Ponyloaf: Horse Play.

Ponyloaf launch Epic Travels at The Zoo on Saturday.

An alumni of the schools of Regurgitator and Emporium, Shane Rudken is joined by Dan Templeman and Damien Lewis in computer driven electro project Ponyloaf. After shows with Stereolab, Life Without Buildings and fellow Brisvegans Full Fathom Five, Ponyloaf converge on The Zoo this weekend for the launch of their buoyant Epic Travels six track EP.

How does the Ponyloaf live experience come together?

“It’s very cosmic,” Shane laughs. “It’s just basically a couple of laptops. We’ve only really started doing live shows this year. The way we write is all using Pro Tools and each person will do a bit and we’ll much around until it ends up being what it is. When we do it live we have to listen to what we’ve done and try and figure out what we’ve done and put it together again. It’s not like a backing track, it’s quite a live instrument so we can play with things and much around with effects and go with the mood.”

“Dan and I also have keyboards and different things that we can put in. Basically it’s us trying to do bad cover versions of our own material. This whole thing for us it to have fun and have a bit of a laugh. It’s pretty loosely based, so we can get pretty crazy or whatever.”

Are the recorded versions just a rough guide of the directions you take live?

“Each song keeps changing. For the EP we just had to let things go, because the main problem using computers is that you can keep changing things. Live you can muck around. I don’t know if we make them any better but we have a go, and if it falls apart we can just throw laptops at each other.”

Sounds like an expensive hobby…

“We can get a mock laptop to throw…. it’s like when a guitarist smashes a guitar – they’ve got a really nice guitar, but they pull out a crap one to smash. – that’s the same thing we do with laptops…”

Are the tracks ever really finished, or are they always works in progress?

“The disc is a finished thing, you know. That’s hard for me, because it’s hard to let go of something. Over the months songs can change into new songs. We’ll just give it a different name and put in on the album,” he chuckles. “Even though it’s computers we’re still jamming, it’s like being in a band room. It’s just like sitting around with your mates and making a couple of stupid tunes, like learning how to play all over again. It’s good, because we’re close friends, that’s the main thing for us.”

The album’s slated for an early 2003 release, where are you with it?

 “The album’s going to be different because we’re going to have more of a live feel… I know that sounds dicky for an electronic band, but I really like mistakes, things that capture the moment. Things like three in the morning and we’re all sitting around with headphones on playing music to each other. I want to capture that. We’re still trying to get rid of the one we just did. We’ll see what stupid ideas come up.”