Live And let Die

Things are currently very exciting in the camp of Texan post/doom/ambient rock quartet This Will Destroy You. When we talk, guitarist Jeremy Galindo is taking a break from tinkering with some new material. On top of that, the band's soon to jump on a plane and make the voyage down to the our side of the equator for their first ever run of Australian shows. But wait, there's more…

“Right now we have a live album's that's about to come out,” Galindo explains. “We'll have a release date for that in a couple of weeks, and then outside of that we're working on a new full-length that we hope to have done by the end of the year.”

A live album? Really? Do bands even release those anymore? Hell, even Galindo himself seems to think the whole 'live album' thing is a bit outdated, “I'm actually not one to go out and buy live albums from bands I like. But I'm really proud of how this one came out. Y'know, people might actually enjoy it. Especially to hear all the songs with the new line-up and to hear that fresh take on the material.

“It wasn't anything planned, it just kind of happened. We played a show in Iceland and they just happened to multi-track the show. And they sent us those tracks and they sounded really good and we thought, 'Why the hell not? Let's mix it and see how it comes out.' And we're all really happy with what it's kind of evolved into and hoping that people dig it.”

Even with a live record soon to drop, This Will Destroy You are primarily focused on getting together the material for their third studio record, the follow-up to the surprise critical and commercial hit that was 2011's Tunnel Blanket. The band don't make it easy on themselves when it's time to do a new record, either. Galindo describes how the bulk of the band's creative work comes early on in the piece.

“Right now we're working on a whole bunch of songs, and we're trying to decide which song we're going to build an album around. All the stuff we're working with is pretty different right now and we definitely are just trying to find the next sound to attach ourselves to. That's what we did with Tunnel Blanket, we had quite a few different versions of songs going, but when we wrote one there, Communal Blood, we all really liked that so we built an album around it. So I think we're going to do something similar this time… [And] I think that we're getting very close to finding that next sound. And then once we have it, it will hopefully be a fairly quick process in regards to writing the rest of the album.”

Further discussing the band's creative process, Galindo explains what they've been working on so far for the next record. “We've been experimenting with more piano, and kind of bringing back more forefront melodies. Unlike Tunnel Blanket, where there's still a lot of melody there but it's kind of washed out with a lot of reverb and delay. We'll still be doing stuff like that but we definitely want to bring back melodies in a way so they're a bit more apparent. We've been messing around a lot also with recording to tape and a bunch of different production things. It's been interesting.”

Finding that song which This Will Destroy You will then proceed to craft the album around is something that's no easy feat. But thankfully for the band, and fans who have been waiting with bated breath to see what the quartet would do to follow up Tunnel Blanket, it's a pretty straightforward process that arrives after the band puts in the time and effort before sitting down to decide things democratically. Luckily for them, it's not a maddeningly psychedelic trip a la Vince Noir and Howard Moon from The Mighty Boosh.

“We just need to find that one song that resonates with each and every one of us. For example, there have been some songs that we've worked on that maybe two guys are really into but the other two aren't really feeling, so once we find that sound that we can all really agree on then we know what the album is going to sound like. We're almost there with one song right now, and it's almost to that point where we need to be. Where the four of us are completely in sync and have the same expectations about what we want to build.”

Talking about where This Will Destroy You are looking to go causes the axe-slinger to reflect on the band's progression thus far; one that has encompassed everything from almost delicate shoegaze to face-melting doom metal. Such a diverse catalogue has got to be hell to put all together in a set when the band's heading out on the road, right?

“We've gotten more in the groove of mixing the emotions behind the Tunnel Blanket material with that of the older stuff. I guess we've found a middle ground where our sets can sound like one big song. There's a drastic difference between playing songs from Young Mountain and playing a track like Black Realm off Tunnel Blanket, so finding a way to make all of that flow and fit so it's all a part of one movement is mostly what we've been working on, and every single time we write a new set it seems like we're getting better at it.”

By tinkering with material, and improvising the passages between the live cuts, the band manage to create something powerful and captivating with their live performance. “We're not thinking about it like, 'Do we need to have certain crescendos in this song?' or 'What do we need to do to this heavy song?' We're just trying to use a natural approach where things can just flow into other songs. So it's going to be like one long movement, but in that movement there's going to be a good mix of material. We're not just doing all new songs.”

As for what, experientially, This Will Destroy You offer up to their fans in a live arena, Galindo suggests, “We try to make it as hypnotic as we can. And really give people the opportunity to lose themselves not just in the sound they're hearing but with the feel of it. We experiment a lot with sub-frequencies and making sure we're physically moving the people as well as mentally or emotionally… We just try to make it as intense and hypnotic an experience we can.”

Galindo concedes that the intense and hypnotic experience can often catch the band members out, no matter how many times they've played these songs.

“There's times where we all get completely lost in it. Luckily we've been playing these songs for so long that we don't usually get lost in them, but it is a problem. But it can be just as emotionally draining for us as it can for the crowd because we get really involved in it. Oh well, y'know,” the guitarist says with a laugh.

This Will Destroy You will be playing the following dates:

Tuesday 19 March - The Zoo, Fortitude Valley QLD
Wednesday 20 March - Annandale Hotel, Sydney NSW
Thursday 21 and Friday 22 March - Northcote Social Club, Melbourne VIC
Saturday 23 March - Rosemount Hotel, Perth WA