Zim fronts up to the Skype camera, fresh out of the studio, after locking down some songs they performed as part of a gallery exhibition collaboration. They were asked to do Bob Dylan covers, they thought instead, it would be better to go to his influences: Woody Guthry and Hank Williams. For them, it’s all about music genealogy. “Rosemary is like an encyclopedia of folk music, Arthur too,” he says. It’s as if they are some sort of French ‘Brothers Grimm’ collective. Zim reels off band names in triples, with an expertise lending itself to half-moon spectacles.
Seeing an opportunity to talk about Dylan, I mention that I was going to ask Thomas (harmonicist) if he thought Dylan cheapened the harmonica, to which Zim responds with a great impression of a man desperately covering his ears. “Thomas hardly ever listens to anything past 1920,” he says. I ask what Zim’s listening to at the moment and he rifles through a broad range of stuff, flashing CD covers, too fast for me to catch. Argentinian tango, German industrial experimental music, God Speed You! Black Emperor, Johnny Cash.
Desperate for a Sherlock Holmes link, I mention my disappointment that the band’s name comes from Kerouac’s On the Road, not from Holmes’ nemesis Dr. Moriarty. “You know, there’s actually something there,” he says. Explaining an early love of Doyle’s work, and how, when he read On The Road, the circle completed itself with an epiphany.
He also says Arthur (guitarist), when not creating music with Moriarty, creates mysteries. Creates mysteries? “Yeah, he has a business, he works with journalists and they leave clues in different places,” he says. “Thousands of people go running around trying to find them.” I suggest, that with such a great criminal name, from now on they should leave little ‘Moriarty’ calling cards when they steal hotel shampoo. “That could be something.”
Each of the previous albums were accompanied by a two year tour, so by now, they could have stolen a tremendous amount of shampoo. So you might think after Australia they’re due for a rest. “Actually we’re going straight into the studio,” he says. They’re going to work on another project, one that began as a challenge to fill a spot on French radio. “It’s like OK, you have an hour, do what you want. The only restriction is that it has to be about a book.” With the allure of an interesting new creative process, this venture may well turn into an album.
Now on their third trip to Australia, to him it’s still “another world.” He mentions walking past a radio station in Alice Springs and asking for a sample of some Indigenous music. He left a copy of The Missing Room, hoping one day Moriarty will return for a show in the red centre.
BY SEAN MELROSE-AUKEMA
