JAKEB SMITH talks to JARROD ZLATIC aka DIAMONDS from Melbourne experimental indie duo FABULOUS DIAMONDS.

Zlatic is in the library when I call him, which we agree is not the best place to conduct an interview. I hang the phone up for the moment and return to YouTube, where the band have posted a video of themselves, live at The Bus Gallery in 2006. The clip showcases the spacious rhythms of drummer Nisa Venerosa, as well as the saturated delay of Zlatic’s saxophone playing. It’s indie DIY 101.

But the internet (especially YouTube) is generally ignorant of (or unfriendly towards) anything that places artistic merit before technical skill, and the comments on this page are no exception. MastAcooDood seemed a little disgusted,  “uh . . . what . . . the . . . fuck. bad tone, not really adhears [sic] to any form of music or theory”. Littledrummerboy666 was more confused “you guys don’t make any sense. You know you don’t sound like music right”.

I call Zlatic back a little later and ask him what he thinks of the comments.

“I completely understand, it’s on YouTube and people who are obviously really into saxophone are like looking up saxophone on YouTube and they’re expecting to find proper saxophone playing and they’re presented with a pretty clunky approximation of it. I don’t blame them, of course I don’t agree with them. I think it’s kind of cute that they took the time to bother slagging me off.”

It raises the classic indie question: how much formal skill does an musician need to create valid music on an instrument? I figure Zlatic is probably the best person to ask.

“I don’t think ability, lack of or copious amounts of, really come into it. It depends on the individuals approach. I’m not particularly instrumentally dextrous, I’m competent, but I’m not particularly skilled. So how I approach it is what comes into it,” he starts, but then stops, lost. “What was the question? Sorry, I’ve got a short memory,” he laughs.

I take the opportunity to rephrase the question, asking rather, how the saxophonist approaches playing an instrument.

“You can’t really answer that question, it’s kind of like you’re presented with an instrument and you’ll look at it and hit it in the way that you know to. You might have a little riff that you play on the piano and it might take you three or four months until it becomes something and it will be completely different from that. It’s always having a nervous energy and tinkling along and eventually things come out. Other times we’ll just be jamming and something will click, it’s just chance I guess.

In that case, does Zlatic understand musical theory?

“No, not at all, I don’t really know any theory as such. I know what keys are on the keyboard, but that’s about the basis of it. I listen to a lot of music that comes from a lot of theory, a lot of free jazz stuff. It might sound like noise but it’s actually people knowing what they’re doing and there’s a lot of thought that goes into it as far as musical theory side of it [but] I don’t know what that means.”

The Fabulous Diamonds 7” is out now through Mistletone / Nervous Jerk

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