 Sydney trio GERLING are on tour for their new album 4; front man DARREN CROSS tells JADE PHAM about the making of. “That was really fun – what I remember of it.” Understandable, considering 4 was made in Hollywood with a trip to Las Vegas part way through. They’re best known for gritty electro pop but these days Gerling travel with more guitars than they do keyboards. Their new record, called 4 (probably because studio album number four), sees the band take on a more organic approach to their electrified sound.
The first single to hit Triple J, Good Timing, is about as electronic as the record gets, but the indie rock of second single Turning The Screws is a better indication of what the album has in store. It seems Gerling have newly discovered the concept of reel-to-reel tape since 2003’s digital endeavour Bad Blood (the album which brought us Who’s Ya Daddy?, Get Activated, and In The City).
“That’s something that we, a couple of years ago, thought that we’d never do,” says Darren Cross from his home in Sydney where he spent today trying to figure out a computer program that makes MIDI audio files. The digital world is where Gerling are most comfortable, so it comes as a bit of a surprise that they choose Ethan Johns to produce their latest record. Johns did both Kings Of Leon records, Ryan Adams’, and Ben Kweller’s but is, first and foremost, famous for his analog only approach.
“If you want to push yourself as a musician and you want to learn your craft more, you need to find experiences that are different to what you usually have. You learn a lot more that way. Like, I learned a lot off Ethan and his approach. We all learned a lot about good sounding instruments over there,” Cross enthuses.
Three Crows Studio. No wonder he’s giddy. Picture a huge old warehouse in North Hollywood, completely soundproofed. Inside, a plethora of old school equipment (“thirty wicked guitars, and thirty wicked amps, and six drum kits, a grand piano and all kinds of organs and a mixing desk that Combat Rock by The Clash was made on”) to be fondled and enjoyed. This is where Gerling spent seven intense weeks last year recording the stomping groove of Gator, gentle guitar ballad Auf Wiedersehn, and sweeping, rhythmic Money (Space Jam).
“It was quite simplistic; the way it was set up,” Cross tells, “Doing the bulk of the recording, there was a drum kit and two amps because the space was so big. We kind of played live and there weren’t too many microphones at all. But yeah, it was quite simplistic, normal, and quite straight up compared to what we have done in the past. I sung in the toilets and Burke miked up this filing cabinet to use it as a drum – those were the only weird things we did.”
Gerling have had dance hits, electro punk hits, indie rock hits and everything else in between. Their eclectic sound means eclectic fans, as I saw at their warm up Brisbane show at the start of April this year. Cross chuckles, “We have weird emo dudes, indie kids, accountants, married women, Tsubi dudes; we get everything under the sun. I like it that way. It’s makes it more fun.”
Gerling rock The Great Northern on Thursday May 25 and The Zoo this Friday May 26. 4 is out now through Warner.
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