Finding The Faith

12 April 2013 | 2:58 pm | Cam Findlay

“The vocals are very low in the mix sometimes, which... which was a bit of a surprise, I’ll be honest."

Cam Avery is a busy man. For years, he's had his finger in a lot of pies. Most notably, at least recently, has been Pond, that tripped-out funfest that came as a setup sideways from the usual performances of Tame Impala, that great unstoppable giant of psychedelia. As part of the ever-rotating roster of the band, Avery played drums on the latest national tour, a step away from his usual musical duties and a testament to the “play whatever you want” aesthetic of Pond. Then there's Allbrook/Avery, his long-standing collaboration with the man originally behind Pond, Nick Allbrook. Then there's his solo work, which can be sampled at various intimate venues around town. But all of that only serves to belie from Avery's first baby, The Growl. After several long years, the band is about to release their debut album, What Would Christ Do??, and it's something that hasn't really been heard in Australian music for a long time. Avery just has to find time to release the thing.

“I only got back the day before yesterday,” Avery shares when Drum gets in contact with him, “so I haven't really had that much time to stop and rest.” He refers to the latest Tame Impala tour, in which the band more or less took the world by storm, selling out every single one of their dates across the US and Canada. But that's not where all the credit goes: Avery and The Growl supported them across all of those dates, with their dirty, no-holds-barred blues rock sound impressing multitudes of die-hard Tame Impala fans in the process. “It was pretty incredible... yeah, it was awesome,” Avery says of the tour. “I mean, it was The Growl and Tame Impala. There all our best friends, so it was just like ten guys from Perth fucking around in the States. So we didn't really feel too far out of place. But yeah, every venue was sold out. It was kinda like playing somewhere here, but the places and the crowds were three times as big. The American crowds were just so nice to us, even though most of them hadn't heard of us before. And Tame Impala are just the best band to open up for, you never get tired of watching them play. There's always something new to see during one of their sets.”

Only a few days into making his way back home and Cam Avery has already jumped back into work mode, pumping out a new film clip for a track off the album and preparing for the imminent release of What Would Christ Do?? It's something that Growl fans have been waiting a very long time for, but to Avery, it all feels a bit out of the norm. “It's a bit weird, because it's not really what I expected,” he says of the stage that The Growl are in now. “The whole thing really just started as a recording project, something where I could write down the songs I had in my head and play them to people. I never really meant to do anything grandiose with it and I'm always surprised and humbled whenever something happens with it, you know? We get to play these festivals and these huge shows overseas... we actually had to stop and realise that it was all real. When you start something off that grows so gradually, you never really stop to see how it's going. You just feel like your doing the same thing: writing some songs and recording them, and then playing them to mates.”

Mateship has been a big part of culminating The Growl to its present-day level. Avery is pretty honest when he mentions how surprised he has been at the reaction to The Growl both home and overseas – and in fact may never have released the music he has if it wasn't for the association he shares with Allbrook and Tame Impala's Kevin Parker. “I look up to Kev and Nick probably more than anyone,” Avery declares honestly when quizzed on the musical and personal relationship he shares with his old friends. “Kev really pushed me to start recording Growl stuff when I first started doing it. I remember when I was trying to record something and I was having problems with it. Kev was like, 'Just record something, anything, and we'll make something out of it'. So I made up this drum loop to put together with one song. Then I went to work and by the time I got back, Kev had added a bass line, mixed it and compressed it. Kev and Nick are some of my best mates, but they also have this place of inspiring me to work more than anyone.”

Don't miss a beat with our FREE daily newsletter

Despite the ongoing motivation and collaborative help Avery has received along the way, The Growl really feels like his own personal product, one which is extended through the band. Whilst Tame Impala has enamoured thousands (hell, it's probably millions by now) through powerful psychedelic rock, The Growl – and What Would Christ Do?? by extension – is harsh and rustic in comparison. Avery's guitar threatens to burst the stacks; the incredibly skeletal and profound drum beat diverges into tremulous noise before taking shape again 30 seconds later; the vocals are all but washed out in the mix. It's a daring prospect for a debut album, but Avery is not at all precious about meeting some required expectation.

“The vocals are very low in the mix sometimes, which... which was a bit of a surprise, I'll be honest,” he says. “I didn't really intend to have it that way at first, but it's just what I really wanted for the whole album. I wanted the songs to stand on their own, without lyrics telling you what you should be feeling about the song. I love music that conveys feeling through very simple, like, guitars and drums and that sort of thing. So I wrote the album meaning to have those parts as the main emotional driving force, really. The vocals were just something that added to those feelings.” How about the drums, which at times sound like a giant robot pounding across the landscape? “Yeah, the drums are a bit... mechanical,” Avery laughs. “But I wanted them to be very sparse and singular, kind of like as minimal as you can get. Having fills and stuff have their place, but I'm not a fan of that. I'd rather have a sound that doesn't really sound like drums as we're used to, but have this really forceful tone. I wanted it to be direct.” After years of waiting, “direct” might just be what fans are hoping for in The Growl's first LP release.

The Growl will be playing the following dates:

Friday 12 April - The Bakery, Perth WA