Ned Collette

Ned Collette is a Melbourne musician perhaps better known for his role as front man and guitar wizard for 6-piece ensemble City City City. Lesser known is that Collette is an accomplished solo performer in his own right. Often playing through a loop pedal, Collette’s mastery of the form is such that moments into his performance a multi-layerd arrangement of rhythm and percussive noises emanate from a single guitar. This serves as a complex backdrop to his wry lyrical observations and plaintive Jim O’Rourke-like voice.

On his debut solo album Jokes & Trials, gone are the layers of white noise and chugging riffs that bookmarked early live performances, and instead the focus shifts to the precise finger-picking and dense folk arrangements that are coming to the fore of his impressive and ever changing batch of songs. We met for a rambling conversation on songwriting, dancing naked on tables, 20 minute guitar solos and the merits of prog-rock.

DISCUSSION RE: DODGY INTERVIEWS, PRESS PHOTO AWKWARDNESS, GIN & TONIC, PASTA SAUCE, & ONE PERSON CONVERSATIONS

So you’re record is a step away from the layered looping stuff you’ve been doing live?

Kind’ve. I just realized it was stupid to record the loops live, cause with loops you always get a certain amount of degradation. Which is kind’ve charming live.

It’s part of the appeal.

I did try and record a few of them live but in the end I just thought ‘Oh well, just multi-track that.’ I reckn you might as well use the studio. I don’t have a problem with studio things sounding different to live things. But there’s a few loops on there. Like all the percussion on ‘Boulder’ and all that stuff is looped guitars.

One of the great things about seeing someone loop things live is that it is all fairly tenuous. If you stuff something up slightly, it’s up to the performer to figure out what they can do about it on the fly. It adds to the appeal.

Yeah. There have been horror moments though. Where it doesn’t add to anything. (Laughs) Cause when I started getting into loops…well when I bought a loop pedal I guess…I saw a lot of I s’pose ‘experimental’ musicians, who just use it as a kind of wash. Whereas I wanted to use it in time, to create rhythm and percussion guitar loops. But of course once I started getting into that I discovered a bunch of other people doing that as well.

Then after a while I started feeling like I was ‘the loop guy’ so I started to try and use it less and stop rocking out. I mean fuck I’m in already in a whole band that plays loud rock music. So I really tried to tone it down.

If you’re a singer/songwriter and you believe in your material, there’s a tendency to believe it shouldn’t need an artifice or props. It can just be one guitar and one voice and it doesn’t need anything else.

Absolutely. Though I don’t think I’ve got that voice, maybe yet. Maybe never. You know seeing Laura Jean play the other night. Laura Jean could sing the back of a shampoo bottle and it’d be poignant. She’s got such a beautiful voice…(pause) which is NOT to detract from her songwriting at all, that’s a horrible thing to say (laughs) but I saw her and I was thinking ‘God I wish I could just play a nylon string guitar and sing like that’

You do have a unique voice though.

When I started doing this I just had no idea how to sing. Really. Or how I was going to sing. So I just opted to go really quiet and try and get the words across.

Maybe that’s why it works. Sometimes people with good voices maybe realise they don’t have to think too hard about their words.

Yeah but then you can have people with good voices who do get the words across. Actually now that I think about it most of the singers I like don’t have much of a voice in that traditional sense.

Y’know people said Dylan had a shit voice. But he had an awesome voice and he hit all those notes! There’s some interview where he’s like ‘Hey man I hit those notes. You’re not listening, if you don’t hear that. I’m hitting those notes!’ (Laughs) I think everyone was trying to say ‘Oh well he was a great lyricist but he cant sing.’ Like Leonard Cohen or the guy from Jethro Tull. But they actually can.

See I wonder how many people listen to lyrics cause I was never a big lyric listener. I remember in high school I always listened more to the music. And I remember Jono (Mid-State Orange drummer) who I was friends with in high school, he was always much more into the lyrics. And I used to be really envious cause I couldn’t take lyrics in that well.

What do you mean? Was it a decision?

No I just always listened to the music more. But now it’s changed. Well, it’s changing a bit. But if something’s musically dull to me I have a hard time.

I was reading this thing where Townes Van Zandt said…cause you know people have called him ‘The greatest American songwriter’ or better than Dylan or whatever …Steve Earle said he was gonna dance naked on Dylans table to prove the point or something (laughs). But Townes Van Zandt was saying ‘Well look two words can be beautiful and if you add a single note then you’ve got a song, it’s not that hard’. But I dunno. In the end people just like different things I guess. Some people thrive on simplicity and I never liked it. But I’m coming to understand it.

