Scoring a well-deserved 9/10 from It Djents thanks to rich layering and strong riffwork, Turtle Skull’s self-titled debut, released back in May, gave their contemporaries plenty to think about.
Considering it’s the band’s first release, there are plenty of questions to be asked about their creative process, let alone what ideas shaped the recording in general.
In the lead-up to the album’s release back in May, we talked shop with guitarist Dean McLeod to give us some more insight as to what makes Turtle Skull tick. Below is the result of our conversation.
AAC: Take us through Turtle Skull. What led you guys to start the project? Have you had any previous musical endeavours?
McLeod: Yeah we have! Charlie and I used to play in a band together called Salvador Dali Llama, which is where we learned to read each other musically. After that band I took some time away and when I returned Charlie and I started jamming and trying new things out. I had always wanted a heavier project so we worked towards that.
Around that time a really amazing opportunity came about. My girlfriend Rachel and I were asked to house sit a farm near Berry on the south coast of NSW, which happened to have a little granny flat on it – we set it up as a recording jam room. Towards the end of our stay, I invited Charlie, Jules and Dan to come down for jams (we roped Tobia in later on). We had no idea what would happen really, I just had a hand full of half-baked demos but everyone came down and spent five days jamming, songwriting and recording. And by the end of that week we kinda had a record… and a band! It was a really wonderful experience and generally the opposite way you would usually get things together, but it worked out perfectly.
AAC: So you’ve picked Eden as a first single. Can you tell us a few interesting things about lyrical themes, how it was made, what it represents etc.?
McLeod: The song is directly inspired by an experience my girlfriend, Rachel, and I had while we were travelling the year before last. We had just arrived in Arizona and, through some wild synchronicities, we met a wonderful man who took us under his wing and invited us to some really incredible hot springs out in the desert. We had a night hanging out sharing stories with him under the stars in the middle of nowhere and the song kinda explains what happened. A lot of the inspiration for the band actually came from that time away…
AAC: Are you toying with the idea of releasing a second single? If so, what would you choose? Can you tell us something interesting about that track too?
McLeod: Another track we’ve really enjoyed making, ‘Take It Or Leave It’, is a psych kraut track which is a little different to the other stuff on the record. It’s all about the hypnotic groove in this one: one chord, one drum beat, eight minutes. Even the vocals are quite subdued and almost become another instrument in the way they blend into the mix. It leaves a lot of space for the listener to settle in and, hopefully, go deep. Lyrically, the song is about feeling a strong discontent and disconnect with modern life and the way of the world in general. One of the lines is “a drifter on the outside looking in”, which says it all. So then the struggle is whether to ‘take it’ and accept the madness and be a part of all the bullshit, or ‘leave it’ and stand in your truth and build your own life based on love and peace. It’s like a red pill, blue pill scenario.
AAC: What do you think is the key to making a good psych song and how do you apply this knowledge to your music?
McLeod: Well you could boil it down to fuzz plus delay equals psych [laughs]. But actually, that’s a tough one. ‘Psych music’ is a bit of a trendy catch-all these days to describe anything alternative, but that’s an unfair description because it’s such a diverse and incredible style of music. I think it’s about the feeling you get from the listening experience, whether it’s emotional, spiritual or purely visceral. It’s about closing your eyes and seeing how deep you can go and really getting in touch with each individual sound and instrument. It’s about layers and textures! You can say so much with just one note or sound if you really focus in on the texture of it, the way it warbles and vibrates and oscillates… A texture is worth a thousand melodies, perhaps?
Ultimately it’s about mind expansion though music, which is something we are really trying to explore. I want our music to facilitate a moving experience for the listener and audience. I want to create a space where people feel comfortable to delve internally, and really explore their inner selves. Our songs are quite long so there’s plenty of time to think, there’s a lot of heavy repetition of riffs and all the empty space is filled by textural drones and synths. I want to take people to a dream state. Our music is slow and heavy, but I’d like to think it’s warm and comforting and familiar too.
AAC: What’s been the highlight of your musical career so far?
McLeod: Well it’s early days [laughs] but the recording process was pretty incredible. The way everything came together that week was crazy. Couple of amazing shows recently too. We played Psyfari festival, which was our first and only festival show and kinda blew our minds seeing as we were pretty fresh and hadn’t released any music yet!
AAC: Have you got anything that’s inspired your upcoming record?
McLeod: The state of the world and our place in it. I can’t help but think a lot about how and why the world is the way it is, and I decided right from the start that this project wouldn’t shy away from heavier lyrical themes, sometimes with a political bent. In that respect, you could say that some of it is protest music. Of course, some of our songs are about having fun and getting groovy. Eden is a good example, inspired by our travels like I said before. But there are so many gnarly things happening in the world right now.
Famine in Yemen, censorship in China, environmental destruction on a global scale. And Australia is by no means immune. Our government is so corrupt and evil, and no one really notices, all they care about is their jobs and houses. It’s all part of the system I guess. The prevalence of corruption and misinformation bothers me a lot. The first track on the album ‘No News is Bad News’ deals with that. It also reflects our struggle reconciling what we want to be with how society expects us to be… you know, the usual existential bullshit [laughs].
AAC: Are there any interesting stories or moments you’d like to share about putting together the new record?
McLeod: Oh wow – actually the most amazing thing happened one night while we were recording in the granny flat in Berry. One of the main house-sit duties was taking care of the owners’ two dogs, Murray and Bruno, who are insanely jealous of each other and are rarely seen apart. One night, we were doing takes for the last song on the record ‘Empty Ships’, and we were all feeling pretty jolly and getting into the groove. Next thing, Rachel comes running up from the house and barges in on a take screaming in terror that “Murray’s got a foot!’.
So we go back down to the house and, sure enough, Murray is gnawing on a severed black and white animal limb. It looked identical to Bruno’s and he was nowhere to be seen. We figure he’s been hit by a car or something horrible had happened. All hell breaks loose and we are running around the property in the dark shouting for Bruno, doing our best tactical manoeuvres like “let’s split up and you guys go that way”! I even thought I could induce a Doctor Doolittle moment by looking Murray in the eyes and asking him to take me to Bruno. After 20 minutes we had all pretty much lost our minds – and of course Bruno comes waltzing around the corner like nothing happened. So we have a closer look at the foot and realise it’s a hoof, probably of a goat. We never actually found out what happened but man it was funny. Then we went back up to the shed and took another take which ended up on the record!
Turtle Skull’s bone-crunching debut can be found on their Bandcamp here.
They’re working on a new album, so keep in the loop on Facebook or Instagram (@turtleskullmusic) for gig and music news.
