Take A Gamble

For a band that barely knew how to play their instruments, Super Wild Horses found themselves champions of the Melbourne music scene in 2010 after their suitably thrashy debut LP Fifteen made global waves, became attached to fashionable zeitgeists and shone a light on a new phase of Australian rock music. But a lot can happen in three years, and as their sophomore effort Crosswords attests, the duo of Amy Franz and Hayley McKee have grown braver in their compositions, stepping out of the shadows of the garage rock “scene” with confidence.

“We certainly had more time this time around, both in terms of writing and recording, to make sure they were pushed to the best of their abilities,” McKee reflects. “We played with different formats and different sounds, whereas the first one was pretty much the same thing throughout. We never planned to be a band; we never planned to put anything out. So when the opportunity came to do an EP we thought, 'Yeah, why not, let's put that out', recorded songs there and then and moved on. It sounded like it does because it was in the moment; write a song, learn it, play it, record it. So (this time) we took any opportunity that came up to explore different parts of our songs, and ourselves, I guess.”

That includes the girls' singing, as evident in quintessential tracks like Alligator and Don't Gamble, a factor that McKee admits doesn't come all that naturally even now. “We were definitely braver this time around in terms of singing harmonies and melodies. We stood off from that the first time around because it made us feel fairly vulnerable. It took time to become comfortable with ourselves, then each other, and we started learning what we could and couldn't do. The slower songs in particular, your voice cannot hide in the mix, it's fairly up the front.”

These “slower” songs, such as Dragging The Fog and Setting Sun, highlight the most immediate change of gears for the band, and it's a sign of their maturity and grown dexterity that these provided some of the best moments on Crosswords. Add that to a rousing cover of Smokey Robinson's You've Really Got A Hold On Me, and the risks McKee and Franz are willing to take becomes incredibly clear. “We're big fans of soul and always have been – whenever we enter a record store that is always the section we dig into first,” McKee enthuses. “That song started out as just something we played around with in rehearsals before getting on with it. There came a time when we thought it'd be a nice change to play it live, and it quickly became one of our favourite things to play; it really helped to break up the set, gave it a new dimension. We're really happy with what we've done with that song, so we wanted to record it.”

Much of the content on Crosswords has come from the whirlwind rise after the release of Fifteen, leading them to touring the world. One song in particular, Memphis, is coloured from this experience and proves to be the most urgent song on the album, as the girls found themselves with time to kill in the titular town. “Memphis was originally only a working title because we'd written it there, but over time it felt that it captured the mood of the song as well,” McKee explains. “We had just played Goner Fest in 2010, which was such an incredible experience, but we found ourselves with time to kill and had the place to ourselves, which was really rare on the tour. It holds a real swampy beat, and it evolved into this tough, beefy song that we love playing live. Like many songs on the album (Memphis) has taken many different incarnations over the years. It's the perfect example of how we've explored each track over the years, and why we're so proud of what we've been able to achieve with it.”

The duo received some help on the album, with bass duties falling to Twerps' Rick Milovanovic (McKee's fiancé) and Bitch Prefect's Liam Kenny lending his deadpan vocals to West Coast.

“It was really strange for us because it had only ever been me and Amy,” McKee admits. “We've played together for so long that we haven't felt a need to have anyone else. In saying that it ended up a really natural progression for us, too. I would come home and Rick would be there, and we would hash some things out, so that happened organically. And with Liam I really, really wanted male vocals somewhere on the album. Liam happened to be at the studio and he has that really lazy, laconic vocal style, almost like what he sings is an afterthought, and it totally suited the song.”

The girls recorded Crosswords in a disused butter factory in rural Victoria with the aid of Jack Farley (Twerps, Beaches), and the natural surroundings helped to infuse a bold resonance in the finished results.

“It certainly helped provide natural reverb on songs like You've Really Got A Hold On Me,” McKee explains. “We originally did the demos with Jack, and we just gelled with him – we loved his style of recording and the feedback that he gave. He'd turn off the monitor and say, 'You could do a lot better', and that was really great for us, someone to whip us along. The butter factory was a friend of a friend's place and was absolutely beautiful, but something of a challenge though, because it was so roomy. Jack had his hands full working out how best to record it all, to stop the drums sounding deafening and drowning out the vocals, because we did most of it live. We got 22 songs down in three days, so we just burrowed down and got things done. There were moments when it was definitely taking its toll, but that's okay, it's how we tend to do things.”

With such a large array of songs to choose from, the resulting 13 tracks are the perfect representation of Super Wild Horses circa-2013. Not that the other songs weren't worthy of a spot on the album, though.

“It came down purely to tracklisting,” McKee states. “Some were clearly not as polished as we'd come to expect of ourselves now, so those songs were put on the backburner for us to work on later. A few will play out as B-sides or appear on a couple of compilations we have coming up. And it was harder to put together because we wanted some slower songs on the record, so getting the tempo right was important. We're really happy with how the songs weave into each other organically; the other songs were too heavy or too slow, maybe too big a jump for right now. We're really happy with the balance Crosswords achieves.”