There seems to be a point that some people can get to where they’re able to create a layer of meaning from a very simple thing that anyone can do. But because they have a subconscious ability or craft to match things or phrase things a certain way, they’re able to emotionally touch a large number of people.

For me that’s more of a lyrical thing than a musical thing.

But you could have the most beautiful lyrics in the world, and if you set it to a Black Metal tune then it’s not going to have that impact. It’s not going to serve your lyrics very well.

I dunno that’s kind’ve interesting cause I’ve been thinking about that. I’m not so down with abstract lyricism. I find it kind’ve hard and I’m sort’ve like ‘What the fuck are you talking about?’ All those solo Syd Barrett records and stuff that a lot of my friends got into and I was really into early Pink Floyd and all that. And some of the songs were good but just that kind’ve meandering lyricism I couldn’t handle. But I really like meandering abstract music. Yet I like lyrics to be well thought out. And that’s why I like Leanord Cohen the best. There’s a certain abstraction to the lyrics but you can tell they all sort’ve make some bigger sense. Apparently he’d work on phrases for a whole year just to condense them and get them to exactly what he wants them to say. Whereas music I don’t mind whatever the noise is.

You’re record does have a bit of that 60’s folk-psychedelica feel to it musically, which in its time had it’s fair share lot of bullshit and flowery lyrics.‘Wizards in the meadow’ and what not.

There’s some lyrics on this album that I’m…pretty uninspired by. There’s some genuinely good lyrical moments that I’m proud of but there’s also some…you know there’s some things for me where the feel and the instrumentation and the harmonies are good enough that the lyrics don’t have to be a big deal. Actually it’s not that I think the lyrics are ever bad at all, its that sometimes I think ‘If you weren’t me, would you be getting anything out of this lyrically at all?’

I’ve never really had to think about it. I never used to think about what it was to be a songwriter. I dunno. I don’t even know if people do? Do people? (Laughs) I don’t know if the great songwriters wake up and have a debate over what it means to be a songwriter.

DISCUSSION RE: NEUTRAL MILK HOTEL, JOANNA NEWSOM, PIKELET, SCOTT WALKER AND PERCUSSION ON SLABS OF MEAT.

City City City had a few people dancing at the East Brunswick Club last week.

Yeah that was cool.

Are you turning into a dance jam rock band? It’s like the Grateful Dead mixed with Can or something.

Ha. Maybe. I’ve been listening to a lot of the Grateful Dead recently (laughs) Ben from Cities gave me a Live In Europe double cd from ’72…they’re a fucking great band.

Why were they so insanely popular? Apart from drugs?

I dunno I think cause they were just such a monster touring band. And they could really play. And they’d go off on these really long improvised sections that were interesting and then they’d get back to this whole new song and…they were just so tight. I hadn’t heard them live, and they were so much more powerful live. Like Led Zeppelin I’ve been listening to all that old Zeppelin live stuff and I reckn they were much better than all their studio stuff. (Laughs).

Some rock bands aren’t really sposed to make records in a studio in a way.

Yeah you listen to their records and Jimmy Page is in there and there’s five hundred guitar tracks, and it kind’ve dissipates the power. Of when he’s just taking a monster solo and there’s no other guitar. (Laughs)

No one can stop him.

Ha. Yeah. That’s good. No one does that anymore. It’s like Wolfmother. I don’t mind Wolfmother but where are the 20 minute drum solos? If they’re gonna do it that should go for it. I want screaming guitar solos that go for days.

It’s funny a band like that. You kind’ve think ‘Man that’s been done before!’ But part of you that wouldn’t mind playing monster guitar solos for thousands of people.

But it’s too dumb! They’re not actually doing the thing that everyone says they are. ‘Oh they’re just ripping off Black Sabbath’ But they’re not even doing it, they’re doing one little bit of it and leaving out all the interesting improvised bits. All the prog sections! (Laughs)

Does that mean you just wanna play prog?

No, I’ve never been a bona fide prog fan. But see for me prog for me doesn’t conjure up images of led Zeppelin or even the Grateful Dead or something. Prog for me is very much like King Crimson and Yes and all those bands that I can’t handle.

What about Tool? They’re almost a modern day equivalent.

The last Tool song I heard was in High School. I dunno just the production and sound on that kind’ve music is awful. It’s like the Mars Volta. A friend of mine brought round their album and they’d have some beautiful instrumental passage and then they’d do the most tasteless thing imagineable. I just can’t dig that overproduced really clean…it’s like that clean dirty sound where it’s supposed to be really heavy but it’s really clean.

One thing that annoys me about them is that part of their show seems to be them saying ‘Check out my chops!’ While I throw my guitar in the air and swing it round my neck while th singer does push ups. It’s like watching someone work out really hard math equasions.

Or just work out really hard.

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