Kris Schroeder, Wally De Backer and Tim Heath have always embraced adventure and diversity with outstretched arms.
Kris Schroeder, Wally De Backer and Tim Heath have always embraced adventure and diversity with outstretched arms. Their most memorable ventures include an epic tour through the Australian outback, recording at Abbey Road Studios with the legendary Peter Cobbin, and successful tours across Europe and Japan. The Basics have just released their first live album – and in the process, the Melbourne trio are making a difference for the betterment of our local music industry. The kind of change that Radiohead delivered in 2007 and one in which Trent Reznor has come to revolutionise… yes, The Basics are giving away their new album for free. But that’s only one element of their forward-thinking venture.
There were three options considered by the band when considering the release of their live album – recorded at The Northcote Social Club on February 6. “I guess live albums are typically looked at as a bit of an add-on to your catalogue and we really wanted to treat it as a whole and unique product,” Schroeder explains. “And as such, you’re kind of faced with three choices.
“You either put it out full price and risk people kind of going, ‘Well this is only a live album – why would I pay full price for it?’ and not buy it. You’ll probably make a few sales but because of the nature in which people see live albums, they may be reticent to pay that full price. So then your second choice is to sell it maybe at a discounted price, but then it kind of devalues the product ’cause you’re like ‘This is still a great album’. It’s probably my favourite one to listen to, and selling it for less than full price is not doing the right thing by the album or the music in a way.
“So then it came to ‘well, we could give the thing away for free and also do these deluxe vinyl packages for our true fans’, so we did 300 of them with all beautiful artwork, double LPs; it’s something really special to sell to people that were at the gigs and the people that truly love the band.
“Also, having the benefit of being able to give the music away for free, you’re giving something back to the audience because it’s not about the money, it’s about the music – and hopefully earning some new fans in the mean time. Then it also taps into the drive into new media, where traditional media is still playing a role but the importance of new media is only growing daily, and you really need to embrace that or fall by the wayside.”
At the recent Big Sound music conference, the former CEO of EMI Records – John O’Donnell – used The Basics as a successful example of how alternative business models can work. “The big record companies are losing a lot of business and people through their desperation to channel through the old-fashioned ways of ‘we make music; you pay for it’ and that’s it,” says Schroeder. “Whereas there’s lots of other ways of encouraging people to come to gigs, by merchandising and all this other stuff that’s just as valid and I think it’s indie bands that really push those envelopes and set an example for how the industry can actually progress.”
How important have social networking tools been in connecting artists with fans? “I guess you can’t really do without them anymore – definitely not as an independent band,” he asserts. “And people don’t want to necessarily just be fans, they want to be friends as well… it’s a fine line but if you can manage that, then all the more power to you.”
Of course, Radiohead could afford to take that risk, but Schroeder is assuring indie bands that they can make it work for them. “If a band like us can do it and it’s a positive thing, then I think that’s a better example for other bands of our size and smaller to go ‘hey, they made it work for them; we can probably make it work for us’. I guess the only other act of Radiohead’s size that’s doing something like that is Nine Inch Nails, where Trent Reznor allows people to choose their method of purchase depending on what level a fan they are, so that’s quite a progressive way of interacting with your fan-base.”
As De Backer is still working on the new Gotye album, Schroeder says that the future of The Basics remains unpredictable but hopeful. “I’ve been a songwriter for the last ten years and it’s predominately written for the band, and now there’s some opportunities opening up to write for other people,” Schroeder explains.
“Ironically, though, I went to Wally’s with Tim last weekend to record a couple of demos that I wanted to pass on to my publisher and they actually started sounding like ‘wow, this could be the start of a new Basics album’. There was one particular track called So Hard For You, which was just ‘fuck, this is actually really good – this could be the breakthrough’. So it’s going to be interesting actually to see how we manage that in the next year or two. Obviously a lot depends on how successful Gotye is, but as for me and Tim… Tim’s got his Blood Red Bird instrumental project that he’s just done a bunch of recordings for. And for me, I just want to keep writing more and just hopefully find some opportunities to write for other people and do a bit of solo stuff, but the song-writing is the most important part of all that for me… to really nail the craft.”
In our last previous interview, Schroeder described The Basics’ third album, Keep Your Friends Close, as one of survival and the driving force in his life for two years. What’s his primary driving force now? “I think I’ve only really started to recover in maybe the last couple of months,” says Schroeder of his personal turmoils involving a relationship breakdown. “I think I still had my head partially in the sand and was kind of trying to ignore the consequences of all the stuff that surrounded that album and the events that inspired it.
“Only now do I feel like I’m starting to get my mojo back, so I think it feels like a bit of a new beginning with this tour bookending a particular period. I guess the last 12 months have been much of the same as when we last spoke,” he laughs, “but with some new things propelling me forward…hopefully.”
Fear of failure and the importance of upholding one’s dreams were the key themes running through Keep Your Friends Close – as such themes are also relevant to life in general, Schroeder believes that music will always inspire creativity and poignancy into everyday existence. “I guess [songwriters and musicians] have an opportunity to inform significance into everyday life, to illustrate the significance of everyday life,” Schroeder muses.
“For me, the social and the relationships are the most dominate part of our existence. Through song, you’re able to describe them and explore them and hone in on some emotional experiences that you otherwise might be ignoring or denying. I would hope that music gives everybody else an opportunity to really open up to their own feelings through your experiences. All the stuff I’m really interested in, it’s all about the blues, really, which is creating a situation of empathy between the storyteller and the listener, and being able to relate to each other through song… and then the listener taking something from that and hopefully building something in their own life.”
THE BASICS launch their new live album with two shows this weekend at The Northcote Social Club, on Saturday October 30 (with Georgia Fair and Owl Eyes) and Sunday October 31 (with Gerogia Fair and The Wellingtons). Tickets and info from northcotesocialclub.com. You can download that new live album from The Basics at their website – thebasics.bandcamp.com – for free. Nice.
