Are You Comfortable?: The Question Of Kirin J Callinan

From Mercy Arms and Jack Ladder sideman to divisive solo star, Kirin J Callinan was a fascinating figure even before his controversial Sugar Mountain set in January. ADAM CURLEY gives a long-form report from there as well as in the studio with The Presets’ Kim Moyes, where Callinan is making his second attempt at a first album. Photos by McLEAN STEPHENSON.

[Historical image is withheld pending rights review.] Kirin J Callinan takes a final swig of his Asahi, drops the bottle into a nearby bin and paces the wooden floor of the Forum, head down, five or so steps away from the bar, five or so steps back.

It’s 5.45pm, not yet an hour into the Sugar Mountain festival, held over one Saturday evening in January inside the grand inner-city Melbourne venue. On the stage is Lower Plenty, playing their wallflower pop to an audience of less than a hundred. Early-comers and media trickle in past the stalls to the standing area, shake hands, stop at the bars. Most are paying attention to the band even as they talk and settle.

Callinan is not. His eyes flick to the stage twice in quick succession. Otherwise they’re fixed on the ground. He’s dressed smartly but not conspicuously in grey suit pants and a tucked white shirt open at the collar. In a couple of hours the Sydney guitarist and singer will perform a collaborative set with filmmaker Kris Moyes upstairs in the seated theatre, the Forum 2, inciting walk-outs and long debates into the night. No one in the audience yet knows what is about to go down and no one notices him.

Now, with his arms folded, Callinan strides behind the gathering crowd. Now, Callinan paces.

Ten days later he greets me with an easy smile at the inner-western Sydney home of Kim Moyes, older brother of Kris, member of The Presets and current producer of Callinan’s debut solo album. As the garage door retracts, unveiled is a pair of neon-pink parachute pants then an army-green T-shirt bearing the word ‘HURTSVILLE’, the title of the 2011 record by Jack Ladder & The Dreamlanders, in which Callinan plays guitar. If signs of The Presets’ art-club aesthetic are to be expected at the house of its back half, this is the first, aside from a bright yellow number 20 on the front brick fence of the compact two-storey.

“The song is so new that a week ago Callinan had no lyrics, just a title. He compares it to a meeting of Sting and Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits.”

Callinan is folded, pulling on his runners. He appears boyish in the outfit: thin, freckled arms belied only by a small, faded tattoo on his left of the hand-drawn letters KX, his sometimes sign-off on correspondence. “Kim’s still working on his own stuff,” he says, nodding a heap of brown curls towards Moyes’ ground-floor studio. “We can go for a walk.” He has lunch – or breakfast – on his mind. He holds up a takeaway container of Thai noodles, which he’ll eat with bashfully accepted cutlery from a backstreet café. “I could have got you something,” he offers in retrospect. “You can have some of this if you want.”

Up behind him from inside the house comes Holiday, Moyes’ two-year-old son, who informs us of the impending inclement weather. “It’s windy outside,” the kid says. “I can’t go out. I don’t have a hat.”

He’s right, more crucially about the first part. It’s midday and reaching peak humidity; there’s every indication the rain clouds that have blown south from Queensland are ready to do their thing. But out we go, Holiday safe if still hatless in the house, strolling the bitumen slopes of Annandale through thickening spit. Callinan fills me in on the plan for the afternoon.

It’s the final day of tracking for the album, a record that has been hinted at and anticipated by certain corners of the international music media for the past two years. Today there are vocals to record for a newly written song, and tonight Callinan will add what he calls “sparkle”: extra guitar tracks and effects. The song is so new that a week ago Callinan had no lyrics, just a title, ‘Halo,’ which he wasn’t certain would stick. It has. That title – possibly influenced by the computer game, he says – is now the centrepiece lyric of a duet with Alex Akers of Melbourne duo Forces. Akers flew up the previous day to sing his part, and Callinan compares the track to a meeting of Sting and Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits. “It’s not like a macho song, but it’s … not erotic,” he considers.

Akers has been the first outsider to find himself in the studio with Callinan and Moyes, who’ve been working on the album on and off for seven months. A canned 2009 live album aside, it’s Callinan’s second go at a debut, the first recorded with various personnel in numerous available spaces, including the Oxford Art Factory and the home studio of former Wolfmother member Chris Ross, in 2011 and the first half of 2012. When those recordings were sent for mixing to Chris Taylor, member/producer of Grizzly Bear and co-owner of Terrible Records, which will release Callinan’s album in the USA, Taylor suggested Callinan try again.

