Taking a break from renovating his recording studio in Melbourne’s north, Dan Luscombe cheerfully answers the phone. He’s kept busy while The Drones have been “on ice” producing records, composing scores and touring as a guitarist.
Though The Drones haven’t toured in a decade, interest in the band hasn’t waned. “I keep running into a lot of crew in their 20s who are telling me that they’re really looking forward to the show, and I’m like ‘wow,’” says Luscombe. “They’re like, ‘we never got to see you.’”
Two charity shows last year sold out within minutes, but Luscombe says a full tour has been in discussion for years. “We never broke up or anything, so it was always going to happen,” he says.
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“We’re all buddies, we see each other a lot in day-to-day life, so it doesn’t really feel like that any massive, momentous decision was made,” he continues. “It’s just been through casual chats at barbecues for the last few years.”
More dates have been added as the tour continues to sell out, including four nights at Thornbury Theatre. “We weren’t expecting to put on as many shows as we’re going to,” says Luscombe. “It’s definitely the longest tour of Australia The Drones have ever done.”
Luscombe suspects the band’s longevity stems from never quite breaking through. “The fact that we never had mainstream or commercial success or anything like that, it keeps the band somewhat of a mysterious object,” he says. “Because the songs never got too overplayed, no one got sick of them.”
He also credits vocalist Gareth Liddiard and bassist Fiona Kitschin’s post-Drones band, Tropical Fuck Storm, with introducing new fans to The Drones. “They’ve been doing a lot of unintentional, but productive promotion for The Drones,” he says. “If you like TFS, you dig a little deeper and you find out about this other band.”
While commercial success may have eluded them, The Drones have received no shortage of critical acclaim. “There were definitely times when we’d be like, ‘Fuck, does anyone give a shit about this?'” says Luscombe. “We should have had it in ornate writing on a tapestry on the wall … ‘critically acclaimed’,” he jokes. “Those two words probably kept us going in some dark times … there was no acclaim coming from our accountant.”
At the very least, it indicated the band were doing something right. “[Our music] wasn’t terribly easy to describe or categorise, and the formats of the songs were very unusual,” he says. “We were quite proud of our difficult nature, and I think that it’s served us well.”
Revisiting the band’s catalogue has brought back vivid memories. With the exception of 2016’s Feelin Kinda Free, their albums were recorded live. “I think Gaz would occasionally go in and replace a bit of a vocal,” he explains. “But we would just play until we got a take we all liked, and that was the song.”
“I was listening to Havilah and thinking about that we were in a kitchen in the subalpine region of Victoria at Gaz and Fi’s house,” he recalls. “I just think about how cold it was in that house. I can hear the sound of the kitchen.”
While nothing has been recorded yet, Luscombe says the band is discussing new music. “We’re going to have to at some point, or else we’re just going to be a nostalgia band,” he admits. “It’s not that appealing just to go out and play the stuff we did years ago.”
Finding time has been the biggest challenge for a band whose members rely on touring to make a living. “Having a couple of months to sit down and write and record is such a luxury for a lot of bands these days,” explains Luscombe. “But Gaz and Fi have a studio, I have a studio, it’d be pretty silly if we didn’t actually put them to use.”
Ten years on, Liddiard’s gloomy lyrics on Feelin Kinda Free are as poignant as ever. “It’s depressing, isn’t it?” Luscombe laughs. “They shouldn’t, but the fact is that the world has remained as shit as it was back then. I’ll be happy to make a deal with the planet once there’s nothing left to write about, just to stop, but the planet’s not coming through.”
The Drones are playing at Thornbury Theatre throughout August. Get tickets here.
