Guitar noise, non-standard tunings, pop. All words that describe Melbourne three piece, Sandpit. They have supported the likes of Pavement, Catpower, recently the Superjesus and have just released an album after two EPs. On Wednesday, the 7th of January in a Camberwell pizza restaurant, I spoke with vocalist & guitarist Brendan about the album, his musical background, side projects and much more...

Where did your musical background begin?
I started playing guitar at the end of high school, because my parents told me that I wasn't allowed to play drums, I just started to get into punk & alternative type styles of music. I got into the whole American guitar thing around 1990 to 92. Then I moved to the city and everything changed, I started playing in a band and started to hear lots of different kinds of things basically just because there was more radio and lots of others that were into good music as well, as opposed to only having a handful of people that were only into a certain genre in the country.

Who have been big role models and influences for you?
Initially, obviously, Sonic Youth but I guess that is a band that always got me excited about music.

Any particular member of Sonic Youth?
Most probably the two front guys, Thurston and Lee, mainly because of their guitar playing and their guitar ideas and the way they wanted to play their instruments, instead being technically brilliant they created something new out of something so old. I guess some of my first favourite bands were Sonic Youth, Mudhoney and even Soundgarden back ages ago. A lot of that Seattle stuff I started out with.

Adam Yee, who I was corresponding with before Fellaheen or anything, actually sent me this tape of all these bands like Beat Happening, Polvo and all this different cool shit. As soon as I heard Polvo I guess the guitar playing was very influential.

Now-a-days I don't know what I am into specifically and what is influencing me, maybe the whole Thrill Jockey thing is probably having some kind of influence on me like Tortoise and Sea & Cake all that stuff.

So what are you listening to at the moment?
Well at work, Corduroy Records, I am listening to Neil Young, Beach Boys, Nancy Sinatra, Lee Hazelwood etc but at home I am probably listening to stuff like Sea & Cake. I am liking bands like Stereolab, Smog, there is lots of good stuff coming out. I like a lot of Chicago stuff, it is very popular and "cool" at the moment but I don't care, I like it.

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How did Sandpit come together?
Sandpit started from the first day that I moved from the country in Benalla to Melbourne, I had an audition with the band Stephanie was in and got into that band and eventually that band dispensed with one of the guitarists that was playing with us. Eventually the original drummer that was playing with us left and then Paul joined, that is when Sandpit started basically, that is when we started writing most of the songs on the EPs.

What is the arrangement with Greg Wales on drums?
Greg moved to Sydney just after Paul left the band and I think he was just going to fill in for a couple of shows and eventually we just asked him if he wanted to play with us before he went back to America. There is no specific arrangement or agreement or anything he just basically said to us he will play with us until he leaves, as long as he can fit in his producing and engineering engagements.

Has he given the band any artist direction?
Definitely in the writing process, he is always contributing and suggesting things which is really good, it is really different to have someone else in the band who is quite confident and quite experienced in producing and making music grow and work, which is really good to have someone with a different perspective as well, from the drummers stool. Stephanie and I have been playing together for how many years now, and trying to create songs together, it is good to have someone else saying "why don't you do this" or "why don't you do that".

Have you got a new drummer lined up?
I have got a couple of phone numbers in my pocket but I haven't got anyone lined up.

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Is this your first band?
Not technically I played in a, I don't know how you would describe it, probably some kind of skate-thrash band in the country with a couple of friends of mine. We used to just write these fast songs about stupid shit we would do all the time like burning action figures in my friends backyard and just stuff like that. That was probably the first band I was in but we were just in high school, playing covers and a made a couple of our own songs, played a couple of times at the local youth lounge and that was about it.

Very different to what your are doing now?
Oh yeah, vastly different, it was just stupid fun, trying to be as a loud and as distorted as we could be. We wanted to be Mudhoney playing Cosmic Psychos rock.

How does your solo project BL Stryker differ from Sandpit?
I guess solo stuff is a bit more personal. I guess there is a certain ideology based around Sandpit and there is certain kind of sound. Stephanie and I kind of have an idea what we want to do in the band and I guess the songs that I write that do end up being BL Stryker songs are songs that maybe don't suit that ideology.

So do you just perform playing guitar and singing?
Yeah but then it doesn't necessarily have just to be me playing guitar and singing these sombre melancholy tunes cause I have done shows with a keyboard player, shows with a violinist and I plan to do some more gigs with a full band as well. I guess it is just different music, it is a lot quieter, a bit easier to listen to, maybe I am just getting old.

Is that your only other side project?
Not really I suppose, I play drums for three other things but they are only every-once-in-a-while kind of stuff like I play in a band called Mandrille which is this guy called Tom, and I would describe that as cross between Jandek and Jad Fair. Tom plays the songs that he wrote from when was five up until now and most them are nursery rhyme kind of songs and he doesn't play guitar properly. I guess it is more art than rock but it is fun, it so shit as Tom would say.

I also play a little bit with my friend Guy Blackman who is in Sleepy Township, I play drums for him sometimes and we usually doing this thing BL Stryker verses Riot Guy, he plays some songs by himself or with me on drums and sometimes I help by guitaring or sing happy backing vocals, then we will swap over and I play guitar & sing and he will play drums or keyboards.

There is another thing that I have been doing with my friend John, who plays bass in Sci-Fi, where I just play drums and he plays guitar and it is just an instrumental kind of thing, we want to do more in the future maybe ... I guess it is more a studio thing than a band. Really it is just fun and friends doing stuff that we can't do in our other bands.

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How does a song come together?
Usually I come up with a few ideas at home by myself, I play them to Stephanie & Greg and we just work them out from there, they end up changing, getting different dynamics and everything but most often they stem from a riff, or a tune or a whole song that I have made up. Yet there has been times where Stephanie and I have sat down to practice, like at home, and we will make stuff up on the spot as well, it just depends, but most of the stuff is usually generated around an idea that I had.