“I sent it all to him, and he said, ‘OK, I’m free on these days, come over and we’ll mix it, or you can do the whole thing again because I reckon you can do better,’” Callinan has told me. “And I was like, ‘Holy shit, you’re right, of course you’re right.’ I was so glad he said that.”

The problem, Callinan says, was inconsistency, but song arrangement has also been a focus with Moyes. Many of the songs have stayed but have been reworked. Only one of the original recordings remains and has been built upon considerably by the pair. The song with Akers is one of a few new tracks. “He was a bit nervous coming into it,” Callinan says of asking the Forces percussionist to the studio.

[Historical image is withheld pending rights review.] I’m the second intruder. It’s fair to say that if there are any nerves in this instance, they belong to Callinan’s camp. Seated at his monitor in the studio, Moyes asks how long I plan to stay. As long as they’ll have me, I say, though Callinan’s manager Daniel Stricker – with whom Midnight Juggernauts runs Siberia Records, on whose roster Callinan and Forces belong in Australia – has stipulated I am allowed three hours.

The initial request was for a couple of days, a lengthy invasion of any recording program but long enough to find a story arc, to get a sense of the characters at work or perhaps the people behind the characters at work. Now that I’m here in the residential setting with the pair, that length of time seems an overreach. But it’s also already an hour into my allotted visit and I’ve spent the morning at airports. Pushing things out a little feels possible.

Moyes is friendly but noncommittal and otherwise distracted. In front of him are several jagged soundwaves highlighted on the monitor by coloured blocks, vocal takes by Callinan and Akers. Callinan sits on the stool of a keyboard and writes in a notebook with a novelty pen shaped as a paintbrush. Moyes hands him one shaped as a drumstick, which gets a laugh. Moyes goes back to clicking around the screen. “Mm,” he hums. “You can stay for a little bit.”

It’s a better response than I’ve received two weeks prior, asking to sit in on Callinan’s sound-check for Sugar Mountain. Stricker, via an email forwarded by Callinan’s publicist five days out from the festival, explains: Unfortunately the performance at sugar mountain is pretty secretive and no one knows what's going to be happening, therefore soundcheck might not be possible – can we arrange to meet sometime around it, and then obviously he'll be at the performance? Sorry it's a bit difficult. It's an interesting performance to say the least... [sic]

I reply to the publicist that I will not be reporting live from the festival and therefore will not spoil any surprise. I’m only asking for enough access to Callinan to build a story. It does no good.

Rehearsal for the set happens four days before the festival at a studio in Melbourne’s northeast. Callinan has flown down. His embellished band for the show includes Stricker and Melbourne musicians Shags Chamberlain, Lewis Boyes, Evelyn Morris of Pikelet and Jessica Venables of Jessica Says on cello, as well as Venables’ younger brother Nick on violin. Kris Moyes, who directed the clip for Callinan’s 2012 single ‘W II W (Way to War)’ and has made videos for Sia and Grizzly Bear, will project visuals to a screen. The band practises five songs and is not told what will happen in the performance on the night, only that something strange will occur.

Two days out, I’m offered an interview with Callinan directly after his set, in the Sugar Mountain media room at 9pm. I’m to meet his publicist in the foyer at 8.45. An hour before his set, I spy Callinan again, this time on the stairwell leading to the theatre in which he will perform. He’s alone against the wall. I approach and thank him for making time for an interview.

“Especially after the show,” he says, “when I don’t have to think.”

He’s speaking quick and low. I ask if he’s feeling relaxed.

“That’s what I’m about to do,” he answers, “go and find somewhere I can relax.”

“Who Cares? It’s Not Like Anyone’s Going To Hear It.”

Moyes’ studio comprises two rooms: a control room and a slightly larger live room. In the control room, squeezed one after the other in a U-bend around the monitor, is a keyboard topped by a laptop; a cream couch behind which is a window to a neat courtyard; a bookshelf of synthesisers and one of tambourines. Taking up a good quarter of the room is a tower of hardware compartments, looking like a primitive computer lit by rows of red and green power lights. On one end of the keyboard is a pile of books – Christopher Hitchens’ The Portable Atheist, Richard Dawkins’ The Greatest Show on Earth, copies of Sound on Sound magazine – as well as packs of DVD-Rs, two labelled ‘BEAMS BACK-UP’, referring presumably to The Presets’ gold-certified 2005 record.

