Sydney’s prodigal sons THE VINES take us through new album Melodia, track by track. For the full interview with Jenny Valentish, get a-hold of the July issue of jmag

Get Out

This opener makes its intention straight from the start as closet metalheads the Vines launch in full-throttle. By the second chorus you’ll be singing along.

Craig: I couldn’t imagine us having a better opening. I’m too stoked. I had to go to hospital because I had too much stokeage.

It’ll be awesome live.

Craig: I hope so. We played it a couple of times in America, it was really fun. Maybe it’ll be our second single. We’re looking forward to playing it more.

Hamish: That one went down amazingly well, especially when they haven’t heard it before. It’s the one that got the best reaction and it’s my favourite one to play.

Manger

Dark, brooding and tumultuous, with a touch of the brats. What were the Vines going for with that?

Craig: It’s like with all the songs — not really going for anything. This song’s quite literal and it’s easy to understand the vibe. It’s just being immature, but maybe, um, supreme.

Ryan: It’s cool because it’s really dark in the verses and in the choruses it just opens up.

Craig: Yeah, it’s kind of a reversal for us, because our rock songs usually go heavy in the chorus with the guitars, but this one… Rob [Schnapf, producer] is really good with guitar sounds. It’s bratty, because I’m a bit of a brat.

I often find with Vines songs I can’t tell what I’m feeling. One minute it’s quite maudlin, then it’s exhilarated.

Craig: There are a lot of emotions through this album, it’s a journey. And ‘Manger’ is the most extreme, darkest place, especially for the words. It’s mental.

You know occasionally it’s hard to hear what you’re saying, is that when you’re saying something really important?

(All laugh)

Craig: I hope so. I hope any of it is important! To me it’s normal. I’m just trying to say fuck it if you don’t like it, all that shit when we were growing up.

But is that when you don’t want something analysed?

Craig: I’m saying: “Burning down the manger / My Lord is a stranger / The Beatles are bigger than Jesus”. That’s the first verse. That’s just saying that the Beatles mean more to me than religion does. Maybe it does to other kids as well and we can spread that message.

A.S. III

Swirly psychedelic number ‘Autumn Shade’ originally popped up on debut album Highly Evolved, followed by sequel Autumn Shade II on 2004’s Winning Days. This version starts and ends with squalling gulls.

He's a Rocker

Stomping first single that came with Justin Kurzel’s rather bizarre (and apparently Stanley Kubrick-influenced) synchronised dance routine video.

Ryan: I hate to say it, but this has always been my favourite. To me this was the most obvious single — it’s so exciting, that track.

Hamish: We haven’t seen the video treatment yet. Maybe we’ll be going to OK Go dance school. (Confused discussion as everyone tries to figure out when over the weekend the shoot is.)

Orange Amber

Craig: Even though we can be immature and evil there can be some goodness there, I think.

Which are the “goodness” songs?

Craig: The ones with the acoustic guitar are usually the good ones! This is a pop song.

Ryan: ‘Orange Amber’ is as sweet as it gets.

Craig: But it’s a really happy song. It’s not the kind of thing we usually do because we want a futuristic sound rather than retro, but it’s nice and simple with clean guitar.

Jamola

A brief foray into Muse mentalness, which abruptly cuts off.

Craig: This is just what it sounds like – a jam. There are no words in it, so it can’t be about anything.

Ryan: It’s about your state of mind.

Hamish: It’s about a minute. If less is more, then nothing’s the most.

Craig: We don’t know what we’re doing. That’s the true genius of it. It’s madness to add to the variety of the album.

Hamish: I think it’s got a bit of a Muse flavour to it.

Craig: It reminds me a bit of the Pixies as well.

The distortion pedals were getting a bit of a workout as well.

Craig: Yeah, we had a whole box of them!

What’s it like in the Vines rehearsal room? Is there somebody who needs to go: “All right, stop arsing around now!”

Ryan: It’s pretty casual. We know what we’re going to do.

Craig: We don’t have to talk a lot about it. We just play and think: yeah, maybe we should do another chorus here.

Hamish: You’d be shocked how organised it can be.

Craig: Yeah, this is just our [hectic] exterior (everyone laughs). I turned into a workaholic after our last tour. Everyone was getting worried.

Hamish: He’s addicted to workahol.

True As The Night

Drowsy, tender acoustic number which everyone who’s had a sneak peek of the album instantly loves.

Hamish: This is the special one, the epic centrepiece. It’s the length of three other songs on the album! It started as two separate songs that were just meant to be together.

Craig: Both songs were in the same 6/8 rhythm, with the same pattern of strumming. It fit together and we put strings on it. Some string players came down when we were in America and it was a really spiritual thing. It’s really sparse and totally pulled back, a contrast to ‘Jamola’! The song is really personal. Like everything on the album the songs have got a reality to them.

Braindead

Shouty number with slinky bass line.

Ryan: ‘Braindead’ seems to be a popular one live.

Craig: People thought that was what the album was called. I like playing that one. ‘Manger’, ‘Braindead’ and ‘Scream’ are all full of aggression, but it doesn’t mean I’m always angry. There are ballads on there as well, it’s just all a release.

Hamish: I always find some comfort in angry songs, whereas I can get really annoyed by sappy love songs. When I was a kid I’d come home, and if I’d had a really shit day, I’d listen to heavy metal and it would cheer me up hearing about someone who was having a worse time than me.

