SFTS: Love of Diagrams

Allow me to show my ignorance. When I think of Australia and the music emanating from down under, bands such as INXS, Midnight Oil, AC/DC, the Little River Band, and (ready for this one!) Olivia Newton-John come to mind. Very limited I would say.

"There's a lot happening in Australia these days!" says bassist Antonia Sellbach of Love of Diagrams. "But I don’t know how much the rest of the world knows about it."

The threesome of Sellbach, Monika Fikerle (drums) and Luke Horton (guitar) came together in 2001. After playing house parties, the band decided that with such positive crowd response they should consider making the act a serious venture. In 2003, The Target is You was released and followed by international touring. Still, building an audience in their native Australia did not come without a plethora of elbow grease.

"I think that the difference between Australia and, for instance, the UK or America is that down here you have to be really mainstream to become famous. With a few exclusions, the small indie rock bands don’t get enough support and there aren’t enough independent labels to give that either. But in a way that makes the music scene down here very interesting."

Sellbach sees the Australian market as DIY. "You have all these great bands that pretty much have to do everything for themselves instead of relying on corporations or bigger record labels. It’s very pro active, and it means we have a healthy underground. Bands don’t just get big and sell out. It's not that easy to do."

When asked which bands deserve attention, Sellbach named Architecture in Helsinki, Bird Blobs, The Drones, Fabulous Diamonds and Witch Hats. Of course, Love of Diagrams gets added to this list.

TGB recently received communiques from Antonia Sellbach of Love of Diagrams. Check it out.

Tell me about those house parties you first played together at. Can you remember when you began to know that playing together professionally was worth pursuing?

When we started playing together, as in jamming together I should say, it was more about getting together and playing music. Finding that we could do it and enjoying working together, enjoying the physicality, the rush of improvising together made it something we started to do a lot. We played a few house parties at first because it was ‘informal’ and I think that was all we felt like doing at the time. Following that, we got asked to play some gigs and we were all extremely nervous at first. Getting up on stage in front of an audience was confronting and we all faced that fear early on. It was probably a combination of the response we got from the audience (which was very favourable), and the fact that playing live shows started to become addictive that propelled us to keep going. I think we are really lucky in that respect.

From what I read, it sounds like you had a great time playing the USA. Are there any noticeable differences between audiences in the states and those from other countries?

Well one great thing about the states was that everywhere we went there seemed to be really healthy band scenes. So many more places to travel too. You can REALLY tour in the states, and there are lots of young bands playing interesting music, cooperative D.I.Y venues, and we found that everywhere we went. Audiences seemed to really like us over there and it felt like we fit in. In Australia, if you do a tour, there are only seven main cities, if that.

Audiences in the states were very similar to audiences back home in Australia. It was, though, a stark contrast to some of the other shows we have played in the past. When we toured Europe we played a lot throughout the Baltic States, Eastern Europe etc., and the crowds there went ballistic! It was a big deal for them that a band had traveled all the way from Australia to play to them. The crowds over there went wild and I think that is because not that many bands bother to travel through there. One thing that kind of surprised me at first was how many people there were that were into our kind of music, and also who were interested in D.I.Y culture, zines, etc. We played lots of shows in squats but they were some of the best shows for us. The energy in the crowd was absolutely palpable!

What juicy tidbits can you give us about your new material? When can we expect a new disc?

We are about to go to Chicago to record with Bob Weston (Mission of Burma, Shellac). So our next album should be out early next year. It is an exciting time for us. We have all these new songs which we are on the brink of recording! With the new material, we have tried to achieve a balance between the instrumental parts and those parts with vocals. When we started out as a band we were instrumental, and with our last EP we started singing. I think there are some instrumental purists out there who would have preferred us to stay instrumental, but we have all found it really exciting and challenging to try and incorporate vocals into our music. With this new material the aim has been, at times, to treat the vocals more like another instrument, not let them take over too much, or overly explain the music. We wanted them to be playful and experimental, and, to some extent, for the listener to be able to come to their own conclusions as to what the songs may be about. We also have a couple more ‘laid back’ songs which will be on the album. A change for us as we are usually quite frenetic, but I think they will work well in the context of all the other songs we have written for it.

Tell me how Bob Weston became involved in the forthcoming project?

We had heard a lot about Bob’s studio (Electrical Audio), which he shares with Steve Albini in Chicago. Electrelane, a band we have recently toured with, had recorded their last two albums there. The Breeders have also recorded there recently, I think. We emailed the studios and were lucky enough to get a reply within 15 minutes! Bob listened to our stuff and said he like it and wanted to work with us. It was a bit of a dream come true for us actually, and it just so happened that we had some money saved that meant we could cover most of the costs as well.

What goes into the decision of choosing a producer?

We had a bit of a shortlist, I suppose. Guy Picciotto from Fugazi was another producer we wanted to work with, but it also came down to who was available at the time we had planned to go over and record.. We listened to A LOT of albums by different producers and we had lengthy conversations over the pros and cons of it all! In the end it wasn’t really a hard choice to make.

Your sound has gone through quite an evolution. Should we expect that continue with your new music?

Yes, I think that will continue to happen. We have never been a band that likes to change ourselves for anyone else. We are dedicated to playing but we are also dedicated to creating music which excites us and that we feel is unique. Whenever something starts to feel too easy its because you haven’t taken the next step, and I think we are all pretty keen on maintaining that feeling of being constantly challenged.

Website: http://www.shootthevariable.com/loveofdiagrams/