Callinan and Moyes slip instantly into their work. Moyes plays segments of the Akers duet through two freestanding monitors either side of his head. Callinan’s vocals for ‘Halo’ have already been recorded, it transpires. The afternoon’s task is to record overdubs of singular phrases and half-phrases he and Moyes aren’t happy with, or to record doubles and triples of phrases to layer up, making for a denser vocal.

“It’s a fog of synths and crackling beats with defined verses and a sky-rocketing chorus, a good-looking rebel in a leather jacket to the gnarled runts that have been Callinan’s recordings to date.”

The song – or the song imagined from the fragments repeating now in the control room – is as big, if not bigger, than Callinan earlier made out. It’s a fog of synths and crackling beats with defined verses and a sky-rocketing chorus, a good-looking rebel in a leather jacket to the gnarled runts that have been Callinan’s recordings to date. With Akers’ deep voice joining Callinan’s bowed croon and a few searing guitar notes, the song could be the theme track to an outsider’s revamp of The Lost Boys.

Callinan stands at the mic in the live room, visible through a large window in front of Moyes’ monitor, and practices the beginning of the chorus, which is the title held long and high. His voice without any instrumentation is sandy and soulful.

“Hay-low— No, hay-low—.”

Prepped, Moyes records the line, and again, and another. They work as many men in many recording studios work, with few words.

Moyes: “That sounded good.”
Callinan: “I felt like I held onto the ‘hay’ too long.”
Moyes: “It’s all pretty blurry. OK, go again.”

And: Moyes: “Sounds great.”
Callinan: “I could go longer.”
Moyes: “OK, why not?”

Moyes at one point ribs Callinan with a “Who cares? It’s not like anyone’s going to hear it.” Mostly decisions are made with little discussion, an intuitiveness that only sometimes drops to a method of avoiding undesirable suggestions. In a section of the song leading to the chorus, Callinan sings, “The rains came down, now I’m stuck in the mud/I’ve forgotten who I ever was.” He has the idea, with his lyric book in front of him, to “make it a bit aboriginal.”

He speaks the line: “The rain come down. The rain come down, instead of came down. Is that worth doing?”
“No.”
Callinan laughs. “No.”
He returns from the live room having recorded his hay-lows.

“It’s weird how every one sounds unique. Some were OK and some weren’t,” he says to Moyes. Then, to both of us, dryly, “It’s called a lack of control over your instrument.”

Moyes grins and palms it off. “It’s giving in to chance, mate.”

Callinan adds, agreeing: “Giving in to chaos.”

“How To Make An Impression Without Really Trying”

It was in 2005 that Callinan first met Kim Moyes. Callinan and Stricker were playing in the band Lost Valentinos – then named The Valentinos – when Moyes produced the group’s debut EP. (Callinan is credited on the release under his birth name, Kieran Callinan.) Callinan’s final tour with The Valentinos later that year saw them supporting The Presets in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne. By then Callinan had decided to concentrate on another band, Mercy Arms, who would go on to sign with Capitol Records in the States and later be dropped, along with many other bands on the company’s books, when Capitol merged with Virgin Records in 2007.

“To some he was updating a technique with his own ideas and flamboyancy. To others merely pushing an attitude.”

With Mercy Arms, countering songwriter Thom Moore’s straighter Lothario, Callinan gained a reputation for his unconventional guitar and performance style, compared often in reviews to that of Rowland S. Howard and others from Melbourne’s ‘little bands’ era. He made grating, jarring sounds in a dress or a sailor’s outfit. He dance-stepped as if taking cues from an aerobics instructor. To some he was updating a technique (or anti-technique) with his own ideas and natural flamboyancy. To others he was merely pushing an attitude.

