Project Description

Interview with

LANCE FERGUSON
of

THE BAMBOOS

Interviewer: Karen Lowe

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The Bamboos are about to release their eighth studio album in July – Night Time People and have released several singles – one of which has three versions, Broken. Karen Lowe spoke to Lance Ferguson about Broken, touring with Robbie Williams and playing a spectacular show in Piza.

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You guys have a new album coming out in July – Night Time People. How did the recording go and are you happy with how it sounds?

We again, for this record, enlisted the great John Castle who has been The Bamboos’ live engineer and studio engineer since way back in the year 2000 when we did our very first independent single that we put out so he played a major role in this one with myself in terms of sculpting the sound. 

We recorded with John Castle and it was very much a collaboration in terms of the band performance and all that stuff as per usual. 

Something special that happened in the production of this record though was that the legendary mix engineer Bob Clearmountain who mixed albums like Bowie’s Let’s Dance and Born in The USA. With this guy, the list truly does go on and all crazy, monumental records. 

He actually mixed the first single, Lit Up from the new album which was like a dream come true and as I’m a studio geek, it was a dream come true that he mixed a Bamboos’ track so that was big stuff.

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I can imagine that there would have been nothing better for you guys.

Yeah that’s right and because he mixes in the old school analogue style, I was literally talking to him in the middle of the night to LA and he had to mix on his analogue disc and we had to make the call then and there because he wasn’t able to recall it later because it’s a non-digital situation.

Even though that has been the way of stuff for decades until the last couple of decades, it was nice to be almost forced into that scenario where you just have to make the call and there is no coming back because that’s one of the things that makes me tear my hair out is constantly having the ability to revise stuff so it was good to go ‘that was it’. We made the call there and the and that’s what it’s going to be forever. 

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You have also released a new single, Broken which is about mental health and which is the first version of the song – this one featuring J-Live. Firstly, why will there be three versions? And is mental health and depression something that you have experienced first hand? 

The second incarnation of that song is actually out now and features one of Australia’s great MC’s, Urthboy, and he has delivered his own take on that.

The thought process behind three different rappers across this was to get three different unique stories from three different artists but also because geographically; they are in different places to shout this message which is really a message of resilience in the face of these sort of obstacles to a wider audience I guess. 

The third artist is a guy named Teesy who sings and raps and he’s from Germany.

We wanted to shout the message out across as many channels as we could and because Kylie Auldist sings the chorus, it just seemed like an opportunity to do that and the message behind the song is one of resilience but it’s also about just shouting that message that if you or someone you know and love is being challenged by any number of these things – it could be depression, it could be anxiety, eating disorders, PTSD anything – the message is that it’s ok and actually a sign of strength to ask for help and the help is there. 

That’s a message that I want to get out there and people in my family have suffered from mental health so to answer your question, yeah I have experienced it first hand. I just think it’s so sad that in this day and age that the stigmas in many people’s minds are a sense of shame or a sense of embarrassment or a sense of just weakness. If you are talking about a physical illness, people will go and seek help. It’s generally no big deal and I feel that eventually, hopefully, we will get to a place where when someone is challenged with a mental ailment or illness then it will be the same kind of situation.

I think we can get to that point eventually. It’s just the whole area has been steeped in so much… ignorance really for hundreds of years if not thousands.

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I really enjoyed the first version of Broken so looking forward to hearing the Urthboy version too.

I would reiterate that with; I guess The Bamboos have been known as a band that creates fun and we like to make people dance and so to take on a message like this is a little different for us but I feel like; you know, we are just a band. I’m no expert on this but I just feel like if it affects even just one person’s life or something, I just think that if you have a platform or the small platform that we have, then I would like to use that in part.

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Do you think that enough is being done about mental health within the music business and do you have any advice for those suffering from it? 

