fellaheen label and its recent adoption by shock. I
asked if shock were still keen to release some b.l. stryker material on fellaheen and
brendan said they were.
BL: they are keen to put out the b.l. stryker record, I dunno in two or three months
maybe. and then I wanna do more recordings for that... but Sandpit are doing stuff in
november and that won’t get released ‘til get released next year.
nat: that’s ages away! (the Sandpit release)
BL: yeah it’s just we wanna not release it over christmas. so it depends on what the
record stores will buy... and I guess that we won’t be ready to record ‘til
november anyway, so there’s no point rushing it, ‘cause I dont wanna put out a
Sandpit album that’s half done.
nat: is that your perfectionist streak showing?
BL: probably, but it’s always there, it’s a document that’s there forever
and it’s representative of you, for infinity
nat: infinity?
BL: yeah.
nat: I know i’ll probably be playing my Sandpit records to my kids
BL: well, if you’re going to do it, you may as well do it properly. I guess the band
is kinda going through a fairly transitional period anyway. things have changed a lot in
the last four months.
nat: you’ve swapped a drummer.
BL: yeah
nat: so is greg wales a permanent addition
BL: kinda, he’s going to play with us for a while, but with him there’s no
guarantees about what he’s going to do. he might pack up and move to America next
year. he’s just going to play with us for a while, and we might do some recordings
with him, but it all depends. we need someone who can plays with us all the time and who
is one hundred percent dedicated to making it work. we’ll have an album out in
january and i’d like to think that whoever does drums on that record will be prepared
to do a national tour and other tours, maybe overseas next year, maybe New Zealand or
America for a month or two.
nat: so are you still looking for a drummer?
BL: I guess so
nat: are they hard to find?
BL: yeah, because there is less incentive for drummers, in some ways there’s not a
hell of a lot in it monetarily for drummers unless they’re contributing to the songs
as far as writing them goes. but if you’re playing stadium tours everyone would be
getting their perdiums and their salaries, but just being in a small rock band only barley
playing Australia, well there’s not much money in it. it’s hard also ‘cause
I guess so many people are discouraged from playing drums ‘cause they’re so
loud, ‘cause everyone’s parents wouldn’t let them. I wanted to play drums,
that’s what I wanted to play.
nat: I actually have seen you behind a drum kit before, kinda recently, i’m trying to
think who with...at the Empress maybe?
BL: with Adam?
nat: not sure. I guess there’s room to play different instruments in your solo
stuff...
BL: well i’ve been playing with Guy, from Sleepy Township, and i play drums on most
of his songs when we play live, i’ve also been jammin withg another friend of mine,
John who’s playing with Silvana who used to be in Diolene, her new band and our old
drummer plays in that too, i’m not sure of what the name is yet. and another thing
called the vas deferens(?), it’s just a working title at the moment, we’ve got
eight songs already and we wanna make it a 7 inch, I don’t know what you’d call
it, kinda dischordant hip hop (laughing) oh, I dunno.
nat: so you’re keeping as many avenues as you can to express yourself musically?
BL: I dunno I guess I feel that there are so many things I wanna do, why should I limit
myself to just one thing all the time? and i’ve got friends who are musical too and I
get sick of playing guitar sometimes so it’s cool to sit back and play drums and
listen to someone else’s guitar playing and appreciate their ingenuity, I just admire
people like Guy and John ‘cause they write good songs and its fun to play with them!
nat: how long have you and Guy been playing live together?
BL: well I knew of his existence last year and we started jamming and playing on each
others solo stuff and now we play shows together and we work together too... and now
we’re playing shows together
nat: i’ve seen him on the keyboards at one of your shows...
BL: yeah, he’s great with piano and keyboards and stuff
nat: you guys are multi talanted, ‘cause you must play at least a million instruments
each!
BL: yeah right! well we try... we’re not technically that great but we do swap lots,
yeah, with practice we’ll get better...
nat: here’s a generic band question, how do you distinguish when you’re writing
songs which are b.l. stryker and which are sandpit tunes?
BL: I just play guitar and some things sound like what we do in the band and what suits
that sound and I guess, well we started doing Sandpit about four years ago, and I write
songs that don’t fit in there, so without making the set too different, I keep them
seperate. I don’t intentionally write in two styles, I just always loved the idea of
being in a rock band and playing loud, but somethings just aren’t suited to it. I
guess usually the more upbeat poppier songs turn into the Sandpit songs and the sadder
laments become b.l. stryker songs.
nat: is that ‘cause its easier play sad tunes when you’re up there on your own
and feeling lonely?
BL: yeah but I guess its also different material focussing on different things as well
nat: I wanted to comment on how introspective and intimate some of the b.l. stryker tunes
are. is it difficult to get up there and sing about sad and personal things? is it the
best therapy?
BL: sometimes it feels cheesy and soppy and, kinda fucked, but then other times you feel
like maybe someone can relate to it and understand it. if you’re down you’re
gonna write depressing things, I guess it is kinda a theraputic kinda thing
nat: well as a person who writes poetry (really bad poetry), I can appreciate your lyrics
as heaps open and honest and they suggest some cool images
BL: I have a hard time writing lyrics, I find it easier to write music but at the same
time it’s still hard to write the music. but even harder to write the words.
nat: well it’s kinda always hard to find the words that really mean what you are
trying to say, but your lyrics manage to do that, they manage to paint abstract images,
kinda with something heaps apparent but looking at it from another angle and sharing
another perspective...
here we were interuppted by an efficient waiter asking if we wanted more beverages. we
felt inclined to agree so we could stay where we were and finish the interview so we
ordered and then proceeded with part two of the interview. neither of us could remember
what we were talking about previously so I invented another generic band question to get
the conversation started again.
nat: so tell about some of your favourite bands.