[Historical image is withheld pending rights review.] It was only when Mercy Arms split, following the independent release of their debut album in 2008, that Callinan began to perform on his own, though he had been working on solo material at home. He’s named the discovery of Scott Walker’s 2006 album, The Drift, as an influence on the decision. Early sets saw him looping effects, barking indecipherable lyrics, jumping from the microphone to a drum kit, turning rooms into echo chambers with his many pedals. His first release on Siberia Records, and the label’s inaugural release, was the 2011 EP She, essentially two movements of distortion and a rendition of The Go-Betweens’ ‘Apology Accepted’ with sonic Tourette’s.

Solo, outside a more conventional band setting, Callinan could be hailed as an unrecognised talent or be ignored, but he continued to inspire more public opinion in Jack Ladder & The Dreamlanders. He upended the arrangements of Tim Rogers’ [a.k.a. Jack Ladder] songs live and influenced a change from bare rock ‘n’ roll to moodier and broader compositions. At the Golden Plains festival in 2010, with Jack Ladder building to an album release, Rogers and Callinan dramatically slowed the tempo of the songs and altered melodies to generally damning reviews. Rogers has mentioned that his band’s evolution has come in part because “Kirin just doesn’t play blues, or rock and roll even.”

It was a lack of reverence for songwriting that was cited by industry insiders for the little radio attention given to Callinan’s 2012 single ‘W II W (Way To War)’ in comparison to the attention given to its video, a nightmarish sequence of graphics starring Callinan in his underwear, which earned year-end awards from Triple J and FBi Radio.

Arguably the most widely distributed critical response to Callinan thus far came last October on a trip to New York City. Callinan was there to play showcases during the CMJ Music Marathon alongside other acts involved with Terrible Records. One of the CMJ shows, on the third day of Callinan’s week-long stay, drew the attention of The New York Times music writer Jon Caramanica, who afterwards wrote a post for the Times’ ArtsBeat blog headed: “How to make an impression without really trying.”

Ethan Silverman, who runs Terrible Records with Chris Taylor, approached Callinan after the show. “I’ve got good news and bad news,” Silverman said. “The good news is a writer from The New York Times was here and is writing about the show. The bad news is he hated it.”

Callinan isn’t so sure Caramanica hated the set. The review, he says, reads as if “he was still thinking about it.” The piece is certainly up for some interpretation, largely a list of stage directions with the occasional sassy punch line. It ends: You hold your guitar by its body high into the sky, letting feedback swallow the room. You keep it aloft as you fall to your knees. You stand back up. You take a small bow, like a child actor at the end of a junior high school play.

Regardless of Caramanica’s intention, Silverman’s phone rang hot after the review was posted, and Callinan’s week in New York was soon booked with shows. Dev Hynes of Terrible Records act Blood Orange and Yeah Yeah Yeahs drummer Brian Chase joined as his backing band, alongside Tim Rogers, a regular member. Callinan played a collaborative performance with the saxophonist Sam Hillmer of Diamond Terrifier (also of long-running art-rock band Zs) at the Brooklyn venue Public Assembly. They shared the bill with Thurston Moore and Loren Connors.

It was in New York that Kim Moyes first saw Callinan play live, having signed on to produce the album based on the potential of Callinan’s recorded songs. Callinan likes the “poetry” of having the first producer he ever worked with also produce his first solo album. Thankfully, too, Moyes liked what he saw in New York, though he will be joining Callinan and his band at rehearsal when recording is finished this evening to give them advice on where they can improve their live show before they support Bat for Lashes at the Enmore Theatre tomorrow night. “Not as a member of the band, but more like an M.D.,” Callinan says, using the theatre lingo for ‘music director,’ the person responsible for ensuring the cast and music crew of a performance know their parts.

“The Brain Massage”

In the studio, Moyes has suggested that Callinan warm up his voice. He’s burning an audio program to CD for Callinan to listen to in the live room. The program was given to Moyes by another singer he’s working with, a former member of Santigold’s band. It is, he says, for “people who use their voices in extreme ways.” The vocal coach of the program is a New Yorker named Melissa Cross, who lists Slayer and Slipknot amongst clients on her website. When the program starts, many of the in-jokes between Callinan and Moyes are explained. Cross gives memorable names to each distinct exercise: we’re breathing “in rotunda,” we’re singing “above the pencil.”

