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 Having kept himself busy since putting out his first album A Safer Place in 2004, double Q Song winner CHRIS PICKERING knows that the only way is forward. Aside from working with Magoo on subsequent releases and doing South By Southwest, Nashville and Memphis showcases, the Brisbane troubadour continued to write memorable alt-country songs, creating the remarkable sophomore effort Excuses Excuses, due for release in April. DENIS SEMCHENKO gives the multifaceted singer/songwriter a buzz.
With his lushly melodic second album Excuses Excuses, local alt-country exponent Chris Pickering managed to achieve a certain artistic pinnacle – a consistent, ‘name’ producer-helmed record that bears repeated listening. "It was made over a period of maybe six months with Magoo at his place," the multi-instrumental tunesmith reflects over the phone. "The songs have been written for over a year and a half and when we finally got to recording, I was still writing a number of songs that also ended up on the record; it happened over a period of time and we worked with breaks in between."
Chock-full of undulating hooks and well-thought arrangements, Excuses Excuses starts in fine fashion with the dreamy Ruby Ruby and rolls on like Gram Parsons riding through the prairies (often sharing the saddle with Emmylou Harris – courtesy of Chloe Turner’s gorgeous vocal harmonies). Chris struggles to pick his favourite track: "They change all the time, but I can’t confess listening to the album that much since we’ve recorded and mixed it; I think If I Came Back From The War, the last track on the record, was great fun to record – we did it all live with the brass section and we didn’t edit it at all."
Following my encouragement to provide an in-depth look at the album’s recording process, Chris gives the abovementioned star producer Magoo kudos for making sure the rich sonic soup wasn’t overcooked. "We’ve had an unspoken arrangement in the studio where I contribute all the material and he takes care of all the sound and the recording," he says. "I had no part whatsoever in the mixing, so I let him go for broke with all of the audio and technical stuff, the guitar and drum sounds – a lot of the sound that you hear, he takes credit for. It was very much a collaborative process, but in terms of realising all the sounds on the record, that’s very much his contribution to it and that’s what he’s really good at; we’ve also been friends for a while before we actually started working together."
Having won two Q Song Awards in 2004 and 2006, last year Chris made the trek to the US where he performed at the much-vaunted South By Southwest festival in Austin, Texas and added the music cities of Nashville and Memphis to his map. "SXSW was pretty amazing – the opportunity to play there was great and there were heaps more people there than I was expecting," he reminisces. "You hear a lot of horror stories about SXSW, but for me, it was really successful and I saw so much great music there, so many bands I’ve never heard of – you just walk in on them and go ‘Wow, that’s really cool’ – and it was the first time I’ve been to the US, so I kind of had a baptism of fire." And how was Tennessee? "The main thing that I enjoyed about it was physically being in all of the places that you’ve been reading about for ages; when I went to Memphis, I got to go to Sun Studios, Graceland and Stax, which was probably the highlight – a lot of the records I really love are Stax records, and going to the place where they were all made was amazing."
CHRIS PICKERING launches new single SAVE YOUR BREATH at The Powerhouse Theatre on Sunday Feb 8. EXCUSES EXCUSES is out in April on Think. Check out www.myspace.com/chrispickering for information.
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