With the duo heading Down Under to play a part in Heavy Innit, I enquire about their plans for the trip. It becomes immediately apparent that William is a no-nonsense kind of guy. Rather than waxing lyrical about his impending visit, he simply gives me the facts of the situation. “I think we get like three shows in a short space of time, then four times to do whatever I want. I don’t really have a plan for them, it will just be a case of whatever really.”
“It depends, sometimes we get time to look at places, other times it is just in and out. It is nice to get time to see the cities and things.” Like many musicians, a life on the road clearly has its benefits, but William is not about to get carried away. He has learnt from past experience that these whistle-stop visits allow little more than a brief moment to soak up the atmosphere. While he is looking forward to a few days of Australian R&R, he is not going to over-plan his time, rather emulate another rather successful recent visit. “Playing in Israel was a great experience. It was the first time we had been there. It is just such a nice place and it was great to get to just walk around there. The whole experience made it, but the crowd were really receptive to our sort of feel which was really nice,” he explains. With Israel clearly top on the list of locations that he would like revisit, it has to be asked whether there is somewhere that has real pulling power…The response takes minimal thinking time as he retorts, “The dream would be going to Japan. I have heard so many good things about it.”
With Heavy Innit marking the duo’s debut visit to these shores, William has clearly been asking around his musical mates about what exactly he should expect. “This is the first time we will be over there. I have spoken to people who have got good things to say about it. The crowds apparently go crazy so I am looking forward to it.” Though his close pals may have offered him words of advice, he has learnt from his own travels that in order to win over a crowd, there has to be an element of freedom within a set. He defines the KOAN Sound approach as follows, “We kind of have ideas about what we do, but every crowd is completely different. It depends on the crowd really. Especially when you go to different countries, they have different ideas about different sounds.”
“There are some places in Europe where the crowd are just seeking something very specific. You have to play very heavy sounds to get a good reaction. I think in the UK you get of good variety in the crowds. Fabric is one of our favourites. The crowd there are happy to go off with anything you give them which is amazing.” While they found their home crowd easy to please, regardless of their musical direction, he is quick to point an accusatory finger at a nation of fine chocolatiers. When asked about who are perhaps the fussiest audience members, he immediately responds, “I think Belgium particularly, they like a really really heavy sort of sound. I don’t know really, we just always have to adapt to the place.”
With the duo more than happy to oblige any audience in order to receive the best response, he closes by stating that there are no harsher critics of KOAN Sound than the duo themselves, I think we are always quite critical of what we do. I think the main aim is just to improve production and our sound. There is not a specific point we want to get to, we just want to get better all the time.”
BY JEREMY WILLIAMS