So would you start with the title or the melody?
Usually the guitar part, the melody, and then add lyrics to that.

Do you do any covers at all?
Some but I never ever wanted to be in a cover band, so I have always not bothered to learn other people's songs but we cover a Codeine song sometimes and we have done this "Elevator To Hell" song a couple of times. I have actually been thinking about doing a cover maybe even by myself of "Make It Easy On Yourself" … I think the Carpenters do a version of it, but other than those two songs that is pretty much all we have bothered to cover. I was going to try to learn a Smog song at some stage but I don't really like idea of playing other people's music I would rather make up something new on my own.

You seem to experiment a lot with different guitar tunings?
That only comes with being frustrated with standard guitar tunings and only being able to create so many sounds from that tuning. I find if I wind the pegs around a bit from that tuning I can create more newer kind of sounds as opposed to the traditional ones. Everyone knows what a guitar sounds like, I just want to play it so it doesn't sound like that.

Are you a big pedal fun?
No, I remember reading an interview with Sonic Youth like about 4 or 5 years ago and Thurston Moore was saying how he only used distortion pedals and I don't only use distortion pedals because of that reason but I can understand where he is coming from, seeing that stomping on a pedal is like letting a computer do something for you, it is like taking an easy option. I would rather be forced to use my hands to make a different sound rather than having a pedal that does it for me.

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Your live sets seem more poppy these days, is this an indication of the album?
I am just thinking what the songs on the record are like ... well I guess Greg is very much a pop kind of drummer, he really likes pop music a lot and I really like pop music a lot too. I don't think it is a conscious effort to make all these pop songs, I think it is just maybe having Greg on the drums makes for more an "up" kind of vibe. I guess probably 60 or 70 percent of the record will probably be pop songs but then there will be some quieter stuff as well.

Did you approach the production and recording differently to the first two EPs?
Well I guess the recording process has been pretty much very similar to what we did in the EPs as far as how went about tracking the thing, the only difference is that Greg has been playing on drums now as well as being behind the desk. In the studio we had Matt Maddock assisting us, he did the Midget album and a few other things.

We recorded at Hothouse in St Kilda this time instead of going to Charing Cross in Sydney where we recorded the first two EPs but basically they are recorded on the same kind of desk, an old 70s Neve 24 track valve desk.

It is very similar, Greg is producing, Stephanie and I have written all of the songs and I guess the only difference is recording in a different studio and maybe having Matt Maddock to help us out with a few different technical things. He is really good with microphones and just putting sounds down to tape and all the technical side of it.

Do you experiment with anything you wouldn't be able to produce live?
Yeah I guess in the studio you always have a slightly different approach to what it is in a live situation, you can do so much more, you can put loads of overdubs on things if you want to but I guess it comes down to trying to keep your head on while your are in the studio.

I get scarred that things are going to end up coming out a lot differently from the original idea so you have to remain pretty conscious about what is going down to tape and whether putting an overdub on there or some extra instruments is a good idea or whether it is adding a little too extra.

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What has been the best Sandpit gig for you and for what reasons?
I really enjoyed the launch for our first EP that was really good and I had a lot of fun. I guess the launches in Melbourne for the first two EPs were really good, really great crowds, but then at the same time there has probably been other shows like getting to play with Pavement was good and getting to support some bands that we like from America was really good.

What bands do you enjoy playing with?
I guess bands that inspire me, bands that I am intimidated by because I think they play better music than I do. I really like playing shows with bands like Gerling, Sleepy Township, 99 and all that kind of lower profile stuff.

You put on the 'Short Attention Span' gigs in October last year how did they go?
I think all the bands that were involved had a really great time and from what I gather a lot of the people that came to the shows had a good time as well, got to see a lot bands they liked all in one night. We didn't make quite as much money as we would of liked to but then at the same time that wasn't the whole point of the exercise, the whole point of it was to promote bands that weren't getting as big as push from promoters as what I thought they should and I just wanted to put on a show, that had a whole bunch bands that I thought were incredible and worthy of exposure.

I was conscious of the fact that there wasn't many all ages being put on since the collapse of Scenestar and all that stuff and I was thinking that I really wanted to do something that was different and provide entertainment for people.

Do you think guitar rock will ever have its day?
I think it has had its day but then at the same time techno is having its day as well and I am sure Prodigy and Chemical Bros will have their day pretty soon as well too soon. Music in general is pretty frustrating really because everything seems to have been done before and it is the more experimental bands which are being ignored by JJJ, Rolling Stone etc and maybe it is time for the experimental wave.

Do you think music will come full circle and rock will have its day again?
I guess certain genres, like most genres, will exist forever it is just a matter of whether people will pick them up again, like 70s disco could come back again.

What video clips have you done?
A friend of ours brought a video camera to a show that we did once and made it into the 'Die 501' video that is kind of embarrassing in some ways and just because it is kind of pretty crappy and average but that is not a reflection on Chris Peaks work, it is just what we do with what we have at the time and Chris also did a video for 'Drawing Straws' which took place in my old bedroom just on Super 8 camera, we didn't know what to do, Chris just turned up and said "all right we are making a video" and we made in an afternoon and we didn't know what we were doing.

Just recently Toby, who used to be in Something To Kate, took some 16 mil footage of me mowing the lawns and doing some household chores for the new single that is coming out.

Is making music the most important thing in your life?
I don't know it is hard to say like I am obviously focused on it to a degree. I guess I want to get to the end of my life and feel I have achieved all the things I wanted to do and being in a band and making music is one of those things but probably not the most important.

   By Matt Attlee