After being admittedly seduced by the power of the studio on his debut album Examples Of Farewell Speech , Melbourne singer-songwriter Luke Watt is stripping it all right back on sophomore Hill End Ruin . After all, these days his songs are simply strong enough on their own.
“I’ve been very fortunate to also get Danny McKenna (Jeff Lang, Unified Gecko) involved in recording and playing gigs with me, so I wanted his drums and my guitar to be heard properly,” Watt explains. “We’re not officially a duo because Danny is a man in such demand because he’s so incredibly talented.
“I got to know Danny when I first moved to Melbourne from Warrnambool a couple of years ago when I did my first album. We had a mutual friend who recommended him if I was looking for a great drummer; I couldn’t believe it because I remembered seeing Danny McKenna playing at the Port Fairy Folk Festival as a kid!
“So it was quite a bit of a massive treat for me to have him on my album and have him offer some great advice musically as well.”
Not that Watt hasn’t been doing pretty damn well on his own so far. After the release of his 2009 debut, the singer spent the next year and a half driving around Australia and playing to any venue that would have him. It’s been a hard slog, but nothing Watt hadn’t been long used to already, as he reveals. “I started playing guitar as a teenager in blues bands in Warrnambool and I grew up around a lot of older musos in town.
“I gained a lot of experience playing guitar and I’ve been writing songs probably since I was about 20 years old,” he nods. “I spent quite a bit of time on the road though after my first album came out and a lot of the songs on Hill End Ruin were inspired by that.
“The songs are all separate and narrative-based but they’re not really biographical at all. They’re just stories I wrote as I was driving around last year playing gigs around the place. I heard a lot of stories just from meeting people and chatting to guys after a gig. Some of the songs came as a result of hearing stories from relatives and some of the things I was told over the phone while I was away, some are based on dreams I’ve had while I was gone.”
With a collection of powerful songs behind him, Hill End Ruin could only be done one way as far as Watt was concerned – DIY and as raw as possible. After recruiting McKenna on drums, the pair set up camp at a picturesque yacht club in Queenscliff where Watt claims the gorgeous surroundings added to the atmosphere on the album.
“I wouldn’t say I’m not proud of my last album but I definitely got a bit seduced by the power of being in a good studio and being tempted to flesh out songs through instrumentation and adding a lot of things here and there.
“I think I came full-circle with that so I wanted to have an album that just represented me and Danny in a hall and which sounded exactly like what you’d expect to hear if you came to see me live. There are no overdubs – there are a couple of violin parts, the vocals are upfront and DIY-sounding – and it’s not distracted by over-production.
“The place,” he adds, “where we recorded had a massive influence on how the album sounds. The tones we were able to capture and the entire atmosphere, you can definitely hear it on the record.
“It was in this old yacht club in Queenscliff and it was incredible,” Watt recalls happily. “We wanted to have enough separation of guitar and drums so the challenge was to find the right kind of room where it was possible to make that happen, but to still be able to see each other while we’re playing too.
“The sound on the album was very much dictated by the space of the room. It was a beautiful place to be, with all the boats sitting behind the building. It was an added bonus to take a bit of a breather and sit by the water and take in the peaceful vibe. It was inspiring.”
