by Marc Fong
Before their amazing set at Frost Amphitheater at Stanford, California on Monday (11/4), Static and Blur caught up with Roy Kellaway of the Australian rock band, King Stingray, about recording on the road, kicking off their tour with King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard and their new album, “For The Dreams“.
S&B: Over the past couple of years, you all have had such great success. How does that feel?
RK: Yeah, it’s been amazing, you know, we come from a pretty sleepy little town in the very remote part of Australia, so it’s been definitely a lifestyle shift into a touring band. And I think it’s something we’ve always wanted to do. And then, yeah, the last sort of three or four years have just kind of flown by, you know, we’re so excited, we’re very enthusiastic, we’re very passionate about what we do, and we really believe in what we’re singing about, you know. So we’ve just been seizing the moment, saying yes to, you know, what comes our way. And yeah, it’s been an incredible for years, we’re just absolutely frothing with joy at the moment.
S&B: I think that’s one thing that really stands out for me, at least listening to your music, is that there seems to be a specific passion. What’s really driving that?
RK: Yeah, the thing about this music, and the music we play in this band, particularly, is we’re singing about things that are bigger than ourselves, and it’s sort of what drives us as well. You know some of the songs are quite sort of innocent and playful, I guess. But there’s also this sort of more sort of intense message being kind of led from a cultural point of view.
You know, celebrating multiculturalism, black and white, living together, harmonious sort of living is really underpins what we do. And it’s not because we go out trying to do that, just kind of how it happens. We come from an Aboriginal community called Yirrkala, up in the top end of the northern tip of Australia, and it’s a very remote place. Music is just the most powerful tool to bring people together. And our singers are singing in Yolŋu Matha their language, their native tongue, and it’s only spoken by, you know, a few thousand people in the world, because you sort of zoom out in such a tiny little area of the world where we come from.
I think that cultural thing really does drive us, and it kind of is something it feels a bit bigger than ourselves. I think if we were to sort of summarize it so on a surface level, we love playing music as mates, but there’s also a beautiful opportunity here to showcase a very unique source of life that a lot of people probably don’t know much about. Yeah, I think that’s sort of the thing.
S&B: And now, I guess, I mean, you must be stoked for the new album coming out soon “For The Dreams.” How has your success over the past couple years really developed, or how has the sound changed for you?
RK: Yeah, that’s a good question. You know, they say you got your whole life to make the first album, and then the second album comes along. And I think what’s really kind of cool and special about this record is it’s very present, because we wrote it, and have, you know, recorded it, obviously in a very present moment where we’re we’ve had to make brand new songs. You know, the first record, we pulled in some old songs that we made even back in high school. You know, some of these songs, of the first record were pretty, pretty old songs, because we’ve known each other since we were babies, growing up together. But this new record is really present. We’re singing songs that are our lives, what’s happening right now and what’s has been happening to us over the last few years. It feels like there’s a in terms of the differences. I think this record, we had a lot of play, like we played a lot on this record, because we were booking studios all around the country, in Australia, because we’re touring so much, and we were just doing what we can in different hotel rooms, Airbnbs and studios and recording bits here and there, and just having lots of fun with it. So we spend a lot more time at the first record, we only went to the studio a handful of times, and the album was done. But this one, we basically done so much in the studio, just having fun, playing, tweaking sounds and kind of nerding out with a bit of music stuff. So we had a lot of fun with this record. And I feel like that can kind of come through. You can hear this a little bit more intricacies sort of different moments in this record.
And I think also the natural progression is we’re playing bigger rooms. And so to make we love, we really pride ourselves in being a live band. And to have those songs, you know, we want to make sure that they rock when we play live, you know, so we wanted to make them sound big and fun and powerful and sort of moving. And so, yeah, playing these bigger rooms, we wanted to make these sort of songs stand up in these big, beautiful sort of theaters and outdoor venues where we can really push it. And I think there’s obviously that still that King Stingray sound but slightly some new moments which we’re keen to hear what people think about it.
S&B: Talking about bigger rooms, you’re starting your tour with King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard tomorrow; How’s that feeling?
RK: Yeah, we’re just absolutely frothing, because we’re big fans of that band, and to be to be on tour with them, it’s really kind of a pinch yourself moment. We keep having these moments the last few years have just been full of pinch yourself moments, and I can’t believe that the wave is still rolling. We’re so stoked, because we love playing music. We l tour a lot in Australia. We’ve been to the US twice before, but this will be 100% our biggest moment in the US to be playing these big, beautiful venues.
We were showing the boys yesterday in the band, like talking them through these venues, and they’re freaking stunning. Some of them are so gorgeous, we’re still very lucky to be here and really excited to rip it up. We excited to be here.
S&B: For The Dreams comes out Friday, what are you excited for people to hear?
RK: They all kind of have a different thing. I feel like we love playing Cat Five (Cyclone), we’ve been, we’ve been playing that live a bit, and Best Bits as well. You know, I love the sentiment behind the best bits. It’s inspired by sort of a particular moment in time, but it’s just about all the best bits of life happening at once. And I often feel that’s the case when you’re playing a gig, because you’re there in front of people, and you’ve got people who are having a good time watching live music, and they could be with their friends or their family or a loved one, and if they’re outdoors and the sun is shining and it just seems to have all the ingredients at those sort of festivals, and live music tends to have that feeling of all the best bits poured into one. So I love playing that one live, because it just feels at home. But yeah, Cat Five with all the harmonies and the vocals, I love how that came out. You know, I feel real grateful for our mate, Justin Stanley, who’s actually lives in LA here, who mixed the record, and also did the first record, and we’ve had to give him some pretty, pretty rough audio files to deal with. And you know, because I said we recorded all over the place and in hotel rooms and recording the didgeridoo in the stairwell and just random parts all around, and he’s managed to pull it all in to make this beautiful record. So it’s got this awesome feeling about it where, yeah, cool to see the final product, you know, because you can kind of nerd out in the studio with a particular sound for hours, and then you realize, what are we doing here? And then you finally zoom out and you can hear the song as a whole, and Southerly is also nice bit of a wink at sort of a little bit of climate change and how important it is to care for country.
Yeah, and Aboriginal people were conservationists, and have been for tens of thousands of years. It’s sort of a natural thing to think about. We love singing about our environment and what’s around us, that sort of commentary, of social commentary, but also, you know, we come from a very small place, but we sing about big things, and we sing about things that might sort of surface level appear to be a story, of our story, but also kind of stories I think both humans can relate to. You know, Cat Five (Cyclone) is a song about when life feels a bit crazy and and things can feel a bit intense, like a cyclone, but you’re with that special someone and feel where everything’s gonna be okay.
S&B: Do you have some downtime while you’re out there?
RK: Yeah, we’ve had a couple days off. We got here a few days ago, and we’re just getting over the jet lag, and then I’m going to go see Justin. He did the mix engineer and catch up with him today. And, yeah, we’re just kind of cruising.
S&B: Yeah, that’s awesome. Well, we’re excited for the new album to come out next week, and I hope you, I hope your tour starts out with a bang.
“For The Dreams” is out today (11/8/24) in stores and streaming on all platforms. And catch them with King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard! Check out pics from their show at Frost Amphitheater.
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