The Sleepy Jackson - Oxford, UK, Autumn 2003
By: Toby L
'I always knew I had something different...'
Today, The Sleepy Jackson's Luke Steele is in severe understatement mode. Contemplative, he shares whiskies with rockfeedback and scratches his wispy moustache as if we were discussing philosophy with the greats. As such, he's actually chatting casually in a bustling, pissed-up student-pub in Oxfordshire.
And aspiration is his hot-point. 'You have a vision, and if you renew your vision everyday, it becomes so strong, and then - by the end of a year - we're playing at this level, and it feels right; I find that a lot of bands have small vision,' he cringes. 'I don't want to stop the progression any time soon; once you get to this level, it's all about getting to the next one above that...
'And it was always the case that I wanted to be huge, and to not just be any other band or something,' Steele concludes. 'I want to be genius like Radiohead, without the depression. Thom Yorke's amazing, and it's constructed in such an incredible way. But we still want to retain that edge - though with an even more melodic quality.'
Such sights high, there's little wonder why Steele's endeavour has been one of the critical successes of 2003. An obscure newcomer at the start of the calendar, by the Autumn, Luke and co. had sold out London's 2,200-capacity Astoria; the ultimate justification.
And it all began with the buzz of hearsay - that another Australian talent had emerged amid a period of southern-hemisphere hyperbole; yet it was with the arrival of an eponymous, debut mini-LP that the greater public at large could make minds up - at which point the ascendance grew even more rapidly. Come a first single - 'Vampire Racecourse', which skimmed the further-reaches of the top-50 - and a flourishing, first full-length - 'Lovers' - Steele's Sleepy Jackson are now recognisably one of Oz's most primary alt-treasures.
Like most tales of success, however, it has derived from a sacrifice - namely, (almost) Steele's sanity. Tales of drunken abandon and band-member tensions, it was with the shedding of two core musos of the original line-up when proceedings reached fever-pitch. The next we hear, Luke ditched the bottle (well, sort of) and became a born again Christian. Meeting him today, the picture becomes a tad clearer.
Returning from the bar (it was his round), Steele announces, 'I just got you a single. I got a double.' He passes over a Jack Daniel's and Coke.
Fine. Thank you very much.
Steele smiles. 'The thing is,' he lingers, returning to thoughtful mode, 'I've worked out what people like...'
Right. What do people like?
'This day and age, it's stuff that's melodic, but it's got that slight bit of attitude - something just enjoyable to listen to,' he returns. 'I'm getting more easy-listening with the songs, and personally from being on the road, I buy some weird dance-records, but if I can't get into it within a minute, I'll stop listening.
'I'm getting into American bands where there's no stuffing around - just straight melodies. For me, it's about trying to write the best melodies in the world, like Lennon/McCartney songs - it's time to write songs that are just saying something. Once you get the best melodies, I reckon 50% of people don't even listen to the words, it's just the tune that draws them in... If everyone loves the melody so much, they'll want to read the lyrics someday, so it's gotta be of some benefit. I really want to move into that whole pop thing - like Pharrell Williams, or Michael Jackson.'
Aside from such names, which other artists - past or present - are keeping you going?
'I'm always listening to a lot of Beck,' notes Luke. 'I think that he's the best artist in the world. He's quite sharp on production, and the show. I can identify with him; I'm really on his plain, you know? Even with photo-shoots - for me, it's a big way of representing the music, the character of it, and the way people are going to hear it; they're thinking of the pictures and images associated. Beck has just followed his own direction of music in life, and he's really exhausted that whole pop thing via 'Midnite Vultures' - I'm just getting into that now.
'Otherwise, I don't listen to anything else other than Justin Timberlake and Craig David, stuff that's slicker. That's where The Sleepy's has been a bit weird, because there's always been so many channels of music where I'm like, 'Whoa, I'm so into that,' and it'll change; I like the electronica Bjork and Matmos sort of thing, as much as spoken-word...'
Your words seem to indicate that you're very controlled, calculated in your approach to songwriting and the art-form in general.
'I like moving along with what's happening in the industry,' he concedes. 'I like to buy every music-magazine and paper, and I'm right in there: it's my field. I follow it. That's what influences me; there are some bands though, like The White Stripes, where it's alright you know, but it doesn't get me. I'm too into the whole music thing to just go and be self-indulgent; I wanna write all styles - an avant-garde record or whatever. The experimental thing will come later - I'm a song-smith, if anything.'
How does this attitude work in present times, though; an example such as The White Stripes proves just how important the lower-fi, stripped-back approach is to modern music.
'But there's sometimes nothing worse than hearing a band that sounds like they're stuck in the past. It's been done. I'm into the idea of writing stuff that's never been heard before. What if Beck started working with Tom Waits? I got on that tip in other interviews - but I still wonder, 'What would happen?'. These amazing melodies, with Waits' low voice - it'd just be amazing. That's what we kind of do - collaborations between different musical-styles; even incorporating something like a slide-part that could be from the 1950s. '
Your sheer musicianship-acumen and range of influences seems to suggest music has always been a vital part of your life...
