Sink Or Swim Interview

Sink Or Swim are a hardcore band from Byron Bay that formed only a few years ago, but have quickly made a name for themselves. After releasing a great little demo in 2008, Sink Or Swim set out to begin writing their debut release, the powerful ten-track EP Polaroids. Sink Or Swim's vocalist, Dane Evans, who also plays guitar in Byron Bay mosh band Crime Scene, answered a few questions about the history of the band and the process of making Polaroids.

I thought we could start by talking about your upcoming record, 'Polaroids'. How long have you been working at it, and how was the writing and recording experience for the band?

We put out a demo of 5 songs mid 2008 recorded by Dan Brown, and at the time of that recording we were still writing songs, but didn't want to put out more than 5 on just a demo quality cd. And we had decided that we didn't want to be one of those bands that puts out like 5 demo's and then just re-records every song they've ever written in a good studio and calls it their first album. So basically, we wrote for the second half of 2008 for the album, and writing was a breeze, surprisingly. Everyone would come to practice with all these ideas. Eli and Guy (our guitarists) would come with pretty much a new song every week, and when we finished the basics of the 10 songs, we would write different little bits and pieces to add to the songs and play them over and over until they sounded finished to us. And I would come with a new song (lyrically) almost every practice. So there was definitely no writers block on anyone’s part. Recording was great too, because we worked with Dan again, so he knew the sound we wanted. One amazing thing about Dan is, not only is he great at recording, but he is a great producer as well. When he records a song, you can always see his mind ticking, and he always hears things that you could add to the song or change to make it sound better. I don't think the songs would have sounded the way they do without his creative input.


How about your musical history? When did you start getting into music, the Byron Bay hardcore community, and your bands Sink or Swim and Crime Scene?

I've been into music ever since I can remember. I was raised in a music loving household. My brother and dad always had an acoustic guitar lying around, and my brother especially loved singing. As for BBHC, I had a few friends in high school who were always talking about hardcore shows (in year 9 I think it was?). So I decided I'd tag along and check it out. It’s been about 6 or 7 years and I still can't get enough. I still love every show like it's my first.

Crime Scene originally started as a joke band with a funny name that did Evergreen Terrace and Bury Your Dead covers. We called it Death Tooth because, well I don't really know why, we just thought it was funny I guess. Then we decided that we all liked mosh bands and breakdowns enough to kind of make it into a real band. And here we are 4 years later, still trying to hold down the mosh style of hardcore in Byron.

And Sink Or Swim just kind of randomly happened when a bunch of us decided that we wanted a band, and realised we had the right amount of dudes who could play different instruments. For me, Sink Or Swim is my vent, and my way to have my voice and opinions heard. It’s my way of reaching out to people and hopefully helping them with my own personal experiences.


What does it mean to you and the band to have these ten songs on 'Polaroids' to put to your name?

It makes me super proud to have this cd on its way to being released and having such positive feedback from the tracks up on our myspace page. I think that goes for the rest of the band too, but I don't know though, you'd have to ask them.

Is 'Polaroids' being released on a label or independently? If independently, are you looking around for a label/had any offers, or are you happy to put it out yourselves?

It’s coming out independently, straight out of our own pockets. We haven't had any interest from labels, as far I know. If a label did want to sign us and help us release it, we'd be stoked. Hahaha

Lyrically, 'Polaroids' seems to be very far-reaching. There are recurring ideas of memory and concepts of time throughout the lyrical ideas. Was this something you wanted to focus on beforehand, or was it more a case of realising this after taking some time to ponder the songs' meanings?

