20 Years After Their Debut, The Avalanches Have Perfected The Art Of Finishing An Album
"It's only because we were absent for so long that ['Since I Left You'] became a myth."
If someone had told Steve Pavlovic, founder of Modular Records, that The Avalanches would be releasing their third studio album in 2020, he would have laughed. And then he would have cried.
Because having waited more than 15 years for the group to follow up their seminal, untouchable debut Since I Left You, the fact We Will Always Love You even exists is both a blessing and as statistically unlikely as Halley’s Comet hitting Earth.
And yet here we are. Boasting a list of collaborators that could fill a Lollapalooza poster, The Avalanches have again spliced music from their seemingly limitless record collection with their own in sounds from the way out.
And for a band whose own chaotic shadow has plagued them since inception the record is an utter joy to listen to, brimming with exuberant optimism and awe for the world around them. Simply put, this is not a record for these times and that’s exactly what makes it so vital.
Speaking to Music Junkee on the eve of its release, Robbie Chater and Tony (Pepperoni) Di Blasi make for two nervous bedfellows, eager to hear what the world will make of their next immaculate musical collage.
Music Junkee: Your album is out tomorrow! How are you feeling?
Robbie: Pretty reflective actually. It’s weird timing because it’s coming out just as Since I Left You turns 20, so it’s a really emotional time. Normally we’d be doing shows ahead of a release and this year everything’s different. We’re at home. Our first record has just turned 20 and we’re still making music all these years later. It’s all pretty amazing.
Music Junkee: Surely you would have been more nervous before Wildflower came out because it was your comeback. Were you wondering whether people were going to embrace it or just write you off completely?
Tony: With Wildflower, it was a victory just getting it out. It almost didn’t get done so many times, so I didn’t really care how people perceived it. just having it out in the wild was enough for me.
Music Junkee: But it must have been nice when it was released to find out that people were still interested in what you were creating…
Robbie: Yeah. But that has always surprised me. I was surprised about everything that happened with Since I Left You as well, so it’s always been a fucking trip.
After Wildflower came out, I remember we had some shows early on, there was one in L.A. It was quite a big show and we hadn’t played in America for 16 fucking years or something and we thought, who’s going to come? Will it just be people that know the first record and will it be an older crowd, like a nostalgia thing? And then we walked out on stage and all we could see was kids, 18 and 20 year olds and all they knew was Wildflower. And it was like, wow, this is really cool.
Music Junkee: Well, Wildflower does have one the best songs you’ve ever produced in ‘If I Was A Folkstar’…
Tony: It’s an amazing song. It didn’t get the reward that it deserved…
Robbie: It should’ve been a single and it would’ve been nice to have a video for it. But we had to put it in our live show because everybody kept asking us about it.
Tony: And I had to sing it!
Music Junkee: Have you thought about how We Will Always Love You is going to translate live now that your list of collaborative vocalists has grown again?
Robbie: Well there’s a million different ways we could do it, but the idea at the moment is to bring it back to the art form of sampling where we started.
We want it to be a celebratory experience and not to be too intellectual, but it will be nice if people could see us deconstructing the songs, putting them back together and almost revealing the elements that went into making them.
Music Junkee: Or you go down the Soulwax route and just club-mix everything and run the gig as one big mashup…
Robbie: Well the other reason I say that is because the previous tour was a live band and we grew up as punk kids playing in bands, so that’s very familiar to us.
Music Junkee: What about DJing? As well as touring We Will Always Love You as an album are there any plans to get back in the booth?
Robbie: Yep. I mean, we fucking love that and I live for those nights. I might be in Tokyo playing in a small bar for 100 people and I don’t know if I’m ever happier than when I’m doing that.
Music Junkee: And of course a lot of people don’t know you as Tony Di Blasi, you’re the infamous Tony Pepperoni who used to DJ Third Class and Chinese Laundry with the Bang Gang Crew.
Tony: Those were some wild times.
