You Am I
You Am I have delivered their tenth studio album Porridge & Hotsauce which is an absolute cracker. Across The Ocean got to speak to Rusty Hopkinson on the verge of their tour The Bargain Bin Bon Vivants about making the album in Daptone Studios in Brooklyn, New York and how it all came together. Rusty eluded to plenty of good things to look forward to in the coming months so fans get excited!
Sounds like it has been a real whirlwind leading up to the release of the album Porridge & Hotsauce?
It is really busy because we all do stuff outside of the band and before we head out on the road we have some loose ends to tie up. Everyone’s working hard, Tim’s away in Europe playing some shows and having a holiday, we’re all scattered around doing our thing and looking forward to getting back together.
It is hard to believe that this is album number ten and things continue to be on the up don’t you think?
It is a funny thing because we have had the luxury of being able to tour on our older records over the past couple of years in 2013. That was a nice stop gap thing to do between You Am I records that we enjoyed making and this record. Having that distance of five years and then getting back in to it in a completely different manner. I think we all felt, not rejuvenated, but up for the task of trying something different and making this record really quickly. I was trying to organise time with Daptone in late June and we went and recorded in July and it was like lets go and do it. The songs came after that, then a couple of rehearsals and we went that’s a good one, that’s a good one and then went and did it.
Was there a structure or vision in place for these songs before the recording sessions?
No, no, no not at all! We had two rehearsals and there were a few demos floating around, there was some stuff of Davey’s that we got to play, there was a song that I wrote with Tim which was still him singing over a demo of mine and Andy had a song that we heard. It was very similar to making Hourly Daily and a song like Can’t Get It Together, I think I learnt it once prior to recording it. Some of the songs were pretty much like that where I didn’t have too much of a preconceived notion what I was going to do on it.
Did that create stress knowing that you only had bare bones to work with?
We didn’t have a lot of studio time booked, there was a week and a half day here and there for overdubs. We went to New York and it’s not cheap to do that, the idea of going to Daptone was that it is a studio where the actual process of recording half a century ago where you stand around in a small room and play to a 8-track tape. It is a very honest way of recording and the only way you get results is just to actually play and it was almost good not to rehearse to much because as the drummer you have to adapt yourself to play under those circumstances and when you’ve only got a mic in front of the drum kit and on top of the drum kit it isn’t like you can go back and change too much. You have to get it right and the performance right and that was interesting because we had to rethink some songs as they wouldn’t adapt well to those techniques.
Do you think you could have achieved that result anywhere else?
It is something that we talked about for a long time and to be honest I was shitting myself because I work for Daptone Records. They are good friends of mine and it was my idea and I knew the studio was available to go and do it. At the same time it is a completely different environment going in to recording with Greg Wales compared to a modern style studio it was going back and playing together. It could have gone either way and not worked, it is what it is! It made us work to get the results we needed, play the songs a certain way and you get the results. We were playing for seven to ten hours a day then choosing the best tapes and move on. It was a bit of a cathartic process but was completely different to that second guessing nature of modern recording where stuff goes on to a computer. It is very rudimentary and honest, something you can’t fuck with once it’s done and that was something I wanted especially with drums.
What was your reaction when you got to play it back for the first time?
When I first heard the rough mixes it sounded right to go and it was great to have the energy all there but it needed to be mixed in a certain way. We talked it all through and when we got the masters back I was really, really happy because it had been challenging to get it to sound the way we wanted it to sound. Once John Castle was on board and he understood what we wanted it came together really well.
Do you think Good Advices is the perfect intro and captures all the energy of record?
The good thing about Daptone Studios is that is a three story building, old brown stone, in the pretty grotty park of Brooklyn in New York and the actual studio is tiny and was really hot. It was like forty degrees everyday and being in New York was insanely humid and hot, pretty unpleasant. It was great playing in this little room sweating it out and there is energy there because we played the songs with energy and gusto not because we tried to create an illusion of it if you know what I mean, that is the beauty of recording in the way that we did. It taxes you very plainly and very honestly. The thing I was happy with when playing back the basic tracks in the studio it sounded like a band playing together.
What inspired the name Porridge & Hotsauce?
Tim put it out there as a thing thinking no one would go for it and I said that was great then we started talking about record covers and what to do. Tim will get up and have some porridge with hot sauce in it. The whole notion of fuel for the day, I don’t know, I don’t want to get to deep in to it because it is a song on the album and Tim’s things. I would like to say that I like the sound of it and the way it lent itself to the cover we ended up doing. It seemed like a fun thing and had a meaning to it.
The fan pack released for the tour is really great, any hints for the songs that will be on the tour seven inch?
Let’s just leave that out of here! It will be cool though… some people will like those experiences above the regular experience. It isn’t easy to do day in day out especially when you’ve got a gig coming up to be pleasant. We try really hard and we do have a lot of fun with it and it is something people do get a kick out of and we’re happy to do it. It is heaps of fun and at the end of the day after sound check you’re knackered, driven all day and played a show the night before the last thing you feel like doing is talking to anybody let alone a bunch people you don’t know too well. Once people come in, it is nice and you get in to the groove of it and it always ends up being fun especially when the venue has our beer on tap. We’ll all have a beer and it is a nice way to ease in to the show.
It must be getting harder and harder to work out a set list for each tour?
Well yeah, that was the beauty of doing the Hifi Daily Double because you didn’t have to write a set list every night because you’re playing two albums. It was ok, I know what I’m doing tonight. We all put our hands for songs and we love to spread it out and there’s always going to be something off Deliverance, Dress Me Slowly, Convicts and Dilettantes. We always love to pull out a mix and if people want to hear Berlin Chair we’ll play it. There will be a lot of the new album and it will be a You Am I set with all our best and worst, maybe a few little curveballs in there.
Will the new album come out on vinyl at some stage?
Yes but I don’t know when, we’ll make the vinyl overseas. The main problem in the world with pressing vinyl records is that demand has outstripped supply because it is such a labour intensive thing as it is a physical process. So, you can only make so many and then you have Record Store Day, the Amazon going out pressing a hundred thousand copies of the Top Gun Soundtrack for reasons best known to themselves it does place pressure on smaller companies. We can put a date on it, just can’t predict it but I would like to think early next year the vinyl will land. It is really hard due to the physical demand for records and some plants are running twenty four seven and they still can’t meet the demand of their clients. It is wacky out there and one of the bittersweet things with the vinyl revival. With all these records being pressed, not necessarily what people want to buy is how it works I guess.
With the success of the Hifi Daily Double tour would you do something with #4 Record?
I don’t know, I doubt it in the short term. That was a lot of fun and those records were really important to people. If someone asked us and there was a way to do it then I would say definitely. Put those two albums together and play a show was lots of fun, which made for a really great night of music but if someone said let’s make a show out of it we would think about it. At the moment we have had our little moment of revision and we’re keen as ever to play new songs. Davey has written a couple of cracking tracks which are up there as some of You Am I’s best songs. There’s a lot of good stuff moving forward that we want to focus on first.
Whether it is rummaging through vinyl at record stores such as Clarity and Title finding hidden gems to scouring the internet to find that album by the next big thing or chasing bands to get that elusive autograph and photo his passion is music all the way.
- Aversions Crown - January 27, 2017
- Sick Of It All - January 19, 2017
- Refused - January 11, 2017