BL: well i’ve been listening to the new Folk Implosion album, it’s a cool record
nat: is Lou the ‘man’?
BL: yeah i’ve always liked Lou Barlow... Guy has put me onto Kraftwerk...
nat: that reminds me of something... did you see Pavement programming rage?
BL: kinda, did they play a Kraftwerk song?
nat: yeah, ‘The Model’ I think?
BL: oh yeah
nat: they played some shit stuff! like some bad eighties stuff. I was expecting heaps of
obscure cool indie American bands that i’d never heard of but they played all this
bad eighties stuff I never liked when I heard it the first time!
BL: well maybe they’re sick of ‘indie’ rock, maybe they wanted to show
their roots, maybe they don’t even listen to indie rock, whatever that is.
nat: well I know they’ve all got diverse tastes, living in different states and
whatever, but they manage to pin down their own style independant of their very diverse
influences though.
BL: hmmm, what was the question? oh yeah i’m into the Avelanchers, I saw them Friday
night and they’re going to take over the world.
nat: ok cool, you read it here first,a warm cola exclusive!
BL: they’ve got a 7 inch coming out soon on Trifekta records, a new label that is
starting up, i’m sure by the time they put their album out they’ll be heros... I
guess i’ve been listening to heaps of old stuff, old Black Sabbath records that I
like, that thrill jokey stuff, trans am and tortoise, the sea and the cake, I don’t
have access to new records as often as i’d like to. someone sent me the new Smog
record, i’m liking that heaps,a song called ‘Ex-Con’ I think.
nat: off ‘Red Apple Falls’?
BL: yeah that’s a pretty good album... I dunno what else, all kinds of things, I was
listening to Joy Division the other day
nat: isn’t that heaps weird?
BL: I dunno, just heaps eighties, heaps eighties bad guitar!
nat: well some of the stuff you mentioned is that real synth-pop eighties electronic vibe,
is that what you’ve been getting into with those bands?
BL: yeah, Guy and I did this show together where we used this drum machine thing called a
MC303 thats got this 90’s version of the old synthersisers jammed into one digital
technology box. we did this set, it was dodgy, Guy described it as ‘b.l. stryker (me)
versus riot guy (Guy) does the Human Legue’, kinda thing, yeah kinda dodgy.
there’s a ‘Magnetic Fields’ record i’m really into
nat: which one?
BL: ‘Get Lost’ I think its called, but i’m really into that electro
sound.... hopefully Gerling will have a new recocrd out soon, they’ve got a new
guitarist, but we’ll see what happens with them. they will be here in October for a
show i’m putting together this big extravaganza called ‘Short Attention
Span’ on the 10th and the 11th of October
nat: tell all.
BL: well, it’s going to be two shows, both at the Corner hotel, Friday night is
overage and the Saturday 1-6pm will be all ages.
nat: yay.
BL: yeah, so it’s eleven bands playing twenty minute sets and Ricaine who are
headlining will play for half an hour at the end. so the line up includes: (in no
particular order) Golden Lifestyle Band, Ninety-Nine, Art of Fighting, Sleepy Township,
Not From There, Pollen, Tweezer, Gerling Sandpit, Avelanchers and Ricaine.
nat: are they your faves?
BL: yeah, sort of, there are more bands I would have liked to get over from Perth, like
Bluetile Lounge, bands like Minimum Chips, Turnstile,
nat: really diverse too.
BL: sure is. it’s only eight dollars for eleven bands.
nat: heaps ‘o’ value.
nat: so you’ve also been a contributor to the cassette that is included with this
zine. the tune you gave us is called PVA. what’s the story behind this one?
BL: it’s really old, I originally recorded it on an answering machine, it’s just
one of those songs that got made up on the spot, and I dunno, I guess it’s about
wanting to get close to someone, and PVA is that glue in Primary school
nat: and your fave warm cola is...
BL: (quite animatedly) Count Cola! do you remember Count Cola?
nat: nope
BL: I remember going shopping for it in about 1982, yeah it tasted like supermarket cola,
not like Coke or Pepsi, not that kinda hardcore cola taste but more of a supermarket cola
flavor.
nat: there’s something to be said for supermarket cola! but what about warm cola, do
you like your cola warm?
BL: I don’t really drink cola much at all, i’m not much of a soft drink drinker,
the only stuff I really drink is beer. I like warm tea and warm coffee.
nat: fanta is delicious warm
BL: (quite disbelieving) fanta?
nat: yep. the nicest warm softdrink is fanta.
BL: have you had warm beer?
nat: nope I don’t like beer.
BL: I guess you’d have to learn to drink it if you were in a band, it’s all you
get on a rider. you slowly get weened onto beer.
nat: those boys in Gaslight Radio drink vodka though
BL: yeah but it takes up more squares on your rider though. (noticing someone elses nachos
being brought to their table.) check out those nachos! they’re huge! I had nachos for
tea last night.
here that efficient waiter returned to clear the table, Brendan and I swapped nacho
recipies and winded up a loverly conversation. there is supposed to be an ‘r’ in
lovery, so you pronounce it loverly. not just a bad typist, i’m also inventing my own
language. howzabout sending in your fave nacho recipie and i’ll rate them in my next
faves section where I review things? that’s be cool if we could make warm cola
interactive, in the sense that you can read it and then contribute your recipies. hey on
that note, why not let us know what your fave warm cola is? we could compile some kinda
official tally and we’d feel important and cool if we got mail.
p.o. box 8301, northland centre, post office, victoria, 3072. I can type no more. later.
nat.
