Mashing together doom, psych and indie rock, Turtle Skull’s Monoliths is nothing short of ambitious – there’s a fine art to fusing bone-crushing heaviness with feather-light vocals which the band is refining to perfection. We managed to chat with guitarist/vocalist Dean Mcleod and drummer/vocalist Charlie Gradon about big riffs, parenthood, life on planet Earth and of course, their upcoming release.
So, what’s happening on Monoliths? What was the approach to putting it together? Did you do anything differently? Are there any new influences either musically or conceptually?
McLeod: “Monoliths is a huge thing for us. I’m so proud of this record.
For me this album and this band was an opportunity to take everything back to the simplest form. I’d been listening to lot of drone, heavy psych, stoner doom, ambient stuff, and one of the things that often unite these somewhat disparate genres is the extensive use of drones and ambient synths. And the hypnotic aspect of staying in one key to utilise them. And what could be simpler than playing one note and sticking to it?
From there I started wondering, how far can this concept go in a pop song framework? Instead of relying on different keys or chord changes, could we write pop songs that stay in one key? That pretty much use one note? And try to bring some of the meditative aspects of those more esoteric genres to our music.
So every song on this album is in the key of C. There are some chord changes in there, but you should notice a pretty strong reliance on that melodic centre. At the same time, we tried our very best to honour the sacred art of song writing and write melodies and hooks and chorus’s! It was a beautiful feeling when I realised not every pop has to be a 3-minute verse chorus thing and not every heavy psych song has to be 10 minutes of riffs with no words.
We also rented a proper studio this time. The first record was done in a cabin on a farm with all of Dan’s gear driven there and guitar amps in the backs of cars to isolate sounds, it was a good time and it made that record what it was. But for this one we figured maybe we should give ourselves the opportunity to be a bit more professional. So we moved into a really nice studio in Northern NSW and really went for it. From there we decamped to Dan’s studio in Coogee and spent a lot of time layering and mixing. While the first record was like an experiment, this one was far more considered and allowed us to really think about what we wanted to do before and after we pressed record. I’d like to think that comes across in the recordings and allows a natural cohesion to the flow of the songs.
This record is about the intimate connection we share with the Earth on which we stand. It’s about the world and your place in it. It’s about looking deep inside yourself and seeing what you find. It’s about life and death and everything in between. It’s about greed, racism, colonialism and technological destruction. It’s about hopelessness and despair. It’s about self-love and introspection. It’s about friendship and the power of shared experience. It’s about life-changing psychedelic journeys. It’s about connecting with the source. And most of all it’s about the pure joy of creation. We are very happy to share it with you. “
Gradon: “A lot of the album was born out extremely wild Wednesday jams at My place where Dean and I went deep, recorded it, picked through it, re-recorded, and sent it around. We then hired a house in the blue mountains where we honed in on each tune and pre produced the album.
Once we got to Tyagarah we had most of our ideas ready, but enough space for creativity to take hold and take us where we needed to go. We moved into the studio for a week and isolated ourselves. A lot of the lyrics came on site, while some were born earlier in the process.
Halcyon was born out of an impromptu break where Julian and I were in the drum room where the was a grand piano. Julian started playing and Dan recognised quickly there was some magic going on and hit record, we all jumped to our posts and the song revealed itself.
In terms of Influences, Monoliths is the completion of Deans initial flower doom vision. The heaviest possible music, paired with the softest of psych pop. The first record was an experiment, this was a more calculated effort.”
What have you chosen for a first single on the record? Could you tell us a little bit about what this track means to the band and what it might represent thematically?
McCleod: “Rabbit is an interesting one. It’s the shortest song on the album and in some respects it’s different to the others, there’s a more frantic energy to it. Thematically it’s about Australia’s terrible track record of dealing with refugees. It’s something we feel pretty strongly about. Australia is a giant country with seemingly infinite wealth and space, yet we continually ignore our legal and moral obligation to provide assistance to some of the people on this Earth who need it the most. It’s an unfortunate situation that the government and the media have created a false narrative to further their own interests.”
What about a second single? Do you have any interesting information you’d like to share with us/your listeners?
McCleod: “Why Do You Ask was one of the first tracks from this album we came up with, in fact it came about just after we made the first record. It kind of heralded the move in direction of what would become album 2. And when we play it live it’s often a medley with another track called Leaves. Come see us live to find out! (laughs)”
Gradon: “The song is about communication breakdown. It was actually born out of a joke jam Dean and I had, we were pretending to be a gnarly punk band singing ‘fuck you!’ As loud as we could in the middle of the suburbs – we quickly realised the energy in the riff was actually pretty good, so we stopped messing about and wrote it. “
What have you been up to since your last release? Have you been touring? Playing any interesting shows? Doing anything of note?
McCleod: “Individually a lot has happened! I finished a Horticulture certificate, Charlie had a baby and released a solo album, Dan has been travelling and producing lots of cool music at his studio, Julian started a luthier course and Tobi started a new band and released a solo album… and of course lots of gigs and touring! Up and down the coast, some interstate festivals in VIC, QLD & ACT and lots of shows in Melbourne which is nice as we really like that city. Some really cool international supports in Sydney as well like Earthless, Naxatras, Yawning Man, Wo Fat…”
Gradon: Apple of Your Eye is actually a song about the relationship between parent to child and child to parent. I wrote the lyrics when I found out I was going to be a father. The first verse is from the perspective of the child speaking to their caregiver and the second verse is the reverse and what the child has learnt since becoming a parent himself.
What about over the next 12 months? Have you got any tours or recordings lined up?
McCleod: “The main plan is to get this long-awaited record out into the world and do some shows and tours in support. We have a few exciting things planned for the album tour which I won’t get into until we confirm them all, but they should be some pretty fun shows. At the same time, we have started writing our next record which I’m pretty excited about, so if we can I’d really like to get some more work done on that and even record it before years end!”
Finally, for as long as I’ve known you guys as a band, you’ve always had Flower Doom as your patented music style. Could you walk me through what you feel are the most valuable elements to making this style of music happen?
McCleod: “Well to some extent it’s a bit of a joke as the Doom genre is a pretty serious one and the hippie flower power thing is kind of a caricature of itself these days, so we thought it kind of sounded funny to mash them together. On the other hand it seemed like a natural way to provide some insight into what we do in as few a words as possible. And it actually informed a lot of the decisions in this record. It’s basically about trying to make music that is both crushingly heavy, but also peaceful and euphoric. Music that’s less about smoking 20 cones and worshipping the devil and more about considering your place in the universe, the relationships you cherish, the beauty of the Earth… I always felt like heavy music, and even sometimes psych music in general, forgoes considered song writing for straight up riffs and jams. Which is great if that’s what you want! But we figured why can’t we do riffs and jams with 3-part harmonies and introspective lyrics?”
Gradon: “Most heavy bands, are just that, heavy bands. And most psych bands are just that a psych band. But rarely do you get the satisfaction of pop song writing with the deafening riff age of doom. The most important factor is if the song can be played at any volume. If it can be played on an acoustic guitar and at Wembley stadium, you know you have a good song.”