There was an initiative. I can’t remember the name of it off the top of my head but there was an initiative going on in the last 24 months but I know many colleagues that have their own challenges with this and again, just to reiterate; I feel that generally in the music business, people are fairly open minded and you will get a lot of people talking openly about it and I think that sense of shame is maybe a little less because we face all sorts of challenges with being a performer and having your self-esteem placed in your art for want of a better term and all that stuff.

Often artists of all types are public figures and there have been many that have come forward and talked about their experiences. 

I think the thing is that there is a massive support network out there in the medical world around this and the medical professionals that I have spoken to about this are often frustrated because they say they could help so many people if only they would come forward but so many people don’t because of all these reasons of being ashamed or thinking that people will think they are weak.

Again, the message that I have is that you should be applauded for asking for help and it’s the opposite – that anyone who comes out and asks for help is showing strength because they’ve obviously been going on for a long time fighting something. 

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You will be heading out on tour soon. What do you miss most when you are on tour? And as a band, how do you ensure that you all get along while touring? 

A few of us, and I speak for myself, speaking of anxiety; I think I get separation anxiety from seeing my young children because I am very much involved with them on an every day basis so whenever I have to go away I definitely miss my kids a lot so that’s probably the hardest thing for me. 

Conversely, most people in the band have their own families now but we are also, as a band, a second family to each other so it’s actually great because our social lives have been somewhat diminished through having our own families. We are able to get together and be away from home and there is definitely a great, unified feeling. 

The Bamboos for me is my second family so if anyone is feeling a little low or whatever, there is definitely someone around to make them laugh or give them a hug or whatever is necessary at the time. 

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That second family thing comes across whilst you are on stage too. It’s always great to watch.

Oh great. I hope it does because when you are on stage, there is some kind of energy that happens. It’s like the total being greater than the some of the parts on an emotional level so I am glad that you feel that.

You were also on tour recently with Robbie Williams. How did that tour go? Did you get to meet Robbie?

I didn’t know whether we were going to get to meet him because sometimes these ultra-mega stars can be up on the top of the pyramid and never come down so I wasn’t sure what to expect. 

The first day we drove in in our mini bus at the back of the arena in Brisbane, there was Robbie Williams standing out the back smoking a cigarette in a dress and he’d lost a bet in some video game and he had to wear this dress all day and he was just the most down-to-earth person. I didn’t know what to expect of him. I always thought he had a great sense of humour and he didn’t seem to take himself too seriously which I liked. 

He was just an absolute charming, down-to-earth hilarious guy so we met him this first minute of the tour.

We’ve played to some big crowds before at festivals but the arena thing is a bit of a different ball game because for one; when you look out, all you can see is darkness so every stage almost feels like it’s the same one that you are getting on and it was quite a learning curve for us and for me to learn how to negotiate that environment in terms of entertaining people because there is almost a disconnect – as if you are in a bubble. You’ve almost got to reach out, I don’t know, five times as much with your mind to feel like you are actually connecting with people but I think it was really good for us. 

Luckily Robbie’s fans were really supportive and came out early so we were pretty much playing to almost full places which was really nice.

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THE BAMBOOS

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You guys have collaborated with some big names including Tim Rogers. How did that come about? And who would you love to work with next?

Well the Tim Rogers thing happened because there was an album that we did called Medicine Man and there was one song on there called I Got Burned which was a song that they played on the radio a fair bit at the time.

I had written that song after having a minor disagreement with my partner about how to load the dishwasher – that’s the amazing backstory about that. I wish I could say it was about my times in the swamps of Louisiana or something but it wasn’t. I knew at that time that Tim Rogers would be the ultimate voice for this song.

So we did that and it had some degree of success and then we thought a little while after that, why don’t we just do a whole record together because that seemed to work really well. We went out and did a tour and that was really good fun.

In terms of people who I’d love to work with next, that’s the funny thing with this record; I really wanted to put our lead singer Kylie Auldist front and centre and although Urthboy, Teesy and J-Live rap on that track, the rest of the album is all about Kylie as the vocalist.

