While seven is considered a lucky number, 13 not so much. There are even hotels that have removed the room number and floor number 13 because folks out there feel uncomfortable staying in them. Superstition is an intangible, ridiculous beast but even if you entertain the notion just a little, Agency Dub Collective are cancelling out the bad luck of 13 years since their first live gig and embracing the good luck associated with releasing their seventh studio album. Beggar’s Belief is a perfect summation of Agency Dub Collective’s long career as purveyors of home grown dub, atmospheric electronica and Rasta rap. The lineup has changed, the sound has evolved and their skills have soured but all the while, there has been a heart and soul to their music that is definitively their sound.
“We’ve kinda had a few eras ‘cause we’ve had a few singers over the years. Liam (O’Connell) has been with us since 2003 so that’s pretty much the modern incarnation of the band,” guitarist Elrond Veness explains.
Veness is working on the business side of things, gearing up for all the non-musical work that goes with releasing a new album. “We don’t have any outside help,” he says. “I do find the hardest part is describing your own music, it’s hard to describe the thing that you do. Me and Liam take care of most of the business side of things. Our drummer (Dan Sommariva) makes YouTube clips so we do try to share the workload around. I just fell into the booking and promotion role ‘cause I felt like no-one else was gonna take it on. That being said, Liam has really helped out a lot though, taking the record to radio and stuff like that.”
Describing your own sound is a tricky business with the trap of comparison hard to avoid. While Agency Dub Collective are dub by name and nature, they are aware that their take on the genre is different than what traditionalists might expect. “We come from this place that dub is a core part of what we do but we’ve never been purists about it,” he says. “We really meld it with a lot of other influences and we see ourselves as part of an evolution of the sound. I’ve been calling it dub-hop for a while because Liam does a lot of rapping but there isn’t a hip hop beat really, there’s more of the dub rhythms for sure.”
Their latest album was two years in the making and by any measure, that’s a long time to sit on a record’s worth of material. “We went into the studio late 2010 to record the rhythm tracks,” he says. “We did that because a few band members were leaving and we wanted to capture the sound of the songs we’d written over the previous 18 months. Then we took a break and kinda let the tracks sit there until 2011. Some were only rhythm tracks too and had no vocals or melodies at that stage, so we crafted those in our home studios a while after those tracks were laid down. We did a lot of overdubs and editing in our home studios too, which took a lot of time. So yeah, it certainly took a while.”
So how do you stay as in love with the songs over two years after their inception? “Ha ha, yeah, well we hadn’t been playing them that much because we didn’t have a bass player for a while,” he says chuckling. “When we did a small tour in July I was playing bass instead of guitar and we did the songs without any guitar or at other times, Liam played bass and I played guitar. Now we’ve got a bass player it’s great to have a full sound. When you get a new member, they bring a new feel to the tunes and they give a fresh lease of life to the songs so finally being able to play them like they sound on the album gives it a bit of excitement.”
Having gone through many phases, Veness seems excited to have a solid lineup of equally enthusiastic players. “Our old drummer came back into the band and we’ve spent some time writing some new material that we’ll be taking on the road,” he says. “It’s another exciting time for us at the moment. Dealing with the business side of things can be daunting. Writing and playing the music is less than 50 per cent of the energy you put into a band. But with the current lineup, it feels like it’s finally down to the people who really care about the music and things have fallen into place.”
BY KRISSI WEISS
