Whether you read their band name as cartoonish or foreboding, The Fearless Vampire Killers managed one of the best debut albums from a Melbourne band last year. Released independently through Shock, Batmania is a punchy ride through ’60s-inspired rock, garage and psych, amongst other time-honoured sounds. The atmosphere is thick, the guitars bite and the anthems loom large. Below, singer-guitarist Sean Ainsworth recollects the long road to a first album and the importance (or lack thereof) of both band names and song titles.
Doug Wallen: First I want to talk about the band’s name. It sounds pretty dark, but I’ve seen the
Polanski film and it’s actually quite goofy. How did you arrive at that?
Sean Ainsworth: We got the band name off the film, which I saw in high school. We didn’t have a name and, to be honest, we don’t take ourselves very seriously. So we enjoyed the name because it was so long and ridiculous. We thought it was a good thing. That’s pretty much it. If they don’t get the reference or actually think of [it literally], some people think we’re a heavy metal band.
DW: How long have you been together?
SA: About seven years. But we were a high school band. It’s really only been going smoothly and gigging properly for the last four or five years. When we got out of high school is when we started to take it a bit further.
DW: That’s a long time to be doing it before a first album.
SA: Well, we did an EP in 2008. It feels like a long time, but it wasn’t like we were sitting there trying to write songs for five years. We had the songs: it was more the production of it and getting the money. Also, we had a few member changes. That always takes its toll, because you’ve gotta find the right people. That’s really important to us. We are a band: we’re not just a frontman and a guitarist with some back-up players.
DW: Yeah, I saw there’s a different drummer and bassist on the album than those who play in the band now.
SA: That’s correct. I think it was about two and a half years ago when we first started recording the album. Then we changed drummer and bass player along the way. The lineup now has been solid for about two years.
DW: How did you hook up with Lars Stalfors (
The Mars Volta,
Matt & Kim) to produce the album?
SA: We were actually trying to get in touch with someone who was managed by the same company as Lars. He was busy and also probably a bit out of our budget. [laughs] We’d already recorded the record – we just needed someone to mix it and finalise it. He heard the record through the management and they got onto us. I was lucky enough to get to meet him, because he was touring with Mars Volta two years ago for Big Day Out and we were playing with Kasabian. We both happened to be in the same city at the same time. We met and he just got it. That’s how it happened. It’s not how we planned it at all, but it worked for us in the end.
DW: Obviously the record channels a lot of older music, like ’60s stuff. Is it tricky to play that kind of music and not make it just some retro homage?
SA: We’re not trying to make anything sound a certain way. It’s not like we’re stuck in the ’60s. It’s just that one comes out the most because it’s pretty much our background. I mean, we listen to our parents’ music and we love it. We love all those records and they’ve influenced all of us, in a way. We like the tones and that more natural sound, rather than electronic stuff.
But I don’t think we’re a ’60s revivalist band. I don’t see us that way. I don’t think the next record will sound like this record. You listen to our EP and it’s very psychedelic, just because that’s what we were going through at the time. This one was a lot cleaner and poppier. And the next one, I don’t know what it’s going to sound like. But I’m sure it’ll be different. I guess the only thing I can say is it’s not hard for us to play the kind of music we play, because it just comes naturally for us. It’s not like, “Oh, we can’t play that chord because it was invented in the ’80s.”
DW: I’m interested in the song ‘Country Rock’ because, well, it doesn’t sound like country rock. Is there a story behind that?
SA: That was one of the oldest songs on the record. It just seemed to get a lot rockier as we played it more and more, until it turned into this big rock song. On the set list we’d always just have it as “the country rock song.” We tried to change the name – I’d put to down on the set list as something else and everyone would go, “What song is that?” So we just left it, purely on the fact that we put it on the set list as that to remind us what song it was.
DW: And on ‘All Coked Up (With Nowhere to Go)’, it sounds like you’re embracing your inner jam band and just going for it…
SA: That wasn’t intended to go on the album. It was the last day of recording, and we’d finished all the songs. The idea was we were going to jam and see where it went. We were going to cut maybe a minute of the middle of the jam and just put that in the middle of the album – a tiny bit of a jam that just fades in and then fades out. So people would wonder what the start of the jam was and what the end was. But when we listened back to it, we loved the whole thing so much that we thought we’d just put the whole seven minutes down.
A few reviewers have been like, “Every song is great, except they kind of lost it at the end with that weird instrumental jam.” [laughs] It’s probably my favourite track on the album. Because there’s so much to it, and what I love about it is I can hear everybody’s moods. There are two totally different guitar sounds. I just think it’s got a lot of feeling, that song. As wanky as that sounds.
The Fearless Vampire Killers will tour the east coast in March.
Batmania is out now.
WORDS: Doug Wallen
Friday 2 March - Spectrum, Sydney
Saturday 3 March - Great Northern Hotel, Byron Bay
Saturday 10 March - Plus One, Adelaide
Friday 16 March - Alhambra Lounge, Brisbane
Saturday 17 March - The Toff In Town, Melbourne