Callinan circles the live room and follows Cross’s instructions. When Cross instructs to make a nasal buzzing sound, called “the French doorbell,” Callinan makes a nasal buzzing sound. When she instructs to repeat the same note four times in a row, being careful not to waver from the course, Callinan does as told, stopping partway when he falters and trying again. When Cross instructs to sustain a note “above the pencil,” Callinan trills along to her high-pitched singing. This exercise is called “the brain massage.”

“Can We Play One More Song?”

Daniel Stricker hurries across the theatre and into a side room accessible only to those with Sugar Mountain’s all-access laminates. On the stage of the Forum II, Callinan’s band members are finding their places, tuning their instruments. I’m in the audience, in the centre of the second row, which by the midpoint of Callinan’s set will boast a population of one. Directly in front of me is a gym-fit man, in thigh-hugging shorts and a tank top, taking photos of himself and others with his phone. During the show this man will get up on stage to take a photo with Callinan and be forced off by two men in sandshoes who arrive when Kris Moyes calls for security. The festival’s real security will be standing in the wings.

“Moyes projects ‘yesterday’s rehearsal’ footage from his laptop showing Billy having an induced seizure. Some in the audience laugh; some groan uncomfortably.”

The man sitting next to me, another writer not working at the festival, is trying to get his penis into one of the gym bunny’s shots by unzipping his shorts and lowering himself out of his chair. Stricker arrives to the stage followed by Callinan, who lingers briefly then dashes off into the side room. After a few minutes, Callinan returns with Kris Moyes, who has a phone to his ear. The performance has – or hasn’t, depending on any individual’s reading of events – begun.

Moyes and Callinan explain that their initial plan for the set has been quashed by the festival’s directors due to duty of care. There is a man with photosensitive epilepsy in the audience, we’re told, and the original plan was to attempt to induce a seizure through the use of strobe lights without the audience’s knowledge. The man was approached in the waiting room of the Royal Children’s Hospital where he was visiting his son, who has the same condition. The performance would entail the audience’s response. (Watch clips of the performance here (NSFW) and here.)

As the pair take turns explaining the situation, Callinan stands at his microphone with his guitar around his neck and his hands in his pockets. His voice is calm and measured. He laughs at the gym bunny standing to take photos. When “Billy,” the man with epilepsy, is called to the stage, Callinan wraps an arm around him before coaxing him in the direction of Moyes. He watches and then smiles at the ground patiently as Moyes projects “yesterday’s rehearsal” footage from his laptop showing Billy having an induced seizure, a close-up of the man on stage fitting. Some in the audience laugh; some groan uncomfortably.

A woman in conservative dress with schoolmarm curls stands and gives a disapproving speech. Calls of “This is staged” and “They’re exploiting you, Billy” and “Dickheads” fly around the room. A man shouts, “Play a song.” People file out of the theatre. The gym bunny enthusiastically yells at the stage. The man next to me is disappointed that the gym bunny is a plant. Callinan and the band start to play. The sound is understated, the strings used sparingly, and Callinan stands in place. Overhead, Kris Moyes triggers flashing images of Callinan masturbating, pissing off a cliff, of Callinan’s genitals.

When the music from the main stage comes over the PA after only a few songs, but nearing the scheduled end of Callinan’s set, Callinan attempts to have it turned off. “Can we play one more song?” he asks the side of the stage. For an instant it appears the answer is yes and Callinan returns to the microphone before he is told by Stricker that the set is over. He looks around, tightens his mouth and takes off his guitar. He holds it with one hand by its body and throws it into the air, letting it fall to the stage with a loud thud.

“Kirin’s At A Crucial Point”

In a break from vocal takes in the studio, I ask Kim Moyes about his role at tonight’s rehearsal. His advice, he says, will be focused on a few songs in Callinan’s set that he thinks have not been rehearsed well enough by the band. He says it’s frustrating to see raw talent fall by the wayside because they don’t work enough on their live show, and likewise to see bands who are merely OK rise up because they do. “Kirin’s at a crucial point,” he says from his desk. The Presets quickly learned from the professionalism of international bands, “and we saw the effect of that with each tour on our career.”

When Callinan returns, I ask him if ‘Halo’ is a good indication of the rest of the album. It’s split, he says, between this kind of highly produced song style, utilising loops and beats, and the guitar-led ballads he was better known for previous to the release of ‘W II W (Way To War).’ The decision is made to play me a couple of tracks from the laptop. Moyes tees them up.