Robbie: But Tony can you remember anything? [Laughs]
Tony: I don’t remember much. I do remember when they had all the little cardboard homes in the back of Third Class. God that was so fucked up, I just thought about that now. Michael Delany is insane, a glorious madman, but that’s a whole different story.
Music Junkee: The stuff that went on in those cardboard homes probably isn’t meant for public consumption.
Tony: Yeah if those cardboard homes could talk…
Music Junkee: Well in terms of DJing together, your set at Splendour in the Grass in 2006 has become folklore…
Robbie: Yeah, I think that was the night we played Bon Jovi. That was fun.
Music Junkee: And the tracklisting of your albums must help you DJ, it’s like some songs exist just to set up another song, almost like how a comedian uses a setup and then the punchline. ‘Song For Barbara Payton’ sounds like its entire purpose is to be a prelude to ‘We Will Always Love You’…
Tony: That’s exactly what it is! Some songs are there purely to make the one after it sound better.
Robbie: Our songs have little buddies. Tony always talks about our songs needing a friend. And we’ve been doing that forever, because sometimes in isolation they don’t sound as strong.
I remember when Since I Left You had come out of England and the label over there were excited and wanted to do the record label thing and put out songs and we’re like, “Yeah, but they don’t work like that…they need the set up.”
Music Junkee: Otherworldliness seems to be the consistent theme of We Will Always Love You. It’s quite escapist. Do you find yourself consciously steering away from writing songs that are too personal?
Robbie: It’s funny because I know what you mean, but they’re all still personal expressions to us. They all come from a real place inside of us and they just end up as these abstract journeys because we’re using samples of music from all over the place.
We want to express something greater and bigger so that it takes you out of the everyday, but they’re still reflecting back on the pain and the reality of everyday, just without referencing any particular points like Trump’s bad or something about COVID. It is a form of just escapism like you said, but we have to deal with this shit every day, so why not take it somewhere else musically?
Tony: We definitely try to take it into something bigger and more beautiful.
Robbie: And all my favourite urite music does that, whether it’s My Bloody Valentine or The Beach Boys. It elevates you.
Music Junkee: It’s interesting you mention those two artists because both of them have this mythology surrounding their work. Whether it’s the lost and then found again Smile album or the fact mbv came out 21 years after Loveless whereas you guys only took a mere 16 to follow up Since I Left You. You also had that mythology surrounding your band.
Up until Wildflower came out, if you googled The Avalanches you looked like ’90s hoodlums in your press shots and I think people started to wonder if you ever even existed. Now all of a sudden you have two albums in four years and you’re a real band again. Does it bother you at all that your mythology has changed?
Robbie: Well there’s so much to think about in what you just said. We were hood rats, we were working class punk kids and we didn’t come from money so in the late ’90s we were just playing in pubs until Since I Left You blew up.
Sometimes I wonder about the whole mythology of Since I Left You and all those years in between and think, “What if we followed it up with an album in 2003?” I mean, it’s only because we were absent for so long that it became a myth. I know it’s a great record, but it’s interesting to think what would happen if we followed it up quickly…
Sometimes I wonder about the whole mythology of Since I Left You and all those years in between and think, “What if we followed it up with an album in 2003?”
Tony: We definitely wanted Wildflower to have that same mythology. But when we were beginning on this new record, we just wanted to be a regular, working band and put out records. It was a tough journey to be on your own making sample based records for years and years at a time. I mean we would get together every so often, but it was an incredibly lonely time.
And then Wildflower came out and we were playing live and it was so much fun. So this time around we just told ourselves to keep having that fun, who knows how long we’re going to be around for, so let’s just get the most out of our lives and stop worrying about everything.
Music Junkee: You finally perfected the art of finishing an album.
Robbie: That’s exactly what we did. It’s a nice way to put it. And like Tony said the ethos behind that is that life is fucking short, so let’s live life, let’s tour, let’s play shows, let’s put out records.
