You may not have heard of Ned Collette yet. But trust me, the guy is a genius. It won’t be long before the rest of the world catches on – particularly now that Ned has moved to Europe. I would try to explain Ned’s music to you, but I think that he does a better job than I below. What I will say, is that each song Ned plays is achingly beautiful. Every listen brings you more depth and variation than the last. Gentle rhythm followed by rocking out. Ned’s lyrics are serious, soulful and considered. On occasion they can even be quite funny (“haha” not “weird” – check out “Your Golden Heart”). Here, I talk to Ned about his career, musical influences and what’s happening next:
CS. Tell us a little bit about your career so far…
NC. I started out playing guitar in the experimental scene in Melbourne. I didn’t sing at all. It was and still is an incredibly diverse and interesting scene – back in those days people like Sean Baxter, Will Guthrie, Anthony Pateras etc. I was straight out of school. I also played in a band called Bohjass which is saxophonist Tim Pledger’s band. They still play around Melbourne a lot. He taught me a lot about music – in attitudes towards playing and being really committed to what you’re playing. Did a lot of practise. Shaved my hair off. Good times. Eventually I had to get my own thing going, and that was City City City, which in a way was informed by my experiences in an improvising group with loose structures, but soon took off in (too) many directions. We sort of gave out under our own weight in the end – there were six of us… but we made two records and played a Friday night at Meredith, which will always be one of my favourite experiences.
Then I started finally getting around to lyric based songs I had always been trying to write. I secreted that away for a long time prior – I think just in order to collect a bunch of songs together that seemed worthy of an audience. I got really lucky by getting signed to Dot Dash on what was an essentially fairly finished first album. I think it’s harder, and maybe it’s not even necessary, but even just four years later to find a label – which in my case doesn’t mean loads of money, but it does mean a lot of support from people I trust. I’ve done three albums under my name with them.
So three albums into ‘solo career’, though it’s not really that solo – lot of pretty amazing folks along the way.
CS. As your career has progressed from the early days of City City City, there seems to have been a change from instrumental to more lyrics based songs. What has influenced this change?
NC. I’d already started singing a bit with that band – I’m not sure the others were really into that. It was an instrumental band after all. I think Joe and Ben got the drift, because we were into a lot of the same things – BBC radiophonic workshop, The White Noise, Robert Wyatt, Broadcast etc – actually no we were all kinda into that, but I struggled to bring words to music that was getting more and more complex and long-form. It could have turned into some sort of prog nightmare.
I had always been writing lyrics – some very bad ones included – and I just started making a concerted effort to write simple, more song-like music around it. A big influence on this were Jim O’Rourke’s albums. The first time I heard ‘Insignificance’ was really important. On a plane to Hobart with Joe Talia. He was singing, but the musical structures behind it, though simple, were really interesting to me. It was the first new stuff I’d heard in a while which resonated. So basically I just copied him – on my first EP. Of course I then got into all the people from that same musical scene, and I’d always listened to older folks. Townes Van Zandt was really influential around the time of my first album. I’m still very influenced by instrumental music though. I was just re-visiting David Bowie’s ‘Low’ – amazing album, very few lyrics. I just feel better about my output when it is tied together with words. This may change again.
CS. Plans for world domination? You’ve just moved to Berlin and it won’t be your first time touring Europe. What’s the attraction?
NC. I’m here basically for a change. I’ve lived in Melbourne my whole life, and I never really expected I’d spend my whole life there. I really love it, but I have a lack of connection to the country as a whole. Neither of my parents is from Australia, the majority of my extended family are in New Zealand, so yep, now I live in Germany. But yeah it’s to do with music too. I’ve always had good experiences playing here, and you are just closer to more – more cities, more connections, more people. It’s still tough though – we’re putting our next tour together and it’s the same old rigmarole of trying to convince people to put on a band they’ve never heard of. If they do, they treat you well.
CS. Has the band moved with you to Berlin?
NC. Sort of. Adam Donovan (plays guitar in Augie March) happened to be moving here for a stint at the same time as me, and our bass player Ben just made a person, so he’s taking a break for a while. Dono’s gonna play bass on this next tour. Joe gets here in a couple of weeks, just before the tour starts, and might stick around for a while.