'Polaroids' is a very personal record to me. I wrote the first half of this album in a relationship that was slowly dying, and I wrote the second half after the relationship had ended. So I had a lot of frustration - with my situation, and with myself, and with my ex-partner - that was all swirling around in my head. At the end of that relationship, I really isolated myself and kind of withdrew from my emotions and walked around pretending all of my emotions because the only real emotion I felt was self loathing. I pretended that the end of the relationship didn't hurt me at all and never really talked to anyone about it, in depth. Then I started thinking that if I had no one to vent to, and I had nothing to take my frustration out on, I better start writing, or I might start to lose my mind. So I would just write and write and write pages of lyrics about how I felt, about what I felt I had done, and what was done to me emotionally, during and after the relationship. So 'Polaroids' for me, is kind of like a journal of my life for the past 3 years. It may all seem like pretty bleak stuff, but the album tells a story, where at the start and until about halfway through, I felt miserable, not just with my relationship, but with past events that had affected my life and I was still struggling to come to terms with. Then the latter half of the cd has songs like, 'Closure', 'Constellations', 'Legacy' and 'Untitled' which are my "happy" songs, I guess. They're the songs about closing the casket on the regrets and remorse I felt at the end of the relationship, finding someone who truly means the world to me, who is there to help me with however I'm feeling at any point in my life, the thought of leaving behind a legacy so that I will be remembered, and finally having the strength to put it all back together and get on with my life.

Sink Or Swim has this great pastiche of melodic punk and the most crushing and powerful aspects of hardcore. Is this the musical direction the band wanted to have when they started out, or is it more a result of the band members' musical chemistry with one another?

We never really had any direction we wanted to go in when we started out. We just want to have fun. I think the four other guys in the band are all great musicians. They love music and they're all more than capable with their chosen instruments. And there are no real personality clashes in the band either, which helps. There's a little bit of everyone’s musical tastes that influences our music, we all love metalcore, hardcore and punk/pop-punk, so I think we try and incorporate everything into it, and it comes out sounding like it does .

On your blog, you wrote that you haven't been more disheartened with hardcore than you are right now. You are an integral part of Byron Bay's hardcore community and have been part of it for quite some time, so your words carry more meaning than most. What are the issues that lay behind that statement on your blog, and how do you think they can be mended?

There is just a lack of respect. All my life, no matter where it was, day to day, everyday life, in the surf, at school, and at hardcore shows, I was taught that you've got to pay your dues, and show respect to the ones that were there before you.
And the other thing that really bugs me is that there are so many little separate groups that fit into 'hardcore' music now, that everyone seems to have divided up into groups and it is causing friction. And that's the last thing you want in a place that's meant to be a refuge, and an escape for people who don't feel that they belong anywhere else. How can these problems be mended? I don't really know. People could maybe just put their differences and egos aside, but we all know that's impossible to do for some people. Hopefully kids can just learn to respect each other. Mutual respect and respect for the older guys who are running the shows, and booking the bands for you, because without them, there wouldn't be a show for you to go to.


You supported Parkway Drive, the most successful band to come out of the Byron Bay hardcore scene for their hometown show last week. What did it mean to the band to be playing with them?

It was really awesome for us to get that spot on the show, especially in Byron. It’s always fun when Parkway play in Byron, it just seems to put everyone in a good mood to see that these guys from our hometown are doing so well. And for Sink Or Swim, it's a great opportunity for us to expose a wider audience to our music. Hopefully we'll gain a few more listeners or 'fans' from it.

What are the plans you have for the rest of the year in regards to touring in support of 'Polaroids'?

We have nothing planned yet! Unfortunately our guitarist Guy is leaving to Melbourne to finish University, and we wish him all the best. This definitely isn't the end of Sink Or Swim, we have a few people in mind to take Guy's place, and hopefully we can tee up some awesome shows or a tour all up and down the east coast towards the end of the year, and put 'Polaroids' out there as much as possible.

Lastly, your song 'Legacy' asks the question of how you will be remembered when you're gone. 'Polaroids' marks the beginning of Sink Or Swim's musical legacy. How do you want the band to be remembered after they're gone?

I want people to look back and say 'Holy shit! Remember how much fun that Sink Or Swim set was at such and such a show?' I don't care if we never get famous, only sell 9 cd's, 5 shirts and have the same 10 kids singing along to us in Byron for the rest of the band’s existence. This is all just fun for us. We're young, and I'm sure we'll all be in other bands in the future. And hopefully, some kids will be able to listen to the CD and remember when it helped them through a tough spot in their life. That's all I want. No hall of fame, or hundreds of thousands of record sales, I just want us to be remembered for good times, and if I help a few kids with their problems with my lyrics, then I'd be really proud and happy to be remembered like that.

