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 This week COLD WAR KIDS hit Australia for Splendour In The Grass and shows in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. Excited bassist MATT MAUST talks to MARIJA ZEKO.
Their second album is coming out late September and is very different to their debut offering. “The first record did not feel right, it was very rushed”, says Maust. Unlike the first album that took six to seven days to record, the latter took four to five months, slowing down recording time to concentrate on the output quality. The change in pace has created an album, “much more glued together. Our last album was quite rambunctious, put together last minute”.
Cold War kids hail from Fullerton, California and comprise of Nathan Willet (vocals, piano, guitar), Jonnie Russell (guitar), Matt Maust (bass) and Matt Aviero (drums). They started out in 2004, have toured with Muse and The White Stripes and are well known for their energetic shows. Their previous release may have not been their best work, but the band feels that with experience their act is getting better, as Maust attests… “This album’s much more mature. The songwriting’s much more mature. Eight months ago we only had three or four songs, and then we recorded 20 songs. I can’t believe we did it! Something empowered us to do it. So I’m so very excited”.
The excitement is extended to touring, but this also has its moments. Maust notes, “both things have a love/hate relationship, where you deal with the good shows and the bad shows”. The band work well together, with lyrics being left to Willet while the others write the music. Maust feels that each member plays an important part and the balance of fame and credit is evenly distributed. “I’m perfectly happy with the exposure,” says Maust. “I feel I get too much at times”.
Maust’s creative talent does not reside with music solely. He dabbles in graphic design and is currently working on the new sleeve design for the album. The bassist’s artistic interests lay in type, calligraphy and font. “When you can’t read a language, you automatically start looking at the attributes of the type and shapes of the letter. When you know what it says, you no longer look at the attributes, presentation and design. I do like that a lot!”
This artistic ability has been extended to doing book covers for poet Eric Brown and work for Richard Swift among other small projects. The desire is to keep it small, preferring to “do a small art show on my own … I’m trying to focus more on playing music these days”.
The band has recorded 20 songs for the current album with seven leftovers being worked on as possible B-sides. Australian fans will be the first to hear the songs live and Maust notes that their upcoming set, “will have at least half new songs. Some of them are brand new and others have not even been played at all. You guys will be the first to hear them live, so they may be a little rusty. Definitely Australia will be our first proper live show where we’ll be playing longer than 35 minutes”.
COLD WAR KIDS play Splendour In The Grass this weekend, followed by their own sideshow at the Tivoli on Sunday Aug 3, supported by The Delta Spirit and WolfGang’s DJ Fashion (with a gun). New album LOYALTY TO LOYALTY will be out in September through Shock.
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