Amplifier

Taking seven people and their instruments to the other side of the world is no easy feat. Wellington band Family Cactus managed to achieve this late last year, when they lived in New York for two months - performing at the CMJ festival and making headways into what is a notoriously tough market. Such is the tenacity that this band that there is no doubt they are steadily working their way to success.

In this interview with Amplifier, singer and songwriter Adam Ladley talks about Big Day Out and reveals details about the upcoming release of Family Cactus' second album.

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Have you been to Big Day Out before?

I have, the last time I went was last time Iggy Pop played a while ago.

What are some of your favourite Big Day Out memories?

I thought Iggy Pop last time was amazing and at the same big day out I really enjoyed Sleater-Kinney, but generally it's a hazy day of walking around in the sun a bit blazed.

Who are you looking forward to seeing at Big Day Out this year?

Grinderman, Primal Scream, Black Keys [better luck next time... Ed.] I think I'll pop along to Tool and Rammstein too.

What time are you guys playing?

We're on at 5.30pm.

So that's quite a nice time slot...

Yeah. For us and the band who don't like sun... there are a few of us who are worried about getting sunburnt.

Do you have any tricks up your sleeve for Big Day Out?

We'll have a whole bunch of new songs, because we've been working hard this past year on the new record which is due to come out at the end of March/early April. So as far as tricks are concerned, we'll have new songs, but I don't think we'll have the pyrotechnics budget that Rammstein has, so don't expect stage props or anything.

How will the new songs fit into the set list?

I think they'll stand out a bit more. We worked on this record for about five months and we really wanted to do things a bit differently, so a lot of the songs are more rhythmic I think. We got a new rhythm section and we've been experimenting with weird drum patterns and things, but underneath it all I think it's just songs, which is what we're really focused on. I think they're much  better than our first record anyway.

Do you have an overall theme or story or journey for the next album?

Yeah. It was a pretty hard record to make, all of the songs changed so much when we got in the studio and then we had a very good friend who passed away in the middle of it which flavoured everything. It was kind of fraught with worrying about it all. It was a hard record to make, not in the classic second record sense but in the sense that we really wanted to make a better record that was different, but we kept getting snags along the way, which was challenging.

Did you put a lot of pressure on yourselves to make a great album?

Yeah, we're terribly hard on ourselves when it comes to that - whether what we're doing has any merit or if it's good in any way.



What is your favourite thing about playing live?

I think just being able to let the music breathe, really. Give it a bit of life and it's certainly a challenge. It's been a challenge learning how to conquer a lot of these new songs live, but the challenge of wanting to be a better live band makes for good shows when you play them really amazing. That's what we really love about it and certainly having people who are into what you're doing is great as well.

Do you experiment with the songs more when you're playing them live rather than just playing the studio version of them?

Yeah, absolutely. We've always seen the two worlds as different but complementary. That's always what has interested me about bands that I love is the ability to take your songs for a walk if the moment presents itself. You see people's true musical ability.

Are there any new skills that you've learnt since the first album that you've utilised on this second album?

Absolutely. Lots of really technical things, but we've all been listening to lots of pretty great music and one real turning point was seeing the Dirty Projectors. We'd all heard their record and thought it was great but actually seeing it live and again, taking things for a walk and watching them play songs differently than the record as well. In terms of new tricks when it comes to playing music I think we, instead of saying, 'Oh yeah that was good enough', we'd try to work something until it was a little bit different.

Did you have the songs pretty much finished before you went in the studio?

Several of them were and then several of them really took completely different turns in the studio. We did experiment a lot. Sometimes probably to our detriment with trying things differently in songs like taking out all of the guitars, just studio silliness really, putting instruments though weird effects.

With seven of you in the band, does everyone get equal creative input, or is there one driving force behind the song writing?

I guess I'm the driving force in that I bring the ideas along, but definitely we all nit pick over it until the cows come home, but it's never one person sitting in front of the desk going, 'Turn me up', it's always what's the mood of the song. I think with seven people we've gotten better. We've certainly got a long way to go but we've gotten better at that musical vocabulary between us all where we can talk about musical ideas without it becoming a shit fight.

You went to America last year for two months to coincide with the CMJ music festival. Did you achieve what you wanted to over there?

Absolutely. In many ways it was that first hard overseas trip. We certainly feel like we've broken the ice and it won't be as hard next time. We met some amazing people and all up it was a pretty inspiring time. We also finished our record over there and played in a bunch of venues.

What are you going to call your new record?

It's going to be called Spirit Lights.

Other than touring and releasing this album, what are your plans for 2011?

Ongoing recording always happens with us, so we're well into a whole bunch of new songs, so that'll be a big part of 2011. Going back to the states and being able to tour for an extended period of time is what we need to do as a band. We want to play every night but everyone would just get totally sick of us if we tried to do that here. So the ambitions are to put out this record and we've got a few ideas about different ways to put it out so we're really taking artwork and videos and stuff quite seriously and planning away on all of that. 

- Ellen Falconer