CS. Tell us a little bit about Wirewalker.
NC. Well when I said before about my ‘career’ not really being so solo, it’s because of them. I love them. Joe Talia has been integral to every album I’ve ever made – from City City City through to the first Wirewalker record – as drummer, engineer, mixer, confidant etc. Ben Bourke too since the second Cities outing. I’ve known him since high school. He’s a phenomenally talented bass player. You don’t realise how rare that is – because bass often doesn’t make itself that known in a live scenario. He was really born to play that instrument you know? So weighty but really melodic too. Every time is different – he improvises. But he has the weight I like. We’ve also had James Rushford along on synth recently, which has been great, and in a way it’s leaning back towards what I was trying to get at with City City City towards the end.
CS. Joe’s drum sets are pretty impressive. Who writes what?
NC. Yes Joe is amazing. I think everyone realises that. Something really great happened between the three of us during the first European tour – it’s when we first really started loosening up as a band. Like when a shirt breaks in and starts to feel really good and you want to wear it everyday. It’s also because I stopped writing whole songs before bringing them to the band. I’d finish the lyrics (most of the time), and sketch out the music but get them to fill it out. That’s how the last album worked, and why it is a Wirewalker record as much as anything. So now we’re playing more collectively, and maybe live that shows – Joe just lets it all out – we trust each other enough to let it almost fall over occasionally. I think them singing as well means that the songs are really respected too. Gotta play the song.
CS. How do you write your songs? Lyrics then score or the other way round?
NC. In parallel – I just try and keep both things moving along, but often separately, until one bit of music matches something lyrical. I’m not very disciplined. I take big breaks from writing, then have to plough through reams of crap before I start getting to things I like again. I get really influenced by other things and try and write against what comes naturally to me, which is frustrating but probably a good thing. It always comes back the other way eventually so that hopefully what results is something slightly new, for me anyway.
CS. You’ve been playing some new stuff at your latest gigs. Does that mean you are working on a new album?
NC. The new ones are all from the new EP – ‘The Pool Is Full Of Hats’. But yeah, there’s new material kicking around. I think I might try and make a truly solo record over here – maybe quite synth-based, or at least along the lines of the title track from the EP. But there will be new band stuff on the way – hopefully to be recorded at the end of the year, somewhere, when Ben gets a break from the solitudes of child-rearing
CS. What’s the story behind one of your new songs, “the pool is full of hats”?
NC. It’s something that was said on Christmas day. It was a great day, with a bad ending. The song is sort of about that, though it was written a bit earlier. Enough said.
CS. It seems like you love a good guitar solo and just rocking out. What’s your favourite guitar solo (on one of your albums or elsewhere)?
NC. Frank Zappa’s on ‘Willie The Pimp’. It springs to mind first and is epic, but not in a cocky way. It’s just really cool. It was my favourite as a teenager, when I was into that sort of thing, which obviously I’m still into… a bit. There are many others though – I just heard a pretty good one on The Drones’ ‘Havilah’, which is soundtracking my answers to these questions. It’s probably redundant of me to add to the general clamour about how good that album really is, but it really is. Bastards.
CS. I hear you went to the George Michael concert. How was it? What are you musical influences and inspirations?
NC. Yes. Yes I did. It was great. I would call it a guilty pleasure but I don’t feel guilty about it. The only person I saw that I knew there was Wally Meanie, of course. He’s a big fan too. Apart from that it was me and 40 thousand screaming middle aged women. It was amazing, like the world had been taken over by angry cicadas. My sister wanted to go “George hunting” the next day – hit up all the gay bars in the hope of finding the man himself. It’s amazing that all these women are still so entranced by a man that is so openly not interested in women. Good songs though, of course. Nice voice. Funny in ‘Extras’.
CS. Finish this sentence, Master Mouse Patrol….
NC. Master Mouse Patrol is to be thanked for making me drink some coffee and get something done. My brain has been languishing in a fug of uncertain living.
Want more? Check out Ned Collette here http://www.nedcollette.com
Or listen to him here http://www.nedcollette.com/sounds.html
Oh, and I highly recommend that you buy his music on itunes or on www.nedcollette.com