It was really important to me to make that clear because I’ve been guilty of dragging a cast of 1000s onto our albums in the past because I have great flights of fancy in the studio but I really wanted to make an album where Kylie was the singer on everything. When we go out and play, Kylie is the singer. It’s almost as novel and basic as it sounds; what you hear on the record, you’re going to get when you come and see the band live which is something we’ve struggled with a bit in the past because we have had Alice Russell, Aloe Black and Dan Merriweather. It’s hard to rally all those people together on a stage.

In terms of people I want to work with, I just want to work with Kylie Auldist. In terms of ultimate, ultimate dream vocalists out there at the moment; I’m a big fan of Laura Imbruglia. That would be amazing to work with and there’s another guy from London that I’m a fan of – Tom Misch. He’s a young guy who plays guitar.

Leon Bridges; Michael Kiwanuka – these are amazing artists that I would dream about being in the studio with.

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You guys would have seen so much while being on tour. What are some of the stranger things that you have seen? And have there been any special moments that stand out in your mind?

There have definitely been some strange things. I would say that the gig that continues to stand out in my mind was a little while ago now but it was in 2008 or 2009, we played in Piza in Italy and it was in a Roman ruin – like a local Colosseum, just a smaller Colosseum. The walls were cracked, marble ruins and the amphitheatre of that was where the festival stage was and it sounds like a great cliché but the sun was going down and the whole sky was a brilliant pink/red and we are in this ancient Roman ruin playing our songs to this amazing crowd. That was a moment. That was really cool.

We have found ourselves in all sorts of shenanigans on the road. We’ve nearly run out of petrol in the Swiss Alps…I can’t think of any one thing in particular but all of the the things that you can pretty much imagine has happened.

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Have you taken risks in your career that could have potentially destroyed the band?

When I mentioned earlier that I had taken flights of fancy in the studio, I don’t think it would have ever destroyed the band or ruined the band but I think, for awhile, I was going off on particular musical influences that meant something to me at the time and trying to put them all into a Bamboos record when potentially, I could have put them into other projects maybe solo projects or created a new project.

It wasn’t necessarily that I was being blasé with the band and thinking that anything could work; I really did try and make these things work.

For awhile, I was really into this psychedelic kind of thing and so there are songs on our album Fever In The Road that are almost like a Tame Impala influenced direction but at the same time, I think I never wanted to have some sort of died-in-the-wall tribute soul Commitments band. The Bamboos have always been, to a degree, progressive and experimental.

We used emcees on our early albums. We’ve never been a purist soul band. I’ve never wanted it to be that. I guess what I’m saying in answer to your question, I may have pushed the envelope musically at times that may not have been to every listeners’ enjoyment but I don’t think it was ever going to do anything negative within the band. It was more ‘what’s this crazy stuff Lance has come up with now?’

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As a fan, it’s often quite hard to go up to your idols and say hello for fear of being turned away or fear of seizing up and sounding like an idiot. As a musician, how do you go at meeting your idols? Have you ever gone to speak to someone and just seized up? 

It is always weird to meet your heroes and I won’t mention any names but there are a couple of big heroes of mine that I have met that I came away feeling underwhelmed or maybe they were a little… When you’ve idolised someone for so many years, the reality of who they are; it almost becomes irrelevant in a way to your experience.

These people are just people. They could be in a grumpy mood that day or whatever. It’s not even their fault. Your expectation that you place upon them is not their fault. So I’ve had that happen but then I’ve met other idols and had an amazing time.

One that springs to mind, there was an amazing guitar player (he’s sadly passed away now) Cornell Dupree who played on all of the Aretha Franklin records and played on Donny Hathaway’s records and I went to a signing of his in Melbourne and I got there early because I knew the lines would be big but when I got there, there was no one there at all and there he was sitting at a desk with a pint (back in the days when you could smoke inside) and I literally sat down. I felt really bad because no one came but at the same time, I was able to sit next to one of my guitar gods and pick his brain.

I think maybe he got a little tired of me as I just kept talking but I think he also loved the fact that I knew all these obscure recordings he’d been on. That was wild.

