s tr u n g o u t
AGeNTS oF oLD SCHooL PuNK After a three year break, Strung Out re-entered the studio with a new producer and a new outlook on how to record. Sean Frazer spoke with guitarist Jake Kiley as he prepares for the band’s upcoming Australian tour.
What’s changed in the three years since releasing Blackhawks Over Los Angeles? This time around we just went into the studio and recorded the songs without producing them too much, we didn’t want to spend much time re-thinking the songs. The songs we wrote for the album before we hit the studio, came out sounding almost exactly the same when recorded. It was a really straight forward direct album. How long did you guys spend tracking your latest album Agents of the Underground. We probably did about a month of rehearsing songs with our producer, Cameron Webb, and then probably another two to three weeks was spent recording the tracks. Together, the process took about six weeks. How did Cameron Webb’s help the record? He was able to help us get back to straight forward writing — we felt we had lost touch of it for some time. Our last few records were
produced by Matt Hyde — we spent a lot of time doing pre-production and arranging songs. I’m sure it helped us at the time but I believe it took away the intensity of our tracks. Cameron pulled us back to basics a little. What inspired the new album? We just wanted to keep playing shows with a new batch of songs. We were trying to capture everything we had done in the past but in the process improve our playing ability by trying some new things. I think overall it’s quite a consistent record — it’s a little shorter than previous ones with only eleven tracks, but it still feels pretty complete to me. How do you feel Agents of the Underground has been received by your earliest fans? The reaction so far seems to be good. People that I talk to after our shows have told me that it is one of their favourite albums that we’ve produced so far… so, so far, so good!
Strung Out has been with Fat Wreck Chords for 18 years now. What has kept you there? Fat Wreck Chords have given us full control of our records, they let us pick the songs on our albums and they don’t interfere in the writing process. They don’t tell us, for example, “You guys need more pop songs” or anything like that. Along with respect that they have for us, they also give us a good budget to work with. How do you feel about those that say “oldschool punk is dead”? Well, I don’t really know what kids want to do these days. I feel totally out-casted from your regular twenty-year-old kid that is listening to the Top 40 and hanging out at the mall going through the latest “fashion phase”. It’s good to see that not all people out there are doing that though. There is enough of them that still go to Bad Religion, The Descendants and NoFX shows. Our shows have been doing really well, we’re just glad that there is still plenty of
old school punk fans turning up to venues dedicated and supportive of bands like us. They’re keeping it alive. I read that you guys had your van stolen a few years back while on tour, what’s the story behind that? We were in Philadelphia and we parked our van at this crappy hotel — we had been driving all night and we were really tired. We left our van and headed off to our rooms meanwhile, someone saw the van driving out of the parking lot. We lost all our gear and had to borrow amps, guitars and drum kits from other bands that we were on tour with. It wasn’t the greatest moment for our band I can assure you [laughs]. Agents of the Underground is out now through Fat Wreck Chords. Strung Out and special guest, The Loved Ones, play The Cambridge Hotel in Newcastle, Wednesday, June 16, and the Coolangatta Hotel on Friday, June 18.
reverb maga z ine iss u e # 0 4 7 — j u ne 2 0 1 0
17