Craig: That’s weird, yeah. Like I was fucking blasting Tomahawk last night and there’s something good about it. We’re just metalheads. That’s what it comes down to. The lyrics don’t mean anything! (Laughter)

Are you still the only lyric writer?

Craig: For this album, yeah.

Where do you write — can you write on tour?

Craig: Rarely. We really haven’t toured so much the last couple of years, but yeah I sit around at home. The other night I was playing guitar in front of the TV and I thought I haven’t done that for a while. Usually I sit on the bed and work on songs. We already started writing songs for the next album.

Kara Jayne

This one wears its heart on its sleeve. A quick internet search for Kara Jayne produced a UK dominatrix school girl website… but hey, it’s probably about KJ from the Follow.

Craig: Yeah, yeah that’s probably more likely.

Hamish: You never told me your girlfriend was a dominatrix! That’s pretty cool!

Craig: She won’t let me use the phone so I couldn’t tell you. I like it because it’s got no drums in it (everybody laughs). No, no, I didn’t mean it like that!

Hamish: That’s cool – I’ll just go and get a beer!

Craig: No, Andy [Kelly, manager] was saying that’s the one where you can pack the sandwiches on the bus when we’re on tour. Rob suggested that the drums come in just for the outro. It really pays off at the end.

This has prompted a massive long thread on the Vines forum about your love life now, of course.

Craig: Really? Well it would be nice for my personal life to get more media attention (laughter). It would be good for the band. And I have feelings as well!

MerryGoRound

Craig: The record company in America really liked this one, which I found extremely intriguing.

Hamish: It’s because it’s got a big riff in it.

The riff’s quite ‘Helter Skelter’.

All: Yeah.

Craig: Where the bass player sounds like a disgruntled pig.

You get loads of bass hero moments on this album, Brad.

Ryan: He lets you know about it, too!

Hamish: He just leaned on the mixing board with his elbow.

Craig: That’s your trick! But seriously, this bass player’s seriously fucking cool. He doesn’t say much.

He doesn’t have to.

Craig: He could probably get away with acting a bit tougher.

Hey

Okay, ‘Hey’.

Craig: Hi. Yeah, it’s another pop-rock song, sounds the same as the rest of them. No, it’s a different melody, it’s got different words. It sounds like it’s gonna end positive, but then it goes straight back to hell.

A Girl I Knew

The harmony-heavy, heartbreaking moment.

Craig: Again there’s not a lot on it — just plucking acoustic guitar — but I really like the arrangement on it.

Hamish: When I first heard you play that song I thought it was the most personal song I’ve heard you do, because straight away I knew what it was about.

What’s it about?

Hamish: It’s about a girl he knew.

Craig: Quite the contrary. Fuck, there’s more truth in ‘Orange Amber’!

Scream

Hamish: Short, angry loud.

Craig: We’re not trying to do anything tricky. It’s a big fuck you to whatever you feel that day.

Brad: The first time we did ‘Scream’ it was really fast, like a real punk song.

Ryan: A sand-in-your-teeth punk song.

Craig: On the demo there was this really demented vocal part, which was out of this TV show called Red Dwarf. It was really funny but it was a bit too much I think. It was a couple of quotes, but one of the engineers said, “You guys know it, but other people might not.” So we didn’t put it in. It was something Rimmer said to Lister, but it was Evil Rimmer. There was one ship where they were all really good and one where they were all really bad. He had a holo-whip and he said he was going to lash Rimmer to within an inch of his life. And there was some other stuff that was going to happen. (Laughter.) It was really sick. I just like the show and it kind of fit the mood of it. There was another episode where Rimmer loses it and he’s wearing a gingham red dress. He says, “If there’s one thing I can’t stand it’s crazy people.” But we thought it may offend people. Some people who listen to our albums are older than you think!

She is Gone

Craig: We really liked the groove on that one. In the studio Hamish was throwing in these crazy fills because we were recording it for about seven minutes before we cut it down.

It seemed like a weird one to end on.

Craig: It did? Well it’s like a big wall of sound. I like the fact that it just ends like that.

Hamish: Originally it was a much shorter song and then we put a much longer outro on it.

Craig: What would be your last song on the album? ‘Get Out’?

Yeah, start and end! Something that slams your head against the wall on the last note.

Craig: That’s what happens with ‘Get Out’. You get your head slammed for a while and then we try and make some sense to prove that we have some sense of musicianship.

Hamish: Compassion!

When you’re recording an album do you ever try imagining how your fans would feel?

Craig: I thought one time it would be cool to listen to it on the headphones; I used to do that. And I listened to our latest one like that to check that it was okay.

But are you picturing whether they’re going to LIKE this song?

Craig: (Pause) I reckon they’ll really dig it if they like our other albums. We’re not trying to do anything tricky.

You told the Brekkie team on triple j last year that you’re going to put out an album a year from now on.

Craig: Yeah I know, I’m sorry about that! Really I intended on doing that, but everyone else was saying, “Are you joking?” I was believing it. I’ve already got half a dozen new songs and I’ve told the other guys but I don’t want to overload them when we’ve got this album coming out.

What about an acoustic collection?

Craig: I was thinking all rock songs, producing our own lo-fi recording. As corny as it sounds, music saves people. That’s what it was always about. That’s what the attraction was — listening to albums and also making music.

Get the July issue of jmag to read the full interview with the Vines