Music Junkee: Surely your confidence in releasing this album was affected by how well received Wildflower was by the wider music community…
Tony: Yeah, it was just us learning to let go and I think with Wildflower we were frightened of what the world was going to think of the songs so it was a process of not being in our own heads so much.
Music Junkee: Is that ethos also influenced by a desire to make up for lost time? It must have been difficult going from Modular’s golden boys after Since I Left You to sitting on the sidelines whilst The Presets, Cut Copy, Midnight Juggernauts came and took the spotlight.
Robbie: You know it’s funny because that all seemed very Sydney, very decadent, but we’re in Melbourne and we were different. I was burnt out from Since I Left You, I just wanted some quiet time and also back then the way records were released, it was pre-internet so Since I Left You wasn’t released in America until 2003 so the tour just went on forever.
That all seemed very Sydney, very decadent, but we’re in Melbourne and we were different.
After all that I just landed. I was gardening, I was at home and Tony would be up in Sydney, DJing there and at the Third Class and that whole scene was going on and it was almost like another world. I was almost like, disconnected from him and that was the beginning of when we stepped back from things. I don’t know, how do you see it Tony?
Tony: Yeah, I went through that whole Bang Gang party scene but it wasn’t until I stopped doing that, that I think we really focused on, “Okay, let’s try and get this record together.” And I did the same thing, I just stopped going out to the clubs and we really knuckled down and went “Shit. We have to put something together, it’s been 10 years.”
Music Junkee: And a lot happened in your absence. I remember seeing Jonti performing a Since I Left You tribute for the Melbourne Festival in 2014 and while it was a beautiful gig, it was almost like they were eulogising you before you were dead.
Tony: It’s funny you say that. It was like having a tribute band when the band was still going, which is strange if you think about it.
Robbie: We got told it was happening and we were like cool, I mean that’s really lovely and the intention behind it was really sweet, but it was strange at the same time. I guess it made us reflect on ourselves like, “Jeez, we need to put more fucking music out.”
Music Junkee: Well the list of collaborators on this album is borderline braggadocious. But there is a common thread. From the track you did with Jonathan Donahue from Mercury Rev on Wildflower to MGMT, Wayne Coyne from The Flaming Lips and Kurt Vile on this record; you are obviously attracted to the brilliant psychedelic weirdos of the world…
Robbie: They are these country-tinged dudes who link back to some of the music we love like The Band. That’s what it is. But Jonathan, that’s one of my all time favourite collaborations.
Honestly, we just open up in the beginning, talk about what we’re exploring with the record and some people will just go, “I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about, maybe we should work together on your next album or see ya later or whatever” and then occasionally someone like Kurt or Wayne will be like, “I get it, let’s try something.”
Some people will just go, “I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about, maybe we should work together on your next album or see ya later or whatever”.
And then it’s all about building trust on both sides. Do they trust us as collage artists? They have to know that maybe we will cut up what they do, so there has to be a lot of faith on both sides to interpret the things we’re exploring. With Kurt it just ended up being a wonderful experience because he still keeps in touch and he’s just such a sweet guy and I always listen to his music anyway. Remember Tony when we were mixing ‘Gold Sky’?
Tony: I remember when I first heard it and Robbie’s like, “What do you think of his vocals?” Because it’s obviously quite different and rambling for an Avalanches track and I was just like “Play it again.”
We played it again and I was like, “This is the best thing I’ve ever heard.” It’s maybe my favourite song on the record and Kurt’s performance is maybe my favourite performance. It’s just so cool. Lyrically, musically, everything, it’s just amazing. I think Robbie ended up taking a video of me saying, “Kurt, this is incredible” to send to him and he’s like, “Yes.”
Music Junkee: Sho is the Jane’s Addiction fan because I can’t believe you made a song and said “You know who we need on this? The guy that made Ritual de lo Habitual.”
