“We’ve had this weird curse with Adelaide,” Kenny-Smith says. “The first time was alright, the second time our friend who we’d brought along to drive had lost his X1000 video camera along with the keys to the rental car, so the next day we had to fork out for a new car, and long story short we lost all the tour money. And the next time we played, which was on our last tour, the bass player had an allergic reaction and we had to play as a four-piece. So Adelaide’s been interesting.”
The Murlocs’ experience over the last couple of years has been a mixture of progress and delay. In early 2015 the band entered the studio with Stu McKenzie (King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard) to record its second album. But despite recording the songs in a single week, it took over a year for the album to finally be released, the runaway success of King Gizzard (with whom Kenny-Smith and Murlocs guitarist Cook Craig also play) a logistical obstacle.
That said, according to Kenny-Smith The Murlocs are gradually becoming more pragmatic with their attitude towards recording and mixing. “I think The Murlocs have become pretty formulated without meaning to,” Kenny-Smith says. “Most of the time Cal [Shortal] or I will come up with ideas and then flesh it out with the rest of the dudes. With this record a few of the songs were more so mine, coming up with them on guitar and bringing it to the rest of the guys. But most of the time it kind of comes out in a similar vibe to what we’ve always done. There’s not really a huge concept in the music, more so in the lyrics.
“Now and again, especially when we go away with Gizzard, I used to try and write something everyday, whatever, stream of consciousness sort of thing. But more and more so I just try to get a melody going on the guitar and then figure out the words later.”
The end result is an album that more accurately captures The Murlocs’ sound and influences, says Kenny-Smith. “The first EP was a bit hit and miss, but we got more of what we should’ve sounded like in the second one. We aspired to that garage ‘60s type of sound, but we also tried to get this soulful vibe going, and we also like a lot of punk music too, so it kind of gets thrown in the middle somewhere. Most of the time I like to keep it pretty in your face, but my voice can come across too squealing, pinching, something like that. I like to find as warm sound as we can, but also keeping it scruffy.”
After their forthcoming national album launch tour, The Murlocs will head over to the United States to play the Levitation Festival in Austin, Texas. While a great chance to strut their stuff in the US, so too will it be an opportunity to push these fresh songs into new sonic spaces. “We sit on songs for a bit too long sometimes, and we don’t really question our material until after we’ve been playing it for quite a while. That’s probably where we lack the most – we’re happy with the first product, and then much further down the track we realise it has to change, for the better.”
BY PATRICK EMERY
