Dirty Three’s Ellis: ‘Distance Has Kept Us Together’
News posted Wednesday, January 11 2012 at 02:00 PM.
Related: Grinderman, Mick Turner, Warren Ellis, Bad Seeds, Dirty Three, Jim White.
The Dirty Three’s Warren Ellis has revealed how living in different cities has kept the band together.
The band’s three founding members – Ellis, guitarist Mick Turner and drummer Jim White – currently live in Paris, Melbourne and Brooklyn, respectively, but came together in Melbourne last year to record their first album since 2005's Cinder. In a soon-to-be-published interview, Ellis told M+N that had the band remained in Melbourne, it’s unlikely they would’ve stayed together.
“I think the distance has certainly helped keep us together,” said Ellis, who also plays in The Bad Seeds and the recently disbanded Grinderman. “Every group I play in, we all live in a different country. I think that actually adds to the dynamic that’s necessary to make really vital music. Because it feels vital to you. When you get together, you’ve got this window and you’ve got to do something. I like the pressure that that makes. I like that structure.”
Titled Toward The Low Sun, the album was recorded at Head Gap Studios and mixed at Sing Sing with producer Casey Rice. It’s already been described by Ellis as the band’s “definitive album”, featuring varied instrumentation such as organ, piano and acoustic guitar.
“With this one, we really wanted to try and make it about the three of us and not do a lot of overdubs like we’d done on past albums. That kind of happened and it kind of didn’t,” Ellis said. “I’d sit down and start playing piano on some of the numbers, and then think, ‘Oh, it might be good to put a violin on it.’ It kind of moved away from that, but I guess it’s basically the three of us playing, mainly live … We’ve never tried to restrain it, temper it.”
Ellis also spoke briefly (and rather vaguely) about whether Grinderman’s dissolution has opened the door for the Bad Seeds. “I guess things will happen as they happen,” he said. “Things have a way of unfolding. Of revealing themselves. And they will. Things are afoot. And that’s all that counts.”
Toward The Low Sun will be out February 24 on Anchor & Hope/Remote Control. In addition to a national tour in March, which includes a debut performance at the Sydney Opera House, The Dirty Three have been announced for WOMADelaide from March 9-12.
The full interview with Ellis will be published soon.
DIRTY THREE NATIONAL TOUR
Fri, Mar 9 – Astor Theatre, Perth, WA
Fri, Mar 16 – The Palace, Melbourne, VIC
Sat, Mar 17 – One Perfect Day Festival, Gippsland, VIC
Sun, Mar 18 – Theatre Royal, Castlemaine, VIC
Wed, Mar 21 – Sydney Opera House Concert Hall, NSW
Thurs, Mar 22 – The Tivoli, Brisbane, QLD
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grumpy cunts cant stand each other eh?
''Can you just play in time for one bar, Jim? No? Fuck it, I'm off to another country.''
mick turner is the dirty three's drummer.
think about it.
huh?
as in he's the one who plays the regular time, or he's the one without the beard, like the drummer in ZZ Top?
THINK ABOUT IT
I haven't the time to do that
where'd this interview go? http://messandnoise.com/news/4117927
here
no it's Jim White mang
is this a test? do I win a car now?
I'm going to the Sydney Opera House show. We've got sixth row seats! I'm a wee bit excited. That's a long way from seeing them play to 10 people at some pub on Victoria Street in Richmond in the early 90s.
I have a signed copy of Horse Stories so ner!
hai Frankie!
sixth row! totes jealous
Jim posed for a mosaic portrait I did a few years ago. He's a hilarious man.
my - i haven't seen the beard groomed quite that way before, so warren ellis is definitely in the ''men who look like jesus'' thing going on.
it's time to start a collection.
frankie: agreed - fucking lucky to be sitting in a studio with them doing an acoustic session at zzz early nineties too. a special moment.
woah, that's a cool portrait, frankie. you are a man of endless talents
Thanks, nishiki. I think it's only partially successful - I was aiming for a cross between Chuck Close photorealism and the stylised stiffness of 6th century Byzantine religious mosaics. In hindsight, I wish I'd gone to either of those extremes, rather than attempt an awkward fusion of the two. But thanks nonetheless :)
Great mosaic & portrait, really captures Jim. I do love the way though how his look has evolved over the years, to where he now looks like a hirsute marsupial. I'm in a box behind the stage for the Opera House & like a few above a bit excited. Live, they are rarified oxygen these days & one of the very few acts who, when they walk on stage can still detonate that adrenalin surge inside you that reminds you of why you love music in the first place.
wow mosaic portrait! amazoid!