Everybody Wants Something

When the time came to record the second album for We All Want To, Steward had in mind a raw and stripped back affair. Anyone who's heard Come Up Invisible can attest to the fact that this certainly did not happen! Instead, the record is a deliberate and carefully thought out collection with nods to Steward's past certainly, but also showcasing a mix of influences from different members of the band, plus an outside contributor whose impact on the album is obvious and thorough.

“The thing is, when we recorded and especially when we mixed I was always wanting to keep it sparse,” Steward says of his early intentions. “With the [2010 self-titled debut] We All Want To album I really wanted to record an album that we could represent live that really sounded honest and like a band. And it kinda worked to a little extent, but with the new one again I really wanted to take that minimal route in mixing. Darek [Mudge] who recorded and mixed it – he was very much our production guy and we kind of had a couple of months [at his studio]. I really wanted to reference some lo-fi stuff and he kept saying, 'Nah man, it's got to be better, it's got to be better.' It took us a while through the mixing of the album to really get each other and to move forward together. Once I got what he was doing, I agreed and realised he was right actually.”

While it would be great to hear a stripped down version of We All Want To, it's a blessing that Mudge's big vision for production was given an opportunity to shape the record. It's not surprising he knew what to do, having played in Steward's landmark band Screamfeeder as a second guitarist for a period when the band was a four-piece, as well as playing in more than a handful of other Brisbane bands. Also on his list of recent achievements is recording Steward's partner from Screamfeeder Kellie Lloyd's highly acclaimed solo album.

The opening track on Come Up Invisible is like a highly-concentrated account of what to expect from the record. Over a seven-minute duration, Ramp Up The Bleeding goes through multiple transformations, with a dense layering of production that sets the tone for the whole record. Even though it's a long song, it does provide immediate gratification and it doesn't shy away from letting known the intent of its creators.

“That was the last song we wrote before we recorded and we hadn't actually played it before we recorded it,” he says after a long pause, trying to recollect why he made the unconventional decision to open the record with such a long track. “I guess I've often done that in the past, just put the very newest thing at the front because I'm sort of just that excited by it. I put it all together on the computer and I was just looping stuff up and it just got longer and longer until it was about seven minutes long. I'd demoed it at home, and brought it into the guys and we decided to put it on the album. I'd never even played it before, because of the way I just sort of patched it together on the computer, so we all had to learn how to play it together. I'd also written in a couple of different tunings so I had to figure that out as well. I said to the guys that I wanted to put it on the record but it either had to go first or last, and everyone agreed with it going first so we just sort decided to run with it.”

Steward has dabbled in quite a few projects outside of Screamfeeder over the course of the band, including two-piece The Whats, and a critically acclaimed and award winning solo album in 2007, How Does It End. What is it that keeps him returning to bands instead of taking on a full-time career as a solo artist?

“Well playing solo live is quite difficult for me,” he says candidly. “I tend to be a performer who makes a lot of mistakes and I forget my own lyrics and shit like that. If you're playing with a band you can kind of cover it up really well,” he laughs. “I try to anyway. Playing solo, if you fuck something up you pretty much have to stop the song and say, 'Sorry everyone' and move onto the next song. I did a bunch of solo gigs recently and I actually had to do that. Some nights you can kind of laugh it off with the crowd and then some nights you just stand there looking like a complete jerk. I always want to put loads of instruments on a record so it always sounds like a band anyway. It's also just much more fun having a band than playing on your own.”

This hesitation to play live by himself is actually what led to the formation of We All Want To. He eventually put together a Tim Steward band to help him play the solo album live in a way that he wanted to hear it, and this led to finding new players, who became the first line-up of the band.

“We started writing all this new stuff which was way better than the stuff we'd been doing from my solo album,” he says. “We just started putting the new songs in and suddenly we were like, 'Oh wow, this is good!'”

While he doesn't write off the idea of Screamfeeder getting back together at some stage down the track, he cites drummer Dean Schwereb's indefinite relocation to the UK as a factor that makes the possibility unlikely any time in the immediate future. Screamfeeder fans could do a lot worse than exploring the new albums from both Tim and Kellie's new projects, as it really shows off a very different side of both of them as performers, while the hooks and pop magic that made Screamfeeder so beloved are still there in abundance.

Even so, there may be something else quite interesting on the horizon to look forward to for those who want to indulge in some good, honest nostalgia for the much loved Brisbane icons.

“When I was doing those solo gigs recently I did a bunch of Screamfeeder songs and I played them really soft,” he tells, “and I thought it was kind of great. So I'm actually kind of toying with the idea of doing a solo album of Screamfeeder songs. A lot of the songs actually worked way better really, really quietly than I imagined they might, so that was pretty interesting.”

We All Want To will be playing the following shows:

Sunday 30 September - Black Bear Lodge, Brisbane QLD
Friday 12 October - The Bridge Hotel, Castlemaine VIC
Saturday 13 October - Pure Pop Records, Melbourne VIC
Saturday 13 October - Yah Yah's, Melbourne VIC
Thursday 18 October - Prince Of Wales, Bunbury WA
Friday 19 October - The Bird, Perth WA
Saturday 20 October - The Indi Bar, Perth WA
Wednesday 24 October - The Great Northern, Newcastle NSW
Thursday 25 October - Yours & Owls, Wollongong NSW
Friday 26 October - Clarendon Guesthouse, Katoomba NSW
Saturday 27 October - Brighton Up Bar, Sydney NSW
Friday 2 November - Alhambra Lounge, Brisbane QLD