moustachemag | August 2, 2013

Words by Ash Kissane

Perth band, Pond have been pretty busy since we last spoke a year ago. Their highly anticipated fifth LP, Hobo Rocket was released today, capturing of the explosive energy of the psych-pop  five-pieces’ live sets.  I had a catch-up chat to Joe “Shoseph Orion McJam” Ryan (guitar, bass & backup vocals) about how Hobo Rocket came together, music they’re into and the newest addition to Pond’s ever-changing line-up.

MM: How’s your day going? JR: Oh yeah, recovering from a big night. Just eating sushi to try to feel alright again. That’s the only way to do it; sushi and coke.

Nice, where about  are you right now? I’m just in Perth, not far from my house.

So, Hobo Rocket is out on Friday, and the album’s already been released online, how has the response been so far? A lot of people have been saying they really enjoy it, so that’s pretty good.

Why did you guys decide to release it online? I don’t know really. It was probably a label or management decision. If we had it our way though we would have released it weeks ago.

You guys wrote Hobo Rocket a long time ago… Yeah, we wrote this other album called Man, It Feels Like Space Again ages ago, and this one was get an idea that we could do in the studio before we tackled Space Again, just an exercise in recording. It turned out a bit weird but I really enjoy it.

You guys pump out so much material, more than the average band, how did Hobo Rocket come together? Jay, Nick and myself had written our own songs. Mainly, Allbrook and Jay wrote the majority of the songs, yeah. We only had three days in the studio and we’d been jamming a few of them for a while in a lighter sense so it was just a kind of spur of the moment thing, not really too much thought into it. I mean there was, but it was pretty laid back. It’s fairly shared, the process. The songwriter’s writer their songs then they bring it in, they naturally get a little bit tweaked or changed.  Also, once you write a part of a song, someone else will have another part of a song in a similar key that will be spliced together or whatever.

You guys always have the best album and song titles, like Hobo Rocket, do you guys come up with them in a similar way to your music – spur of the moment? [laughs] Yeah, it was bit of a stupid throw away title. It’s kind of the pre-album to Space Again, so it’s kind of mid-launch and the next album will be fully in space [laughs.]

For pretty chilled guys your live sets almost have the energy of a punk gig; they’re so high energy… We’re all very into coffee, that could have something to do with it. We get too carried away when we play, it’s just a natural thing because we don’t get to jam that much or play many gigs when Tame Impala’s on the road so when we do get to play together it’s pretty exciting stuff. Everyone has too many beers and gets over-excited, you know?

You guys have been touring pretty extensively over the last couple of years especially, do you have a favourite place to play? Usually, we end up playing in really cool bars all over the world but I guess one of the coolest things was playing in Austin, Texas for SXSW. It was pretty incredible, it was gorilla warfare style, hit and run. I think during the five or six days we were in Austin we had nine gigs. Two a day, it was pretty cool.

What did you think of SXSW? It seems to divide a lot of musicians; some hate it, some love it, what did you guys think of it? We loved it, man. It was bloody beautiful. The whole city was pretty much shut down because of the amount of people. It was just really cool, there was music spilling out into the street. It was really unreal; you don’t ever really get to see a festival of that size run so smoothly, people being really nice and generous to each other. Also there’s a BBQ down there which is amazing.

There are a bunch of different sounds and influences you can hear in Pond’s music, what sort of stuff did you grow up listening to that may have seeped into your writing style? Oh, I used to love, still love, all of The Grateful Dead albums. Jerry Garcia; his solo stuff and that kind of countryish vibe. I think, as a result all of my songs like O Dharma and Hobo Rocket and songs like that have kind of taken off that. I guess I’m not very good at singing either, so whenever I have to sing I try to channel Jerry Garcia [laughs.]

Have you heard anything lately that’s impressed you? Yeah! Last night when I got home from this pub, a friend of mine put on the new Kanye West album and I loved it! I’ve never gotten into any of his previous albums but last night I was listening to it and it was bloody awesome.

What did you like most about it? The sounds on it are pretty fucked up. It’s a bit more lo-fi, but it’s not really lo-fi, just the sounds. It sounds like he’s running it through a boom box in a hallway. There are some pretty interesting sounds about it. It just didn’t seem as, I don’t want to say ‘wanky’ but in the past he just seemed like he had too much of an attitude about him. I liked the vibe of it last night but it could have also been that I was very inebriated, I don’t know if that’s going to change it when I listen to it again.

You guys have changed the line-up of Pond quite a bit since its beginning, do you feel like you’ve found the right chemistry or dynamic now or do you think Pond is a band that will always change and evolve? We’re definitely close. We’re close to the right dynamic. I think we’re getting a new drummer so that Cameron Avery can play in Tame Impala the whole time. I think we’re trying to get this guy, I’m not entirely sure if he’s confirmed or not but maybe James Ireland, he plays around Perth in a few different bands. He’s a bit of a badass so, should be alright.

So what else is coming up this year that you’re excited about? Apart from the new album in September, we’ll be doing some more tours for Pond, which will be good. We’ve going off in a few weeks to Thailand, Japan and Hong Kong and that kind of area.

Where are you excited to head most out of those places? Well, I’m not actually sure where we’re going exactly but I’m happy to go anywhere, you know?

Where would your dream gig be? Antarctica would pretty sweet, I’ve never been there.  You could record an album down there in one of those weather stations, it would be pretty sweet.

Published – Moustache Magazine