(Author's Note: after this interview was conducted, Sink Or Swim decided to call it a day and announced that their farewell show will be on October 1. Unfortunately, this also means that Polaroids will not be released. However, you can download it by clicking here. Under The Iron Heel wishes the members of Sink Or Swim all the best for the future. This great young band will be missed.)

www.myspace.com/sinkorswimbbhc
www.myspace.com/crimescenebbhc

The Devil's Paintbrush - Jake Arnott (Review)

The Devil’s Paintbrush – JAKE ARNOTT
(Sceptre)

At first, Arnott’s new release reads out like a fast-paced mystery, but soon it settles in to what is more like a historical fiction character study. Using late nineteenth century historical figure, Major-General Sir Hector MacDonald, as his muse, Arnott explores the motives that lay behind MacDonald’s suicide by going back to the day before his grisly end.

By doing so, Arnott plunges the reader into a world where homosexuality is a crime and the underground occult movement of the western world is on the rise. Aleister Crowley, infamous occultist, meets MacDonald at a Parisian café in 1903. MacDonald is reeling from a series of accusations by the army of homosexuality and Crowley offers to help him redeem himself.

Through flashbacks we discover that the accusations are true, and Crowley, striving for control in an occultist society called The Golden Dawn, sees a chance to set MacDonald free from the sexual repression and morality of the church and the culture that they are both a part of, and that MacDonald has been hiding all of his life as a soldier.

What could at first be taken as a novel about sexual freedom and the repression and bigoted views of the early twentieth century, is in fact a fable on morality itself. While it is hard to really develop a bond with either MacDonald or Crowley, Arnott makes it easy to understand the logic that lay behind the actions of both men.

While it may not be a book that will go down in the annals of history as a classic, it is a highly ambitious and creative work of historical fiction, and on many levels it works. However, the fact that I felt disconnected to the characters dampened my opinion of the book, and it’s best to see for yourself how the novel works for you.

The Book Of Rapture - Nikki Gemmell (Review)

The Book Of Rapture – Nikki Gemmell
(4th Estate)

Three siblings wake up from a drugged stupor and find themselves in an unknown basement. They don’t know where they are, they don’t know why they’re there. All they have is each other and the memories of their parents and their home to keep them going.

Nikki Gemmell’s previous novel, The Bride Stripped Bare, was an honest and humourous exploration of married life that bordered on the erotic. In The Book Of Rapture, however, she delves into an Orwellian, dystopian world. The children’s story is told through the eyes of their mother and through this, the clichés of the dystopian novel (suppression through violence, mysterious head figures, political genocide) can be quickly overlooked and the real themes of Gemmell’s novel come to the fore.

Told through lessons instead of chapters, The Book Of Rapture is essentially about faith: faith in family, yourself and humanity. Gemmell’s motherly narrator gives a warmth and an affection to the children’s plight, and through her, the reader is able to build up an astonishing amount of connection.

Gemmell’s writing style is sharp, succinct and extremely enjoyable. The story is so well thought out that I could not put this book down ( I read it in less than a day). With The Book Of Rapture, Gemmell has outdone herself yet again.

This Is How - M.J Hyland (Review)

M.J. HYLAND – This Is How
(Text Publishing)

Patrick Oxtoby has just been dumped by his fiancée, and we meet him as he escapes to a small seaside town to start over. Patrick’s a loner, unsure of himself in social situations and finds it difficult to express his emotions. What begins as a story of redemption quickly spirals into a portrait of a man who has not only lost his way, but also all aspects of control.

This is the first time I have come across M.J. Hyland, and her simple, understated style drew me in immediately. Much like Sebastian Faulks did in Engleby, Hyland presents the character of Patrick in such a way that the reader is continually unsure as to what is right and what is wrong.

This Is How is a startlingly accurate description of how every action has a consequence, and even the most innocent of human beings can sometimes be guilty beyond all doubt. Whether Hyland’s novel was meant to be paradoxical or not is another story, but the subtleties that she has used in writing This Is How make it read that way.

