Falling And Flying

Normally when a band records an album they're forever able to use it as a reminder of a particular time in their lives; what jobs they were juggling, the relationships on the go and the particular season. Mark Warner, guitarist for Sydney band After The Fall, produced the band's latest album and for him Bittersweet was less about a particular time and more about places. Now when he hears the album, Warner is able to chart the evolution of each track with a list of locations around Sydney where he was house-sitting and working on the album.

“I don't drive and we built our studio out in the bush. It's pretty much impossible to get there via public transport,” Warner says. “In order to keep working on it, I'd load up the missus's car with a bunch of gear. We were house-sitting a lot in different places. I'd set up in their kitchen or loungeroom. It was kind of cool. It'd be a bit of Lilyfield, a bit of Newtown, a bit of Paddington. It'd be injecting a bit of vibes from each of the places.

“It was all in headphones. Say we did a whole stack of guitars in our studio in Somersby, I'd just record heaps of shit and just make sense of it later.

“Lilyfield was editing. That was early in the piece. I think we'd recorded the drums and I edited it there. [In] Paddington we recorded some drums. I know what happened where. I'm not that much of a flake. I don't smoke bongs as much as the music on the new record might make you think.”

Though Warner has recorded After The Fall before, this is the first time he's ever been given the reins for a whole album and though it was as much by circumstance as a deliberate decision, Warner admits that the band probably needed a couple of albums under their belt for it to happen. “I don't think we could've done it in the past purely because of the way the band was. I don't think there would've been the faith in me. But we've got the new drummer [Adrian Gallace], who's changed the dynamic a lot. He's kind of from a recording background. I guess I had the confidence in him to not make me feel insecure about it… In that sense, I know I could've done it before but I wouldn't have had the support to do it. But also I care a whole lot less than I did. I was just like, 'Get fucked. This is how it is'.

“It had to happen I guess. I'd love to give a certain producer who I love a call but our budget didn't permit any of that kind of behaviour. I'll make it clear, I didn't get paid.”

The album has had a slow evolution. The band have been playing some of the songs that have ended up on Bittersweet in their set for the last couple of years. And having the familiarity with the material live gave Warner the encouragement to record the album with that live feel in mind. “One of the things we found playing the last album was that it wasn't that much fun to play live. You couldn't really get wasted and play it, you had to concentrate more. These songs you could easily have a couple of beers and a couple of Jammos under your belt and it's ok. It's pretty simple. The motivation wasn't to play the songs drunk,” Warner says with a wry chuckle. “But the motivation was to connect live. If they're fun to play live then hopefully that will translate a bit better onto record. That was the general idea there. More dumb, more angry.”

Though the band started work on the album over a year ago, this time around it was a much simpler process. The delays have been since the end of recording, waiting to get things mixed and mastered. Warner says the recording was a lot more no-nonsense. “Before we'd spend ages double-tracking and triple-tracking, adding heaps of shit. I didn't do it like that this time. It was more concise. Single guitar parts, not like doubling everything. I think it sounds bigger with less. That was the vibe. That was the idea.

“Before, when you're relying on someone else, say when we were recording the last record and I went out for a coffee, I'd come back and they would've recorded some bass and I'm all, 'Yeah I'm not sure about that bit'. And you'd have to go back and fix it and then it takes heaps longer. This time there was no middle man; 'Nah, that's fucked. You've got to do that better'. There was more doing it right on the spot.”

And one day when After The Fall are releasing their very own version of The Basement Tapes, Warner admits there's a few hidden gems from his earlier days of producing random songs here and there. “We probably have, I would like to say, a lost album in there somewhere between the second and third album there's probably ten songs of total fuckin' weirdness we've recorded, which sound pretty awesome. There's kind of like Achilles' Last Stand Zeppelin-esque songs and white funk which is heinous at the best of times. I've always recorded shit. Even on four-track since the beginnings of time, whenever that was… back in '98.”

To launch the album, the band are teaming up with Adelaide's Mere Theory on tour, before playing. Mere Theory are playing their farewell shows and it's been a touring partnership that's been in the works for quite some time. “Nige [Nigel Black, Mere Theory guitarist] has been contacting us for ages saying we should do some stuff and I was like, 'Yeah, but we don't have a record out so can we wait for that?' We've actually known them forever. We probably played with them the first or second time we went to Adelaide.”

Now in the funny way the music industry has of things coming full circle, After The Fall and Mere Theory are teaming up one more time while Warner waits for the reviews to come in on his very first complete After The Fall album production credit.