The writing process for Red Shadow Landing began early last year. While Kennedy admits that he had a “definite plan” for the record in his mind, he stops short of suggesting there’s a unifying theme that pulls together the songs on the record. “There’s no overarching theme, but there is always some sort of concept going on in my head,” Kennedy says. “I suppose it’s more of an emotional flow – it’s my thought process.”
After six months of writing and rehearsing the songs with the other members of the band – bass player Mark Wendt, keyboardist Kaz Seiger and drummer Michael Evans-Barker – Kennedy was ready to take to the studio. “The finished product didn’t change much from how I imagined the record originally,” Kennedy says. “From start to finish the songs go on a journey, and the final versions are pretty close to the journey I started with.”
Kennedy also brought in an old friend, former Triffids pedal steel player Graham Lee, to contribute to one of the tracks. “I’ve worked with Graham previously,” Kennedy says. “Sometimes when he gives me something, he doesn’t know what he’s going to be playing on. I ask him to record something and send it to me, and I just work it into the song. I know whatever he gives me is always going to be fantastic,” he says.
Kennedy’s description of the album as “a journey” doesn’t mean he considers the record to be a psychedelic piece. While there’s plenty of ebbs and flows, and vivid atmospheric moments, Kennedy has a different concept of psychedelia in his mind. “I don’t know that this record is psychedelic,” Kennedy muses. “When I think of psychedelia I tend to think of the late ‘60s, and Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin. So musically, no, I don’t consider this to be psychedelic – although in some of the videos we’ve done I’ve used psychedelic imagery, with oily colours,” he says.
For the album cover – which features a black and white rendering of a moon landing – Kennedy turned to a former colleague at Shock Records. “It’s done by a guy by the name of Bren Luke, who’s based in Ballarat,” Kennedy says. “I used to work with him at Shock Records, but I had no idea at all that he was an artist. But when I found out that he was, and I saw some of his stuff, I told him he just had to do the album cover,” Kennedy laughs. The space theme of the album cover picked up on Kennedy’s interest in matters intergalactic. “I said I liked space, and that’s what he went with.”
The liner notes to Red Shadow Landing include an invitation to use (subject to licensing!) the band’s music on other media projects, including films and television. It’s an invitation that’s been taken up previously, with All India Radio having featured previously on episodes of the Lying Game, CSI: Miami, One Tree Hill and Bondi Rescue. While Kennedy is grateful for the exposure (and presumably the extra income), he says he’s occasionally surprised at how All India Radio’s music is used in such media. “Sometimes it’s a bit of a fluke how it ends up being used,” Kennedy says. “And sometimes I’ll think ‘that’s a strange song to have there’, but usually it works really well.” Notwithstanding the invitation to use the band’s music, Kennedy says he didn’t think too much about potential extra-media use of the songs on the album during the production process. “It can be a bit of a two-edged sword,” he says. “And I suppose it can also be a bit confusing for the audience. For this record I didn’t think too much about how else the songs could be used.”
With another collaboration with Steve Kilbey in the wings, and the seeds of another All India Radio record forming gradually in his mind, Kennedy has plenty to occupy his mind. He does, however, have a vision of the idea setting for an All India Radio live show to strive for. “If I had my way, it’d be an amphitheatre under the stars, preferably in the midst of a meteor storm, with lots and lots of people,” Kennedy laughs.
BY PATRICK EMERY