Not only is This Is How fast and entertaining to read, it will leave your mind running long after the last page is finished. Hyland has produced a wonderful work of literary art here, one that should be experienced by all.

Somme Mud - E.P.F Lynch (Review)

SOMME MUD – E.P.F Lynch
(Random House)

Edward Lynch was eighteen when he travelled to fight in World War I as part of The Australian Imperial Force. He arrived at The Western Front after the mass murder of the battles of The Somme campaign such as Fromelles and Pozieres, but instead faced one of the coldest French winters in ninety years. Lynch is introduced to The Western Front by spending six nights standing knee deep in mud in the front line without sleep, men contracting trench foot and getting what rest they could by sleeping upright. His writing style is laconic, witty and understated to the full, which leaves Somme Mud feeling like one is reading the diary entries of an eloquent young wordsmith who needs to get the demons out of his head. Somme Mud is a gory read at times – Lynch began writing his memoirs in 1919 a few months after he was repatriated – but in doing so it captures the blood and guts lifestyle that Lynch and his mates endured day in and day out for nearly three years. He writes his personal account from a detached distance, like an observer, which, rather than lessen the impact of his memoir, increases it. One only has to read the conversation between Lynch and his Corporal to understand why:

‘”Look here, lad,” he says. “You give up thinking too much or this war will get you down. It will beat you. I’ve been in it since Gallipoli and I know. The man who thinks is done. He’ll never know a moment’s peace…”’

Sadly though, Lynch, like so many soldiers of the time, couldn’t stop thinking about it. Maybe writing made it feel more real, easier to understand for Lynch in his own mind. Hopefully it did, for Somme Mud successfully makes the reader of his tale find it easier to understand what occurred on The Western Front.

The Gifthorse Interview

I'll keep it short and snappy: the Gifthorse are a melodic punk rock band from Brisbane who have swiftly climbed the ladder of the Australian alternative music scene with the critical acclaim that has been bestowed upon them following the release of their 2007 self-titled debut album. Having just released their EP, titled From The Floor Up, member of The Gifthorse Stevie Scott answered some of my questions. This is a band that are continually on the up and whose name should be placed in the good 'ol memory bank for future reference.


How was the writing/recording process for From The Floor Up?

It was fun actually! We spent a lot more time on the actual song writing process than ever before. Sam Johnson from Melbourne produced recorded and mixed the EP and he pushed us in a lot of ways to make a more interesting record. We also had our mates from Blueline Medic , Mid Youth Crisis and A Death in the Family sing a few songs which was a massive honour!

Did the positive reception you received for your self titled album have an impact in any way upon the overall product of the new EP?

Not really... I mean it always nice to know that what you are doing is appreciated but we have always written what makes us- as a band- happy and just hope afterwards that someone likes it.

Several songs either allude to or directly address with travelling. Is that a reference to the life of a travelling band?

I've never taken those ideas literally. I think I personally see them more as a metaphor for nostalgia and moving forward through your life in the most positive way.

What other lyrical themes are discussed on the EP?

This is kind of hard for me to talk about as I don't write the words but the thing i've always liked about Shane’s lyrics is the way he draws people in by keeping the ideas fairly open and applicable to a lot of things. He looks back at life experiences and evaluates where it’s got him if that makes sense! He does it though with the kind of honesty that people can relate to.

Did you have a rough idea of how the EP would turn out when you went into the studio or was the finished product different to how you expected it to be?

To a certain extent you know how it will turn out but when you record you lose a lot of the energy of having the drums and amps in front of you. So the hard part is finding ways to replace that energy without compromising the melody or feel for the songs. I think we got there in the end.

Throughout the EP there is a wonderful chemistry between both guitarists, but in saying that, all members seem to be really on song. How much do you think you have all grown as musicians and songwriters through the writing of this EP?

Hahaha thanks. I think we have all found our place in the band and give each other enough space to play in our own respective style. I think previously we didn't have that kind of focus and some of our old songs suffered because of this. I think the fact that we are all really close mates helps.

You have your tour coming up in support of the new EP. Are there many other tours in the pipeline for the second half of 2009?

