Colour Schemes And Comfort TV: Pond's Jay Watson And Shiny Joe Ryan Interview Each Other

Jay: Alrighty so, how’ve you been Joe?

Joe: Good, thank you, Jay!

Jay: That’s good!

Joe: Working hard all day. 

Jay: What’ve you been working on?

Joe: I’ve been employed by our friend to do his bidding in the studio.

Jay: Setting shit up?

Joe: Setting stuff up, yeah.

Jay: Nice.

Joe: Antidisestablishmonoharianism

Jay: I don’t think that’s right. 

Joe: It is!

Jay: No, I think it’s -tarianism. 

Joe: Is it?

Jay: Yeah, anyway. Off to a good start. 

Joe: Just trying to make long words. 

Jay: So when’s your album coming out?

Joe: It’s coming out in two days’ time! Yup, Friday the 23rd.

Jay: On Spotify and Apple Music and stuff? DSPs?

Joe: What’s that? 

Jay: That’s what you call streaming things. 

Joe: Oh yep. 

Jay: And is there another video coming out?

Joe: There is another video, thank you. On the actual day when the album’s released, there’s a final video for a song called A Stitch In Time. The video clip is me and my dog, Chook. It being a love song and all, I didn’t think the video clip needed to be particularly serious.

Jay: Yep, a bit too much. 

Joe: So, we just went to the beach. I bought a dog costume and Chook just wore his own clothes and we ran around the beach in slow motion. 

Jay: Nice. And you hit a guy’s car. 

Joe: *laughs* Yeah, I accidentally scratched this fella’s car when I was backing out. Too busy trying not to get rear ended by all these people in a hurry, you know? Anyway, he was a cool bloke. We’ll fix it. So, Jay, I hear you have a new studio?

Jay: I’ve been building a new home studio, yep! It’s pretty nice. I’ve been building my own baffles. Putting foam down on the floor. There’s still a little bit of reflection in the room, but it’s getting better. We will see where it’s at when the carpets in. It’ll be good!

Joe: Can you tell me what’s the colour scheme and why did you choose these colours?

Jay: The wall colour is “Dulux Plasticine”, which is like an aggressive green. I think it’s called plasticine because it looks like Gumby green, so that worked out pretty well and then I made the baffles out of a grey material, which is pretty boring but I felt like I needed something boring to offset the plasticine green. 

Joe: And you’ve been exploring your roof space and your crawl space?

Jay: *laughs* Is this still about DIY? Yeah.

Joe: Well, did you find anything interesting up there?

Jay: When we redid the ceiling, I found an old, green, '50s, funny art deco lampshade that I cleaned up and we are going to put in the house.

Joe: Nice, that’s a score. 

Jay: Here’s a good question for you, how important was I in making Shiny’s Democracy happen? On a scale of 1-10.

Joe: Oh, definitely a 9.85.

Jay: Wow. Wow. I was thinking about a 7.

Joe: No, you were integral for sure. Every time I’ve done an interview, you’ve come up. 

Jay: Really?! Thank you. 

Joe: Because I remember you getting very frustrated at me continually talking about this album Shiny’s Democracy, and you said, “stop effing and jeffing talking about it, and just do it.”

Jay: Yeah, just do it. It’s not very hard. 

Joe: Yeah, you kept saying that. 

Jay: *laughs*

Joe: I hadn’t written all the songs or anything.

Jay: Oh, yeah sure, that. 

Joe: But when we set the deadline, you and James Ireland were kind enough to join me and my band in the studio. It was a bloody dream. 

Jay: The album is great, it’s really good!

Joe: The actual tracking of it was quite nice and easy going. 

Jay: Yeah, that’s the way to do it: with multiple people quickly, I reckon. 

Joe: Totally.

Jay: I would’ve done my albums like that if I had the time and -

Joe: Had friends?

*both laugh*

Jay: Yeah, and had friends. It’s not actually that fun sitting there doing stuff on your own for months on end. 

Joe: No. Like you said before, it’s kind of nice having someone to play off of or kick you in the arse at times.

Jay: I think that’s why I like the new Pond album a lot, because I don’t think there’s any songs that are just written by one person. I can’t think of any on there. Every song it pretty much a collab. 