The first is a song called ‘Embracism’, which Callinan has been playing live. An instrumental version of the song was the first track of an online mixtape released through Terrible Records in October last year, but the song we’re hearing is unrecognisable from that release. It is now crunchy and fast-paced, has been moulded into a comprehendible shape. Callinan’s vocal is more to the fore than it is on ‘Halo’, broad and rough and exaggerated, more in line with his live set. He huffs about fighting, about being a man. It’s still Kirin J Callinan as we’ve heard him, offbeat and gruesome and humorous, but it’s Kirin J Callinan in a frame, his features clearly defined.

More familiar is a watery balled titled ‘Sean’, also a recent live staple. It’s immediately evident the raw magic Callinan has been heard to create from gruff confessionals and well-timed, reverberating guitar notes. It’s also evident the appeal of placing these in Moyes’ hands: the blue tones of the guitar could only be more clearly imagined.

Comparing the differing treatments of the songs, Moyes says the album can be split into “pre-Kim Moyes and post-Kim Moyes.”

“Pre-Kim,” Callinan says.
Moyes chuckles. “A bit of pre-Kim.”
“A bit of pre-Kim oozing out,” Callinan says. “Sorry.”

They get back to recording. Moyes turns to me and asks if I’m going to stick around. I tell him I’d like to. He has an interview at the Triple J studios in an hour to talk about The Presets, which gives us a natural cut-off point.

“Yeah, you can stay,” he says. “I’m feeling quite comfortable with you here, actually. I’m surprised.” He looks through the window to Callinan in the live room and asks, raising his voice, “Kirin? Are you comfortable?”

“Did That Go To Plan?”

Callinan is missing. I’m standing in the foyer of the Forum after his set, waiting for his publicist to collect me and take me to the media room. Then I receive a text message.

Hey bro. Am trying to track Kirin down. May need to delay interview slightly, will keep you posted.
I reply: Don’t let him do a runner. Send me a text mate.
A follow-up comes straightaway.
Come to the front of the stage.

I go back to the theatre and the publicist assures me that if we can just find Callinan, the interview will happen. She spots Stricker walking past. “Stick with him,” she says. “He’s the one who’s finding Kirin.”

“I find the whole thing pretty unbelievable myself. It was hard work. That was the most uncomfortable gig of all time.”

Stricker goes into the side room. I wait with the publicist at the door. A few minutes later, Callinan appears from inside, smiling. He says he’s willing to talk, if only for a few minutes. Forces are about to perform their collaboration with the dance choreographer Antony Hamilton and he wants to watch. The publicist hands me a backstage laminate and Callinan and I go into the room to find a place to talk. There’s a table set with bowls of potato chips and soft drinks. Festival staff and artists, including some of Callinan’s band, mill about. We find the quietest place to sit, at the top of a set of stairs. At the bottom, a brightly lit man is standing behind a table and speaking to a camera, filming what could in another setting be the introduction to a cooking show but which Callinan thinks is the festival’s official online channel.

Even by this time, 20 minutes after his set, rumours and opinions have made their way around the festival. The abrupt ending was real and the festival directors are angry. The band is annoyed. Billy was an actor. Kris Moyes is using Callinan to further his career. Callinan is working too closely with the Moyes brothers. Later, words such as “child” and “fool” and “amateur” will be offered, as well as “farce” and “antagonist” and “brave.” And questions will be raised. Is it condescending to assume a person with an illness can’t competently decide to be part of a performance piece? What if that person is in need financially? Is the unapologetic suggestion of an offensive act as bad as the act itself? Does an audience need to be ‘in on the gag’ in order for meaning to be drawn from it?

[Historical image is withheld pending rights review.] Through the weekend, discussions will continue on social media. The musician Sophia Brous will write on her personal Facebook profile that she is uncertain Callinan’s performance was any good but also uncertain that matters, concluding that it’s “something that I’ll keep thinking about for a while.” She calls the performance a “big, courageous Fuck You, which has stimulated a lot of critical discussion.” Jarrod Quarrell of Lost Animal – in which Callinan occasionally plays guitar live – will comment on the post: “If it was all planned it was smart, risky and hilarious. If it wasn’t planned it was still all those things.”