Once this tour is done we are heading down to Melbourne again in September for the Poison City Weekender which is three days of beer, awesome bands and more beer! Hahaha We are lucky enough to be playing with Samiam (who have been a huge influence on our band), Bodyjar, and A Death in the Family. We also want to get across to Perth at some point.

And what about in terms of new releases? Is there another album planned for the future or are you playing it by ear from here?

We actually never stop writing new songs... I think that’s why we all stay so happy in the band, cause it never gets monotonous. We are aiming towards another album but it'll be a while away. We still might have something else up our sleeves this year but you'll have to wait and find out what!

www.myspace.com/thegifthorseband

ENjOY Productions (Jacob Livermore)

I first met Jacob Livermore in September of last year, on the eve of The Belief In Aeroplanes music video shoot. I was school mates with the drummer and they were crashing at my place. Jacob came over and introduced himself, a tall lanky man with enthusiasm and film knowledge coming out of his ears. The next day on shoot he was an immaculate professional and it was hard to believe that he was only directing his first shoot. I've followed Jacob's work in ENjOY ever since, so when he agreed to do an interview with me I was over the moon. Jacob and his team work wonders behind the camera so if you need a music video done, ENjOY are the guys to do it. I want to thank Jacob again for his time, it was a great interview. Get in contact with him at www.enjoyproductions.com.au

Lindsey: Jacob, the first thing I wanted to ask is what got you into film making and music video production in the first place?

Jacob: There’s not one particular point that I could say ‘this is what got me into it.’ It was more a culmination of always being interested in performing, which drove my interest in those sorts of fields, such as dancing, acting and theatre. From dancing I got a few jobs in some big budget film clips for Powderfinger and The Living End. That’s when I realised I wanted to delve into film making: when I was on set and paying more attention on what was going on behind camera rather than my job as a dancer.

Lindsey: How have you found the transition from being in front of the camera to now being behind the camera?

Jacob: Every now and then I get a little bit jealous. I find myself wanting to be back out in front of the camera performing, because I still love that. You feel like an idiot when you’re performing in front of a camera, especially on set when there are twenty people around you watching you making a complete idiot of yourself, but when you’re behind the camera, it’s reversed. Everyone’s looking at you and going, ‘this guy knows what he’s talking about.’ You’re performing in a different way.

Lindsey: What about ENjOY Productions? When did that begin and who else helps propel the project?

Jacob: it officially started when I was twenty, about three years ago. It started off as a joke between my best friend Matt Haynes and I. The first year out of school we lived apart but the second year we shared a house, and I’d just gotten my first video camera and we were making stupid little muck-a-round films. One day we were talking about filming weddings, saying to ourselves, ‘anyone can do it, there’s so much money in it, it’d be easy.’ And we spent two years talking about it until one day we just went fuck it, let’s go buy a proper camera and a proper editing system and just do it and it just happened. With Matt and I, I’m the driving force in regards to the business management and the production aspect of ENjOY, and Matt has this huge creative force that comes in from behind with this alternate way of looking at things.

Lindsey: Considering ENjOY have been together for three years, you’ve won a fair few awards. Tell me about that?

Jacob: Last year we won first place in the Forty-Eight Hour Film Competition in Brisbane, we were awarded best film at the Noosa Reel Mad Film Festival as well; in that comp we got best lighting, best actor, best film by audience choice, we got nominated for every award in Brisbane, and one of our films went to Miami Film Festival this year.

Lindsey: In three years. That’s pretty good.

Jacob: It’s alright. And that’s only one year of awards!

Lindsey: With all these awards, and the fact you’re now three years into ENjOY, do you feel like you have a great idea of what you’re doing now?

Jacob: I think so, but we get shocked everyday. You have to realise that you’re still a small fry, but then you have to portray an image that you’re not. I’ve been working on a few film sets lately where Matt and I and our team are quite capable of doing that sort of stuff, it’s just not being able to have the money to do it, and to prove yourself, you have to have that money. So in the interim you have to be super confident and put yourself out there in the right ways so you can get that money and really prove yourself. But we’re starting to take hold and things can only get better.