Robbie: We both love Jane’s Addiction. We used to get stoned and listen to Jane’s Addiction back in the ’90s.
Perry was a totally inspiring free-spirit like Jonathan or Kurt. Working with him was a dream come true. He welcomed us into his home and we had dinner with his wife and his kids, talking about life and how fucked up Trump is and then we worked a bit in his studio downstairs just eating more and hanging out. The time he spent with us was amazing, he’s not one of these people who just wants to get paid and email you a vocal or whatever.
So we spent the whole day at his house and even after we ate and recorded the session we just sat there and spoke for two hours. He was showing us around the house and he’s got all this art from the Lollapalooza years, because they used to have galleries there and he used to just buy it all.
Tony: I was having a piss and there’s a Banksy in his toilet. I think he has four Banksys and you think to yourself, “This is next level shit.”
Music Junkee: But how can you be surprised? You specifically went for next level shit on this album. You got Mick Jones from The Clash singing a sample from The Carpenters. How do you even think to do that?
Robbie: I really don’t know (laughs). We just love his music, The Clash of course they’re iconic, but Big Audio Dynamite was some of the first sampling I heard when I was in high school and I was just intrigued by how a record like that was made. So that’s part of our musical DNA and then it’s beautiful with Karen (Carpenter) singing, it’s so sad but heartwarming at the same time.
Tony: It’s almost like a counter balance between how beautiful Karen’s voice is too and there’s a certain purity with her and then there’s this roughness and rebelliousness with Mick.
Music Junkee: She’s so melancholic.
Robbie: She is yeah.
Music Junkee: Speaking of melancholy, ‘Reflecting Light’ is probably my favourite on the album.
Robbie: Oh my god! It’s our favourite too!
Tony: Yeah it’s a killer.
Music Junkee: I love how you use Sananda and Vashti’s voices together, Sananda’s live vocal and a sample of Bunyan’s ‘Glow Worms’, existing together despite being from completely different worlds and eras. That is an encapsulation of the whole album.
Robbie: It was really moving putting it together because there’s her history and he has his own previous identity and life and they’re coming together on one of our records. And I didn’t realise that she had her own falling out with the music industry in the same way that he did and then they both ended up singing on a song together.
It’s a bit like the Karen Carpenter song where the weight of her story and personal life is on the track and there’s meaning in that as well as it being a new song. So it’s like playing with time, all of this is just floating around and it’s our job to join the dots somehow. it’s an incredible feeling.
Music Junkee: That’s the beauty of being collage artists, you’re constantly re-contextualising art. I wonder what Karen Carpenter would think about Mick singing ‘Hurting Each Other’…
Tony: Sometimes we wonder the same thing.
Music Junkee: But you go from something as emotional as that to a song like ‘Music Make Me High’, which is so accessible it sounds like it could have been produced by Pharrell Williams. It makes me wonder whether you were conscious in your move away from doing anything too weird. There’s no ‘Frontier Psychiatrist’ weirdness on this record. Where have the talking parrots gone?
Robbie: ‘We Go On’ is as close as we get and we always need a bit of a cuckoo moment, ‘The Noisy Eater’ and even ‘Frankie Sinatra’ (laughs) actually Wildflower had a lot of insane moments. This one has definitely got a lot less crazy in there. It’s probably a reflection of our mental state as well. I guess we’re older and wiser now.
Music Junkee: So with this newfound wisdom, if you could both go back to 2001 after Since I Left You was released, what would you say to each other?
Tony: I would say to Robbie, “Let’s make another record… Right now!” (laughs)
Robbie: You would say, “You know those ten songs you made right after Since I Left You that were really good? Let’s just put them out, instead of putting them on a CD and then hiding them in a cupboard for fifteen years.” (laughs)
Tony: Yep. And four of them ended up coming out about 16 years later. So they were pretty good!
We Will Always Love You is out now via EMI Australia.
Chris Lewis is a writer and critic based in Melbourne. He is on Twitter.