'I was about 12, eh, when I got into it,' he reveals. 'My father's a musician and I was conceived at a Tom Petty show; my mum told me that three weeks ago. Growing up, I thought it was so cool that my Dad ran a music-club - I was the luckiest kid. Every Tuesday, I'd go up to this club, and I'm only 14 or 15, and they had blues acts on all night; you'd get there at 7:30 and stay 'til 12 O' Clock, and it was just a full-on blues crowd. Because my Dad was the president, I'd just go backstage and hang out with all these musicians, smoking and drinking and talking about records. They were all so wasted, and I got amongst it, you know. I probably had a year of just hearing guys going, 'Yeah, man, it's all there on the table,' and all these weird phrases. You'd get one good sentence out of a two-hour conversation with 'em.
'Me and my brother (Jesse - who has collaborated with The Sleepy Jackson) had our roots built into us - me especially, because every one of my Dad's gigs, I was there; that just made me so interested in getting to it - but not wanting to stay there.
'Home feels like when you're in the dole going to put your form in. It's more like, 'I'll put this form in, I'm gonna get paid my social security, but I don't want to be here.' The best thing is just going back to visit my parents, but I don't really talk to anyone. I see this next fifteen years as my chance to go out there and exhaust the whole world with artistic work. I've got no time there anymore - I spent twenty years there, five years spent playing all the bars in town.
'I had to leave Australia sooner or later,' he finalises, 'because I wanted to play in Paris and New York, and anywhere I saw in films that looked cool... But, now, I've been to Paris, I've been to New York, I've been to the UK - it feels good. I feel ready to kind of it really go for it.'
And 'go for it' he has, though with such aforementioned troubles along the way.
'I still have drinks, but I know when I'm losing it now with my mind,' he comments, supping on his present refreshment. 'Before, my foundation was set on, in the day, 'When can we go out and get a drink?' Then, I'd have a drink, and it'd be, 'When can I get a girl,' and then, if there were none around, I'd start getting depressed and just smash stuff. And, increasingly, it becomes like this vampire inside you, doing the moonwalk, and making you do stuff...
'When your mind's set higher - you go to a few sermons and stuff - and you realise there's more to life than that, you become two years behind your mind. I've got all these massive plans for the band - like having animals on the stage, similar to a huge theatre-production - but we can't do that for a year or so, until there's enough cash for it...'
What kind of animals?
'White dogs, white kittens...'
OK...
'So, yeah - I've been there; when you've had so much to drink that you pick up a glass and smash it on your hand in front of someone and go, 'Look, I cut myself,' and then the next day, you wake up, and you go, 'What the f**k happened there?' It's a really big thing - from a raging alcoholic to the normal guy. It's a fine line - it takes a lot to build yourself up in your head. With me, I could really feel it. At the end of a tour, when I was around 20 or 21, and when the band was leaving, I went through this stage of reassessing what I was doing... All these bad things happened after a few drinks, and you realise there's a link... It wasn't just a sociality thing.'
Would you consider yourself tough to work with, musically?
'Yeah, I'd say so,' Luke retorts openly. 'I'll tell someone if something's crap. But I know how things work and how it fits together. I need the band, and they're there - but I know what I want. I'm not there to just hang out with the boys and smoke - I'm there for the music, not socialising. I'm not gonna get to 30 and say, 'I wanna get a job in an office for a while...' Though maybe I will. I was working crap jobs, and when it got to the point where it was affecting the music, I just quit.
'I remember working at a Burger King - it's called Hungry Jack's in Australia - and hearing songs on the radio... As an artist, you need all the time in the world. You need to sit there in the day and not do anything, and then go for a coffee in town, and a song like this will come on (in the background, The Smashing Pumpkins' '1979' has just started) and you go, 'Damn cool,' and write your own song.
'My best friend, when we were back in high-school, said, 'I'm gonna become a plumber,' and he hung his boots up on playing the guitar, you know. Plumbers get up at 4am and work 'til 5 in the afternoon, and they're so tired. Music doesn't work in that routine. Being creative or imaging doesn't work in that way. When your mind's open, that's when it gets exciting.
'The two new members have only been with us for six months, but I've finally found a band that's just enthusiastic about things - they're there for the highway,' he enthuses. 'There's nothing worse than trying to lead an army that doesn't want to be led; what if you're in the field and you're trying to win a war, and you're like, 'Jimmy! Get around the back there!' and he's like, 'Nah, I can't be bothered.' And then five other people get shot in the meantime, you know?
'The two guys that left would say to me, like, 'Everyone wants to do interviews with you,' but I am the captain, man. Journalists won't want to talk to anyone that hasn't written anything.
'The new line-up... Jay, the bass-player, his mum's a professor of music, as was his father, whilst Malcolm is a pianist and a drummer... It's evolved more. But I like bands where there's always a person with the vision, like the Bowie's, or Dylan's. I don't like that 'Let's all get in a room and see what happens' tendency because nothing usually does. Only if there are all people working together equally with a group-objective to write brilliant music, then it will be successful.'