Joe: Totes, yeah. 

Jay: Lots of stuff people brought in, like, ya know, you with Gold Cup and I brought in Song For Agnes and stuff like that. 

Joe: There’s nothing that’s untouched or unscathed after bringing it in. 

Jay: Half of it was from just jamming, which is pretty cool. 

Joe: You should tell the people how we did that. 

Jay: Well, we would record at our friend’s studio for about half an hour and then it was on to tape and then we would dump that onto Pro Tools and erase the tape and re-record. We did that four or five times and we had four hours of just freeform shit to sift through. We would find little loops in there to make songs out of. One song, Czech Locomotive, was pretty much three and half minutes of tape fleshed out, but something like America’s Cup is like a little loop, an eight-bar loop, that we thought was cool, or that we thought was funny, because it sounded like Another One Bites The Dust.

*both laugh*

Jay: Which no one’s actually picked up on really. Haven’t seen it anywhere. But it reminds me of Another One Bites The Dust.

Joe: I don’t hear it. I mean, now that you say it I can, but I’ve never thought about that. 

Jay: Really? That’s good! I’ve ruined it by telling everyone. I actually hung up a picture in my studio today of Freddy Mercury that Noel Fielding drew with crayon. 

Joe: Oh, I remember he gave you that! In England. 

Jay: I have it framed and I’ve hung it up in my studio now. It’s pretty cool. 

Joe: It’s a real, authentic, Noel Fielding painting… or, crayon. I’ve actually been watching The Mighty Boosh again. 

Jay: Oh, yeah? I’ve seen it too many times. 

Joe: When I had my second jab and I was a bit sick, I had to go to something familiar and safe that I could giggle with and not spill soup on myself and my bed. 

Jay: A light giggle. I do that with Seinfeld. 

Joe: Yeah, terrific. So, what was it like for you to join in on the Shiny Joe sessions?

Jay: It was good! I think probably my favourite thing in music is to contribute creatively to stuff that I like, but that isn’t up to me on how it turns out. 

Joe: *laughs* totally. 

Jay: I had a lot of fun working on Benny Montero’s album a couple years ago in London with him because I loved his songs and I loved his music and I was super passionate about doing the best job that I could. So, it’s not that you don’t have pressure, but you aren’t the boss, you know? Which is really fun. I don’t think being a pure session musician would be that fun for me, but doing that sort of thing when you know the people and you like their music is the most fun thing - more fun than making music yourself.

Joe: Because you have a vested interest in their songs and success to an extent because they’re your mates?

Jay: Yeah, because they’re your mates and it also weirdly represents the ‘crew,’ you know? All our solo stuff. The quality of the Pond records, and Tame and all that. There’s a certain standard to uphold, I think. One more question for you, how many years do you think it’s going to take before your next album comes out?

Joe: Well, I’ve already got the album title. That’s half the battle, so I’d say at least seven years. *laughs* 

Jay: And what is it? Are you going to tell me or will you save it this time? 

Joe: No, I’ll tell you what it is, it’s an AFL term. If you go and take a capper or a screamer on someone and, you pull it off, it’s not technically legal, but people let you away with it. 

Jay: Oh, I remember this. Hang on, hang on, hang on – is it insufficient intent? Hold on, let me guess it. Is it… Um… no, keep going, I can’t remember. 

Joe: You were close. It’s if you capper it and you miss it it’s-

Jay: OK, hold on let me have a guess. Unrealistic attempt. 

Joe: That’s correct. 

Jay: is that the title? Or is it a play on that?

Joe: No, it’s going to be Unrealistic Attempt. 

Jay: I really like that. It reminds me of an R Stevie Moore title or something. 

Joe: Footy fans will get it, maybe, but anyone else would be like, “Aw, poor Joe”.

Jay: No, that’s really good. I want to be a part of that just for the title. 

Joe: Give it two years. I’m going to aim for two years. 

Jay: Yeah, 2023 feels good for that. With that title, I feel it’s got to be an odd number. 

Joe: Well, thank you, Jay!

Jay: Yeah, cheers mate.

Shiny Joe Ryan's Shiny’s Democracy is out now. Check it out below.