TREVOR WINTERS: Where did the idea to write in an aboriginal community in the Kimberley originate and how did this influence your ideas?

TOM LYNGCOLN: Basically my wife and I were asked to come into a dry community in the Kimberley called Jarlmadangah and teach the kids some music. The school received some funding to buy instruments and they needed someone to get the kids excited about it. They all wanted to play the fucking drums so I was left to roost tennis balls into the bush until they got the whole smashing thing outta their system. Being in that part of Australia was incredible and working with the kids provided significant inspiration to write.

TW: Each of the songs were played only once before the recording process began, how important was this for capturing that initial intensity?

TL: Under-rehearsing the songs definitely preserved the initial intensity. There was no opportunity for the performance to get comfortable and deteriorate into formula. This method was also highly effective in sating our laziness.

TW: Retreating inwards is often therapeutic for artists, is this to be the last frontier of anger for the band or is there more darkness to be explored in the world of The Nation Blue?

TL: When you are by nature a total downer there is a never ending supply of doom from which to mine. The last frontier will be death. This process wasn’t therapeutic at all for me ... it was horrible.

TW: First single I’m Inbred features our own backwater rock & rollers SixFtHick, how did this relationship come about?

TL: Bleeding brings people together. I don’t know how it is for the Corbetts but when I play live two things happen to me ... I get a massive surge of nervous energy that renders me almost completely retarded and this is coupled with a false euphoria that drives me to try and prove to people that I am prepared to go to more extreme lengths than anyone else in the performance of song. I think the first time we played together was in Melbourne at the Spanish Club and I cut up my face. Out of the corner of my eye I could see this Willy deVille looking motherfucker in a wife beater pacing in tight circles at the front of the stage. 20 minutes later he was doing the same thing but on the stage while the band set up around him. He continued pacing until the drummer counted in the first song and then he tried to kill everyone in the room. He glassed himself a coupla times, cut open his chest, attempted half completed backflips onto his head (in the glass), tried to fuck his brother who was drinking beer out of his own boot and sang like it was the end of days. We have no idea why we are touring with them. They make us look like weekend punks.

THE NATION BLUE play The Step Inn this Friday Sep 18 with Sixfthick. RISING WATERS is out now. www.myspace.com/thenationblue

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