Luke tussles from subject to subject, clearly grappling in his mind for the finest words. It results in engaging, if at times abstract, conversation. Intriguingly, summarising his work is the most articulate it gets.
'I want the music to be profound in a sense, but not every song can be profound,' he goes on. 'There are some songs I write that I just don't know where they're going; there's one I was writing in New York recently that was this big, Lennon thing, like, 'America loves Iraq/Afghanistan loves Japan/Japan loves Kentucky,' and it just goes through all the countries loving each other... I like writing songs that are all over the place; one person will like something harder, the other person will like something sweet, and then you bring both types of people together by including both types of song. It's just about trying to apply to different people, and if they get a hint of what they like, they'll be curious to listen to the rest.
'I spent years in the studio - that's my whole thing; with the American guy (Jonathan Burnside) we worked on the album alongside, it says on all the credits that he produced it, but we worked one-on-one together. In a way, it was as if there were two producers - he was the main one, though I knew how he worked and stuff. We just ended up getting all the sounds right.
'Live, some of those songs, we don't want them to sound like the record - we want them to sound pretty close, but it's never going to sound like the record. In the live, it loses a lot of the wind that's on the album - like the girl vocals, the reverbs in the room, and that kinda thing.
'The whole band is there to not brainwash the listener in any sense - more massage the brain; their head is constipated with all this garbage, so the music is able to reach into them and move things around a bit, like a tool, make things a bit livelier. Like injecting heroin into the side of your head as opposed to your arm. It's there to inspire people, you know? My biggest fear is becoming boring. Good writers and artists are the ones with their eyes and ears open every single moment of the day; so I carry Dictaphones and writing-paper and laptops and guitars... Just try to be consistently focussed. But you can't predict your life...It's important to have a goal of where you're heading. Music does relieve 95% of the pain, eh...'
Do you consider yourself a rounded, satisfied individual?
'Yeah, I think I am,' he nods slowly. 'I don't have anything but this. I was doing graphic-design for three years. I could have been a rad designer, but I didn't want to do it. I don't have a girlfriend back in Perth, barely hang out with anyone back there anymore... I have friends, but they're busy doing their thing. I'm just travelling the world.
'The best thing about it is the adventure; I've always liked adventure. That's why I used to love doing shows when the band just started, because it was all new... Ben Lee (singer/songwriter) came to the studio just before our album was finished, and he went, 'Luke, I'm so excited to see you at the stage you're at now, because once this album comes out, you're never going to experience that before-album-release feeling in quite the same way again.' And he is right.
'I remember us even doing this amazing show, where we played a massive barn amidst bundles of hay, and just sleeping in the barn with an old blanket, because everyone else was in the house... I like that, ending up in a town, and meeting amazing people. I'm a real people-person, I like meeting up and going, 'Hey, what do you do?' That fascinates me - when you're walking in the street and you see someone, and you just think, 'Where do they go; what do they do; why do they look so gloomy?' I've also had a couple of close people die in the last couple of years, so I'm more or less just enjoying getting away from that...'
And this is where much of the fascination lays - in between spurts of inspiring, excited chatter, there exists a quiet doom, a tragedy. That's The Sleepy Jackson all over. Take their signature-single to date - 'Good Dancers'; a misty-eyed piece of Brian Wilson-tinted, country-indie-pop, a song so unreservedly tuneful, upon exposure, you're instantly lifted a notch higher in the life-long contentment stakes. Yet a song just so antidote-like, a cure to depression, that its very serenity is the grace that denotes its tragedy (key-line: 'My heart is stronger than you are.'). A conflict, seemingly, but one so enrapturing, you're willing to get lost in the muddle.
As stated, Luke now has a new gateway to which he exchanges and derives his views. 'People don't realise how much wisdom and knowledge there is in the gospel,' he answers of his faith. 'I won't go on about it. But there's so much confusion when it comes to any religion or prophecy. There are big ratios, and I don't know the exact figures, but there's probably about 60% of people in the world that will never come into touch into it. And the whole world is crying out for wisdom.
'There's got to be points in people's lives, where they realise that 'The Bible' is always going to be one of the strongest books in the world. It's in every hotel for a reason. Atheists are like, 'Oh, I don't believe in that,' but then they'll hear sentiments such as 'do as to others as you like done likewise,' or, 'all things happen for a reason,' and they'll be like, 'Right on, man...' There's a lot of good ministers that project messages in a special way that can relate to people, but they can't make the full connection... Music's like affinity - it can go right in through your body, and your heart - what explains that?'
Though barely touching his mid-twenties, clearly, Luke Steele is a man searching and discovering. Public-therapy, maybe - and a produce from which we too can benefit. Over the last drip of a drink, the complex tapestry of The Sleepy Jackson suddenly all fits together.
'I just constantly crave beauty,' he summarises dreamily, before adding his own unique, mildly jilted twist. 'The ultimate beauty for someone. That's the only thing that fulfils everyone - even the fattest girl in the world, who's arrogant with no job, who hates her friends and is an atheist - for her to hear a song that she can listen to everyday is just gold, really.'
Artists in this article: The Sleepy Jackson