Outlandish Riffs

Rolling into the Corner Hotel to begin yet another nationwide jaunt, Sydney psych-pop outfit Deep Sea Arcade have been riding a huge wave of success since the release of their debut album, Outlands, earlier this year. Almost five years of recording time and experimentation has paid off for these boys as Outlands seems to have spawned more singles than your average Rihanna album. Tracks such as Girls, Seen No Right, Steam and the latest offering, Granite City, have seen this four-piece garner more than a cult following as they pick up festival slots and sell out venues all over the country. Their sound is rooted in the experimental pop of the late '60s and early '70s, but also harks back to a time when Oasis, The Stone Roses and Happy Mondays ruled the world. One look at frontman Nic McKenzie on stage gives this influence away as he struts about, delivering a note-perfect tribute to his Hacienda-loving forefathers. Deep Sea Arcade are no mere rip-off though, and it's the sheer strength of their songwriting combined with a loving attention to detail when it comes to equipment and recording techniques that has led to their burgeoning success.

We find singer Nic McKenzie out front of the Corner on what has become a rainy Friday afternoon in Melbourne. While the rest of the band busy themselves with the vagaries of post-soundcheck life (setting up the merch desk, checking the door list, eating parmigianas) McKenzie is more than happy to explain the various gear and techniques Deep Sea Arcade use to create their sound. He's certainly qualified because, as he explains, he created the bulk of Outlands in collaboration with bassist Nick Weaver as the rest of the band dropped in and out of various studios as needed. Far from a control freak, it's clear that McKenzie has a singular vision about the band's sound and the equipment needed to replicate their sound on stage, especially when it comes to the most crucial element of any pop band – the guitars.

“Jimmy [Manson] uses a 2002 Les Paul and runs it mainly through a Marshall Reflector Reverb,” McKenzie explains with a little help from his new guitarist, over his shoulder. “He also uses a pretty simple DS-1 Boss Distortion pedal, which is pretty much the same set-up that I play through when I'm at home so it's easy for him to replicate the sounds I normally get. On top of this he also has a Jekyll And Hyde Overdrive pedal as well as a Soviet Small Stone Phaser and a DD-20.”

As a live outfit, Deep Sea Arcade's twin-guitar attack is a little different to most bands, predominantly due to lead guitarist Simon Relf's use of a 12-string guitar. Often perceived as a notoriously unreliable instrument live, especially when it comes to tuning and consistency of tone, Relf has honed his use of the 12-string down to an art. The guitar itself is an Eastwood Classic 12. Often unfairly written off as a secondary copy of the old Gretsch 12-string guitars, it generally features two EW-Retro Humbucker pickups to recreate a classic twangy '60s sound and, in the live arena, can prove to be a versatile and great-sounding tool. Relf normally runs the Classic 12 (as well as his standard Fender Telecaster) through a Fender Stage 100 amplifier which, as he tells it, “has this beautiful sound and is really reliable but it's broken for the first time in five years. So I'm playing through a Blues Junior tonight. I normally tour with a DeVille because you can never really hire those stage 100s through any backline companies or anything. ”

McKenzie himself is a bit of an audiophile and really perks up when quizzed on the small keyboard-based rig he employs onstage and in the studio. Rather than relying on a Nord or any other standard keys set-up, McKenzie uses a MIDI keyboard to control an Akai MPC-1000 into which he's plugged in a galaxy of samples. “I've got about 20 or 30 keyboards mapped onto it. Every time I go to a studio I'll map something onto it. I've got mellotrons, strings, violins, flutes, choir, brass, so if I'm in the studio or even on stage I can just dial through. I've also got about six different types of Casiotone mapped across it. We were in a bunch of different studios and every time we'd go in and track stuff at Megaphon (a famous Sydney studio based in St Peters that has witnessed the likes of Midnight Oil, The Cruel Sea and more recently The Jezebels through its doors) and Carlos [Adura] was tracking on drums and it was taking ages – I'd just go in, look around and sample all their keyboards.”

It's not just keyboards that McKenzie has dialled into this set-up though, and closer inspection reveals he's been extremely creative with the way he's put his rig together. “I've also sampled guitar sounds and mapped them across. I've got that thing where you play out a tremolo thing… like [sings Dick Dale's version of Misirlou]... I don't know what it's called,” he laughs. “I tracked that all across every key so I can play that chord and it sounds like a Hammond dulcimer – but it's actually guitars. That sound is on pretty much all of the first record, especially See No Right. I've also got a Juno 60 but because I don't tour with that, it's mapped across the keyboard as well. There's also a Roland Jupiter and a Hammond through a Leslie speaker in stereo. I also sampled stuff off vinyl records. I have this old sampling module at home that you can do really good pitch shifting with, so I use that all the time as well.”

So, to get down to brass tacks, McKenzie has attempted to take a small universe of instruments and sounds on the road with Deep Sea Arcade – and is succeeding due to the versatility of his MPC-1000 set-up. When teamed up with a MIDI keyboard, this enables Deep Sea Arcade to faithfully replicate the psychedelic washes and pumped-up guitar hooks of Outlands without having to lug weighty keyboards all over the country.

Outlands is out now through Ivy League. Deep Sea Arcade play the Rosemount Hotel in Perth on Friday 23 November and the Metro Theatre in Sydney (all-ages) on Friday 30.