Later in the week there will be more rumours. Callinan’s family are concerned by the response. He’s been receiving worried messages from friends.

Right now, with Callinan calmly seated on the stair beside me, I have one primary question about tonight’s performance.

Did that go to plan?
“Absolutely not. It was… it was tough.”

In what sense?
“Ah, well, I mean we had a plan for the show we wanted to do…”

I don’t know whether I believe you.
“Well, like, that’s fine. I find the whole thing pretty unbelievable myself. It was hard work. That was the most uncomfortable gig of all time.”

You obviously didn’t get to play as many songs as you’d intended.
“No, no. Originally we wanted to do an onslaught of strobes, similar to shows we’ve done in the past but more intense, and then have an epileptic planted in the audience. Whether he actually would have a seizure or not we can’t really control, but either way [the festival directors stopped it]. We kept it very secret for a long time. Sorry, are we being too loud?”

The cooking show is still filming. The small crew doesn’t appear disturbed.

You had rehearsal on Tuesday, right? So you’ve been here a week?
“I had to go back for the [FBi Radio] SMAC Awards. We played a song there, which went exactly to plan, which was great and that felt really good. You know, I didn’t feel so great after that [what just happened]. But you know, I’ve played so many shows; I’ve played good shows and bad shows and terrible shows. I liked the effect it had, which was awesome. It wasn’t what I’d wanted to do, so…”

Callinan will spend the next couple of hours in the Forum’s main foyer surrounded by a changing cluster of festival-goers before spinning ’80s party tunes from inside an unused cold room in the tiny back area of The Liberty Social a few blocks away. As the festival winds down, he’ll wander the venue alone handing out flyers for the DJ set, each doubling as a free-entry ticket to the club.

“We Should Bring That In Closer”

Kim Moyes and Callinan walk me outside. It’s time for Moyes to leave for his radio interview. The vocals for ‘Halo’ have now been tracked, which means that all the vocals that will be heard on Callinan’s debut album have been recorded. With only some sparkle left to add, the next step is another trip to New York City to mix the record, finally, with Chris Taylor.

“Callinan goes back to his pacing, goes back to his frown and the floor, to whatever is worrying him.”

It’s a cloying afternoon, but the earlier shower has not transpired into rain. The rain has not come down. Moyes points me in the direction of the light rail and I ride it to the city’s east and find a pub in which to go over my notes, to begin to find the story. I think about what was and wasn’t written in Jon Caramanica’s New York Times review. I wonder whether Caramanica was indeed still thinking about Callinan’s performance when he wrote it. I question what I have chosen to ask and not ask.

On the pages of my notebook there are four points I will return to as I consider how to write a profile of one of Australia’s most talked-about young musicians.

1. Callinan pacing the floor of the Forum, head down, two hours before his set. A man walks up behind him and taps him on the shoulder. Callinan breaks his trance, smiles at the man, hugs him and shakes his hand. The two exchange a few pleasant words and, as the man moves to be on his way, Callinan pulls him back by his arm for a final smirked remark – a joke? – before the man continues across the room and Callinan goes back to his pacing, goes back to his frown and the floor, to whatever is worrying him.

2. My decision to fly to Sydney to sit in on Callinan’s recording even when I’m permitted only three hours in the studio, even when my budget tells me it will cost me more to write this piece than I will make from selling it, even when my request for access to Callinan’s Sugar Mountain sound-check is rebuffed and the story is in danger of becoming a non-story.

3. Callinan onstage as his festival set is theatrically falling down around him, composed and amused, a large enough switch from the man walking the Forum’s floor that I have written in my book: “He looks so comfortable.”

4. An interaction between Kim Moyes and Callinan as they play me the song ‘Sean’ on the laptop. Two-thirds of the way into the track, Callinan’s recorded voice breaks to a lengthy silence – a counted three seconds at least – before a soft guitar note relieves the tension.

Callinan sits up. “We should bring that in closer.”

Moyes shakes his head. “No way, that’s brilliant. It’s so…” he thinks for a beat, “awkward. It’s just to the right point. It draws it out and then you get that nice, gentle payoff.”

Callinan listens to Moyes and nods. “Yeah,” he says simply, apparently convinced.

Moyes fans his hands out. He’s stating the obvious, emphasising the trick.

“Mate,” he says, “that’s drama.”

+