Lindsey: This confidence that you’re speaking about, that portrayal of confidence: when you shot the Belief In Aeroplanes video, that was your first music video shoot as a director. I was there and I thought you’d done it many times before, such was that confidence that you and the team exuded. What is it like having to create a theme to portray a song?

Jacob: Well that was the first one we’ve done. When I was a kid I’d wake up every Saturday morning and watch Rage religiously and tape it on video. I’d have tapes and tapes and tapes of music videos. When it came to having the opportunity to direct the Belief In Aeroplanes song, it was a matter of listening to the song over and over again. I would have listened to their song 'Aeroplanes' about fifty times until something popped and there would have been three or four people all listening and something would hit and we’d all be like, ‘yes, this is the idea.’ That’s almost the easy part: coming up with an overview. The hard part is then figuring out how we are going to make that work, and how do you make it properly relate to the song so that it matches up on screen and fits together.



Lindsey: With that song, you had a very fast editing style. There weren’t many long shots were there?

Jacob: The song was 2:37 long. The idea was that it was going to be a renegade, guerrilla style film clip. We shot it with no money and no permits running through the city of Brisbane. And again, that was another difficult part: how are we going to do this without getting in trouble and again we were able to pull it off. I’d do it again any time. Guerrilla film clips are so much fun. We did it with another film clip we shot. We broke into a restricted council area, got a key made from a locksmith friend of ours, went up to this reservoir, dumped a tonne of gear, went up there with about thirty crew.

Lindsey: Is that the film clip for Winston & Yoddy?

Jacob: Yeah, it’s a dance music video.



Lindsey: So that was a guerrilla film clip as well?

Jacob: Totally a guerrilla film clip! We went up there at four o’clock in the morning and broke in. We’d sent someone up there the night before to break into a control tower, which controls the pumps and electricity, so we could get power for cameras etc. So we rocked up there in the early morning and there’s an extension lead popping out of the control tower window. I mean, if we were caught up there we would have been fucked, completely and utterly fucked.

Lindsey: On the other hand, you shot The Smart Artists video in bushland on the way to The Sunshine Coast, as well as…

Jacob: Under my carport! [Laughs] Again, it comes down to the same thing: without sounding cocky, you’ve got the talent, you’ve got the people behind you to help you do something right, and obviously it’s been proven right through winning film competitions. Competitions only take you so far, but what we’ve learnt from them has been fantastic. When it comes to music videos, to be able to approach a band, or have a band approach you like The Smart Artists did, it’s hard for a band to understand where the money goes and why it costs so much to make something. The Smart Artists literally didn’t have the money first time around. They came with a figure and I said immediately, ‘no, you’re going to have to double that if you want to go with my idea.’ I’d already given them the pitch. They were ok about it, they said, ‘we’ll so it, we’ll take the risk’ and it was amazing. As you can see by the clip, it’s awesome. We absolutely trashed the underneath of my house – it became a studio for a day, which was very weird. But The Smart Artists have actually approached us again and we’re probably going to do a second clip with them.



Lindsey: How much did that Smart Artists video cost you?

Jacob: The budget was only $1,700 – that’s what they gave us – and we blew the budget by $400. We would have spent just under two and a half grand on that clip, which should have cost five to seven thousand dollars, which is still pretty cheap.

Lindsey: And here’s the thing: you look at all three film clips, which are all professionally done, and they’re done in a way that the average person would see it and think they were made with a big budget. How do you feel knowing that you have the capabilities on a very small budget to make highly professional and visually astounding film clips? You must have so many ideas in your head and just think, ‘if only I had a bigger budget.’

Jacob: Sometimes its like that but not once on The Smart Artists clip or the Winston & Yoddy clip did we think, ‘I wish we had this piece of equipment.’ The director of photography actually came up to me at the end of the day’s shooting and said to me, ‘today’s the first time that I haven’t thought, ‘I wish we had this.’ We were able to get what we wanted for those clips but its always in the back of our heads, just thinking if we can do this on two grand, imagine what we could do with The Living End’s budget, for instance. That was $25,000 and the film company who did it blew the budget by a few grand. There’s a lot more expenses such as more cameras and crew; materials and cameras that are much more expensive. That’s the next step. We always say to ourselves, ‘we had another five grand we’d be able to get a better camera, which would make it look even better.’ But if you look at The Smart Artists clip and think, ‘holy shit it looks amazing.’ We’ve entered that clip for an Australian Cinematographer’s Society Award for next year.

