Big Fish

Recorded back in 2010 on a quaint, rundown property near their hometown of Perth, Beard Wives Denim has been lazily chewing cud on the farm, patiently awaiting it's time to be heard by the masses. With two years past and numerous other musical projects cross-pollinating, Watson admits many of the 13 tracks on the record are now performed differently. But what the 21-year-old acknowledges and what is glaringly apparent listening to their Modular debut is that the album is a product of that time. It holds a youthful energy, the type of vibrancy that only the young and the free can deliver. This sonic freedom and their loose live shows have typecast Pond as dream weavers from an era bygone. Watson is quick to point out, however, that this is simply not the case.

“Everyone talks about psychedelic rock and stuff, the '60s and '70s. But I think Pond's main aim, the thing that we consciously think about with the songs and influences and stuff is just trying to write in a classic manner,” Watson says not so much matter-of-factly, rather simply telling it how it is. “Obviously they're a bit weirder than your [typical] classic songs, but they're songs that sound like they should've been written already. You know when you hear a song, and it hasn't been ripped off or anything, but it has that familiarity, like it should have already been a song? We aim for that.”

The core of Pond is formed by Tame Impala mainstays Watson and Kevin Parker, recent inclusion Nick Allbrook and tightly curled Joseph Ryan. The band, formed only three years ago, have already amassed a catalogue of four full-length albums, a number that may even been higher had it not been for the Tame train departing on a worldwide journey which lasted roughly 18 months.

“We've been trying to get [Beard Wives Denim] out the whole time, but there's a lot of things that I'm not going to go into; logistical, contractual and organisational things,” Watson addresses briefly. “We would have put it out fucking two weeks after we did it. Every now and then it kinda happens like that. There's a lot of things man, a lot that I don't even understand. It's hard putting out a record these days.”

You'd be right to think that Watson would be about ready for a good lie down. He admits, however, that it's when he's stagnant that he feels lethargic and uninspired.

“To be honest, I think I feel more burnt out at home when I'm not doing anything. When I don't have anything to do, it's hard not to just waste the day away and not do anything, just drink beer. I much prefer doing stuff. That's why we [all] have so many other bands, because when we get home we have time off. We're not workaholics but we're definitely 'songaholics',” he reasons with a laugh.

With all these bands and even more songs floating around between the Pond people, it's surprising to hear that the collating and selection process for the tracks that make the grade is pretty much cut and dry. The only niggling issue is trying to massage the self-worth of the songwriter enough to not just bring their songs to the table, but to keep them there, work on them and serve them up as Pond material.

“More often than not it's the person who wrote the song who gets kinda funny about their own song and doesn't want to do it,” he confesses, “then everyone goes, 'Nah, nah it's great man' and you turn around and go, 'I dunno, it's a bit cheesy – it's a bit naff'. There is always that self-doubt – that's what happens more. Then everyone who likes that song chooses how it is. We've written so many songs and been around each other for so long that if someone turns around and says your song is pretty base, you simply go, 'Alright then, I'll start a new band for that song!'”

Put together in a few weeks, Watson recalls that the band were feeling very inspired and ambitious. This is obvious in the music. Even with its flowing, limber form, Beard Wives Denim is as refined as Pond have ever sounded. This continual evolution of the band has developed without dissipating into monotony. The West Australians have become lean and concise without finding themselves in everyman ground, a point which pleases Watson no end.

“That's good,” he responds, “because the last album before this one [2010's Frond] didn't have any instrumental bits or jams so we wanted to do a few more of them, but we just did them off the cuff and tacked them on the end. We don't really listen to much music that isn't three-to-five minutes long anyway; we listen to a lot of rock'n'roll, verse-chorus verse-chorus shit. I still think it's epic, but it's the vibe of it more than the songs.

“None of our bands have ever done that,” he continues, going on to address the common fallacy that Pond and to a lesser extent Tame Impala are simply fuzzed out 'journey' bands. “It's always someone writes a song or one person writes a bit of the song with another person sitting out the back with a guitar, then we show everyone else the song and we do it. I can't remember the last time we all just stood around and went, 'Alright, go. What have you got?' Everyone's got too many melodies and chords to just jam it out. I think that's a big misconception about our band, that we just smoke 13 bongs then start writing an album. We spend a lot of time on acoustic guitars writing melodies and chords.”

But even with NME proclaiming the album the year's best, dishing out a lazy 9/10 review, Watson can't deny he's confused by the connection Beard Wives Denim is having to the masses. Not that he's complaining for a second.

“I thought there would be a lot more hate. Of course, there is hate but I thought people would go, 'What is this stupid, silly music?' Because each of the singles are completely different so I thought it might be hard for people to get an overall impression of the band, like, 'Are they a funk band? Are they a psych band? Are they a metal band?'” he laughs. Whether you like it or not at least it's not us all wearing black and moping around. We're definitely the first to admit we're idiots. We just didn't think about it. If we knew it was going to turn into something quite popular, it might have ruined the naivety and silliness of it, y'know? But I think that is part of the fun of it. Pond is a lot more fun than a lot of other bands.”