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White Denim Corsicana Lemonade (Downtown)
They transcend their influences.
q&A DIY’s Joe Greenwood takes a visit to James Petralli’s lemonade stand.
When writing Nick Cave goes into an office and writes from 9 to 5, basically treating it like a full time job. What’s your process like? I’d love to be able to do it how he does, but I just can’t. Not because I wouldn’t want to, that sounds perfect, but because my wife and I recently had a kid so the writing time I have to myself
White Denim’s journey has seen them travel from sleazy, sloppy garage rock basements through to the marbled bathrooms of 70s Americana. ‘Corsicana Lemonade’ is another chance to play spot the influence – there’s boogie rock, soft rock ballads and nods towards blues and country, there’s even Thin Lizzy glam rock. But all this crate digging investigation ultimately proves fruitless as White Denim transcend all these influences to create something that is simply them. Looking at it from afar, ‘Corsicana Lemonade’ can be seen simply as an impeccably crafted 70s album, but that underestimates the way White Denim can take the familiar and make it feel new, charge it up and make it something special. It’s time to go back to the future. (Danny Wright) LISTEN: ‘Come Back’
hasn’t been quite as available. I tend to write for a couple hours at home, but most of the heavy lifting is done in the studio. Ideally I work in there for about 5 hours at a time, and what I went in with as an idea has completely gone and something new and, to me, has come out better. Is there anything else that inspires your prolific output? Is it mostly just a desire to be in the studio as much as possible? The studio part of it is a big thing for me, because that’s the time when
I’m happiest. There’s no point just hoarding this stuff, we really just love putting it out there and getting feedback on it as soon as possible. We like to keep it fresh for the fans as well as us. Also it just allows us to keep our head above the noise. So many bands, particularly after doing their first album, can get left behind if they don’t produce something right away. But if you’re constantly producing you don’t have to worry about that. And also when you get new fans it gives them a nice back catalogue to dip into. DIY
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