Lindsey: On film clips you’re working with people who aren’t exactly thespians. As a director, how do you stay cool, calm and collected when dealing with musicians who already have big egos?

Jacob: It’s bizarre because you often don’t think about it. I guess I did with The Smart Artists, because I was working with someone like Jacqui (Jacqueline Duncan, from the children’s TV show ‘The Shak’). It was the first time that I had worked with someone who has as much experience in the acting industry as she has had. With bands and musicians, I find that as long as you get in on their level and keep them informed with everything that’s going on, you’d be surprised at how interested they actually are. There’s all this new stuff going on around them and it’s to make them look good. I don’t think it actually clicks until they get on set and there’s a massive camera pointing at their face and there’s all these people working. You just see them say to themselves, ‘holy shit, this is actually happening. We’re actually getting a music video made.’ So I think that if you keep them informed with what’s going on and try and be their mate it works out. I’ve worked with Bernard Fanning, Chris Cheney, Luke Steele, who is just impossible, and I’ve found that you have try and sneak onto their level and try and find something that you can relate to and pretend and not act like they’re famous because then they think they’re on the same level as you in a way.

Lindsey: So to finish up, who is your favourite music video director?

Michel Gondry, because he has the best, most creative and influential music videos ever, but I am a really big fan of locally produced stuff. I love all the music videos coming out of Australia at the moment because it comes back to what we touched on before: labels like Sony and Universal in our country are expecting these huge results like what you see come out of America, when those music videos have budgets from two hundred thousand to two million dollars and shoot for five days. In Australia they want those same results but they want it for twenty grand. Brisbane has the biggest music video culture in Australia – we make more than anywhere else in the country so there are guys here like Grant Marshall from Black Lab, who makes some fantastic stuff, you also have Square Eyed Films, who used to do all the Silverchair, Sleepy Jackson and Grinspoon clips. Head Pictures, they make really cool stuff, so to do Steven and Damon Escott. I love the people who are local and we’re aiming to be one of them as well, but they’re the kind of people that we look towards for inspiration.

Lindsey: So when it comes to your dream bands to shoot a music video for, who are they nationally and internationally?

Jacob: Internationally it’s Incubus. They’ve been my favourite band my entire life. Their most recent music video is rubbish though, it’s very Hollywood. Nationally I don’t know. It would probably be somebody like The Living End and Powderfinger. They might be a bit too poppy but in saying that I’ve never really had a dream Australian band I wanted to shoot. We really just want to make clips for everybody, like a wide, diverse group. But if I got to shoot an Incubus film clip; if that opportunity arose it would be completely ridiculous.

Lindsey: So you might be doing another music video with The Smart Artists, but what else is planned for the rest of the year, and more importantly, how can bands approach you to get stuff done?

Jacob: My plans are to continue down the path I am going, because it’s the only thing that I know. That is to religiously read Rave Magazine, Scene Magazine and Time Off! and go through them and find the local artists who are upcoming, who are getting gigs, releasing cd’s, who may be in competitions such as uncharted or unearthed and just contracting them, talking to them and getting to know them. Even if they’re at the level we’re they are like, ‘we don’t have the money to make a clip, but thanks for thinking of us.’ That’ll stay in the back of their heads and then when they do have the money they might come to us. And I think we want to keep doing this low budget work, not only to prove how talented we are and how so much can be made out of nothing, but also to help these up-and-coming artists get up there as well because the boat rocks both ways. We make a film clip that makes you look good and it makes us look good too. So our plans are to as make as many music videos as we can before the year is out.

Lindsey: Thanks for your time Jacob.

Jacob: You’re very welcome. It was a pleasure.

Jacob Livermore and Matt Haynes can be contacted at www.enjoyproductions.com.au