Also recently, when I was talking about Bob Clearmountain; speaking to him, I didn’t seize up but I was almost stuttering and I felt quite self-conscious while I was speaking to him. To me, he’s a god of studio engineering. He also mixed Just Like Heaven by The Cure, The Temple of Low Men by Crowded House so at the end of that conversation, I thanked him for getting me through high school which hopefully didn’t make him feel too old but he did actually help get me through high school so…

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STREAM/PURCHASE “BROKEN” HERE

PRE ORDER NIGHT TIME PEOPLE HERE

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As well as being a guitarist, singer/song writer, you are also a DJ, producer and radio presenter. Is there anything that you can’t do? And any hidden talents that you haven’t revealed as yet? 

There’s an immeasurable things that I can’t do. I am still attempting to do the things that I can do better all the time. I’ve always wanted to be; I’ve always admired when someone gets up with their guitar or piano and can do a solo gig singing and playing their instruments. It’s something I’ve never had the confidence to do. I’m not saying I’m not capable of it but I would certainly have to do some work on it. I would love to sing better and be more confident with that. If one day, I could just get up and do the guitarist/singing thing at a gig, that would be a goal that I would love to try and achieve.

With hidden talents, I am really good with lawn care. I’m obsessed with my grass and I care for it deeply and I try to have this perfect green lawn and that’s not something that I usually talk about (laughs).

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What bands do you currently have on rotation in your CD player? And are there any bands that you just didn’t get until you saw them live? 

Again this guy Tom Misch from London , I’ve got his record, Geography on high rotation. He’s an amazing guitarist and singer and a great programmer or beats so I highly recommend that record.

And bands that I didn’t get until I saw them live…because I am so heavily invested in the art of the recorded medium, I often hear bands for the first time in that way and then if I really like them, I end up going to see them live. It always works that way for me. Maybe when I was younger and going out every night in the live music scene, I would see bands that I hadn’t heard before on record.

I don’t think I have an example of that for you because everything that I can think of, I already thought it was cool and then went to see them because I really wanted to experience that.

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What was the best advice that you were given when you first started out? And what advice would you give to someone who was starting out now? 

I came up through the jazz side of things and I did the jazz course at the Victorian College of the Arts and the main part of learning at that course was this band we had that played on Friday nights just as a hard core jazz band and I remember there was this famous Australian jazz musician, Ian Chaplin (a saxophone player) and he told me that even when you make a mistake, do it with conviction so even when you fuck up, play it like you mean it I guess he was saying. And do it with such conviction so that everything is strong and I always took that away from him and cherish that thing.

Play everything with conviction, even when making a mistake and I think that’s really good advice.

In terms of advice for young musicians coming up, the scene is just so different from when I came up in a large part due to the explosion of the internet and that has been a great enabler for shrinking down the world and enabling collaborations globally. It’s been amazing. Also just the technology itself in creating music as well.

I would advise everyone to make their own music and start writing their own music from the get-go. Don’t wait til you think you’ve got some specific skill set together and then you are ready to write your own music. Just start writing your own songs because I think creativity and song writing – people talk about all this sort of divine inspiration but I believe the creativity really is like a muscle that you can exercise. They talk about people writing for the waste paper basket but the more you write, the better you will write.

I spent a decade working as a free-lance session musician before I even started doing that so if I could have been doing that from high school or the time I was leaving school, there would be a whole lot more songs there so that’s my advice. Start writing songs as soon as you can.

 

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THE BAMBOOS

‘NIGHT TIME PEOPLE’

TOUR

Tickets here

Saturday, 4th August @ The Corner Hotel, Melbourne
Friday, 10th August @ The Triffid, Brisbane
Saturday, 11th August @ Oxford Art Factory, Sydney
Friday, 17th August @ Rosemount Hotel, Perth
Saturday, 18th August @ The Gov, Adelaide

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FOLLOW THE BAMBOOS HERE
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