Clint, what impresses you most about Floating Me? And Andrew, vice versa?
Clint: “Sugar is a great track, and on Deathless the rhythm section is really fluid and they get a good sound. I love the production on the whole record.”
Andrew: “They came up with a solid first effort with their EP. There’s no doubt these guys are on a mission of their own and are more than capable of turning out whatever they set their minds to. Clint’s range, tone and control give him license to do anything really. My favorite track is Black Bird for its mood, its effortless changes and the way Clint drags his phrasing across the changes. Close second would be Wicker Man for the fluid shift in dynamics between very different parts. It’s a Frankenstein tune but you can’t see the stitches!”
Andrew, why is Piano called that when there’s no piano on it?
Andrew: “Piano is a working title that stuck. It was originally based on a rambling, rather beautiful piece that Ant (guitarist Antony Brown) composed and recorded on a piano. We took elements of the melodies and motions from Ant’s work and created what it is today. I’ll have to dig around and try to find the original recording. It would be interesting for fans to have it posted on floatingme.com. We never changed the title because we always related to the original, haunting piece of work. Lyrically it’s a trip that makes no connection with a piano. There are a lot of things going on with the messages in the words so to nail it down to something with some specific tag or focus wouldn’t make sense to me for this song.”
You once alluded that Piano could be about an out of body experience. Have you had many of those?
Andrew: “Yes I have, those moments of almost-sleep or no-sleep where you feel you float up to the ceiling and then you go back into your body with a jolt.”
Clint: “Heaps of times. In the beginning for me, when a song hits me I have a movie role in my head when I’m writing lyrics, and I try to decipher what the universal is giving me. Sometimes I feel like a giant translator.”
What’s the last time either of you saw a ghost?
Clint: “Never – although last night I dreamed I saw one, which is bizarre.”
It’s interesting that both bands got together totally by accident.
Clint: “Way back in 2001, Trey and I met up playing at a Crusty Demon show in Queensland, and said we should work together. Years on he did some demos to send off to Sonny (Sandoval) of POD and he sent them to for my comment. At the time the ‘Butterfly’s were on a writing hiatus so I thought, ‘Good time to do something with this’.”
Andrew: “Lucius (Borich, drummer)’s old band Juice and Scarymother toured a lot together in the ’90s and we became good mates. The two bands fell apart around the same time. Lucius and I were mucking about in LA in living-rooms – the idea was to put something together. But Luc returned to Australia and some of those ideas we jammed ended up on early Cog stuff. Floating Me really began when I reconnected with Toby (Messiter, keyboards) and Ant in a studio we had in Kings Cross. We invited Luc to help us finish one track. We heard it and said, ‘Shit wanna finish off the rest?’ and he went ‘YEAH!’ We were always going to do something together.”
It must be comforting that there is an audience out there for bands such as yourselves…
Clint: “Australian audiences are more attuned to finding and supporting new music than anyone else. And they support a greater diversity of music. It helps us want to challenge ourselves onstage than rest on our laurels.”
Floating Me are signed to Tool’s management, any overseas plans for the band?
Andrew: “The album is available for digital download in many parts of the world. There’s no giant overseas plan on the table as such at the moment. We’re working towards doing things realistically, building from where we are. The band’s only played 20 shows since February, so there’s still a lot of work to be done here.”
Clint when you worked with (The Tea Party’s) Jeff Martin on your single Into Eternity he taught Trey about different tunings and used five different guitars. Has that carried through on the upcoming album?
Clint: “Not so many different tunings, but a lot of different amps and guitars. We’ve tried for more color and shade, inverted chords and polyrhythms. Every eight bars, we’d try some different.”
