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 It’s not often that you interview a band who recorded their latest album inside an old lunatic asylum, so today is a unique occasion. PHIL USHER of Brisbane rock group GRAND ATLANTIC speaks to LINDSEY CUTHBERTSON.
What happens when a musician who is a bit of a perfectionist with his songwriting is asked to write almost an album’s worth of music in a limited amount of time?
Grand Atlantic’s Phil Usher found himself answering the same question late last year as he began to take on the process of writing the Brisbane band’s third album, Constellations. After Grand Atlantic’s first two records built them a solid platform both nationally and internationally, there was a little bit of pressure to recreate the success of its predecessors.
But the newly released Constellations, written as Usher loosened the shackles on his musical creations, might just trump them both.
“Anyone can write shit songs in a short space of time, but there are enough people out there already writing shit songs. For me it’s about writing songs that I feel are worthy to play live on a personal level,” Usher says.
“It was [writing to a deadline] something very different for me, but it’s freeing in a way. The reason why I found it so easy was because we’ve made two records already and I made them exactly the way I wanted to, so it was cool to try something different – it was exciting, dangerous and definitely the right thing to do.”
After 2009’s How We Survive loosely contained a concept about the difficulties of being an adult in the 21st century, Usher sees Constellation’s themes following on from its predecessor, but with more of a personal, yet non-literal touch.
“We sat down and discussed what concepts we wanted from this album. You can conceptualise all you want, but inspiration and creativity have a life of their own and you can only control it so much. That’s the beautiful thing about it.”
Did he ever imagine that he would realise this album in an abandoned asylum in New Zealand?
“Never,” Usher exclaims. “It was a bizarre and amazing experience and I don’t think we could have recorded the album in a better location or done it with a better person.”
Constellations was recorded with producer Dale Cotton just out of Dunedin in the Seacliff Lunatic Asylum, where the bizarre and amazing intertwined as the band tracked the album.
“None of us are overly superstitious, so even though we knew the history of the place we didn’t go there to chase ghosts,” Usher says.
And yes, Usher had some weird experiences, like the time when a heavy-duty microphone stand moved on its own in an empty studio, or when Usher and Cotton heard whispers seemingly out of nowhere. But what impressed Usher the most was the historical context and weight of the place they were recording in.
“A lot of people passed away there in a really bad fire in the 1950s – and we were aware that it was a place of great sadness for a lot of people. We just wanted to be respectful of that,” he says.
“It felt good to be in a place where there had been a lot of negativity in the past and actually be doing something creative and positive.”
GRAND ATLANTIC play Woodland on Friday Oct 7, the Gold Coast’s Loft on Thursday Nov 3 and Toowoomba’s Spotted Cow on Saturday Nov 5. CONSTELLATIONS is out now through Remedy Music. www.grandatlantic.org
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