Ezekiel RodofiliA few years ago we spoke to Evan McGregor about his drumming journey and Hashshashin. More recently, we were afforded the opportunity to chat with Evan once more, though this time about his project with Phillipa Murphy-Haste – Zeitgeber – a little bit about Helu, and the upcoming Art As Catharsis fifteen-year anniversary show in Sydney.
–
Ez: Something I realised about Zeitgeber whilst listening Fellow Prisoners of the Splendour and Travail of the Earth – Part 1… I think it was a few songs in and I realised “This album could only be made by Evan and could not be made by anyone else”, ’cause I know of no one else who approaches the drums and sound sound the way you do. I think you may have made a truly unique album.
This isn’t to say it’s good. *laughs*
Evan: No, of course! But you know what? It’s not so much important to me that the product of it is unique in some people’s eyes or my eyes; if you’re telling me that it’s unique, that’s a good sign to me that I’m just doing things purely for my own… I’m just tapping into whatever I want to create.
I actually think anyone and everyone has this ability to come up with something unique; I just think a lot of people don’t. Of course many artists do, but I think that for a lot of the ones that don’t, they haven’t pushed really hard into finding what is… that originality, that creative thing. I think part of finding that is intentionally. To a degree, you have to sort of drop any expectations or any premeditations about what you want it to be.
Ez: As I’ve said before, you’re the drummer I’ve photographed the most. I’ve seen how you play quite a lot. I’ve seen how you approach the drums, and I don’t think Zeitgeber is based around the drums and percussion. I’m pretty sure it started coming through a time when you were getting tired of drumming a fair bit.
Evan: Not exactly, but there was a period in the later Hashshashin days… No, that’s true actually. I guess I haven’t being playing live as much since Hashshashin stopped. I was always working on stuff, I was working on Helu stuff, but I wasn’t playing live as much.
The reason why Zeitgeber started is that I was donated a piano by my mother-in-law, and I found it really fun. I was like “Oh, okay! I can play drums on the piano. In a way that’s very rhythmic.” ‘Cause you have a rough ideas of keys you can approach it in a very percussive way, and so by doing that I put drums on the side a little bit, but as soon as I’d written parts on piano, I was like “Okay now I have to come up with drums to it”. So it was centred around piano.
Ez: From watching you play, I think you have a very kind of delicate, tonal approach, so even when you’re playing loud and hard, it still feels delicate and spaced.
I think it’s in the opening or second song in Part 1 where you start getting a bit heavier in percussion and it gets very cymbal-heavy. Still based on kick and snare but its getting very noisy and there’s still space. And I’m guessing part of why it sounds like you is your background in music.
Evan: I guess so. I guess it’s a lot of things, and this is kind of what I mean when I say that anyone can tap into their own uniqueness. I think maybe one of the reasons I’ve managed to do that with this is that it’s my drumming and my piano playing; These things which have their own certain thing, combined together. And I guess what you do creatively, what anyone does creatively, is sort of like a byproduct of all the inputs you’ve had through your life mixed up, and whatever else is going on inside. All of those inputs combined, mashed up. And whatever your output is is just some unique mix of all these sorts of things.
I suppose in there there’s influences of… yeah, definitely of course there’s progressive, mathy sort of stuff. At times in my life I’ve listened to the heavier, more intense stuff but I can’t listen to really math-intense stuff for long periods of time. I also love the other side.
Contrast is super important to me in any band because my brain gets a bit bored of the same thing, and I also feel that everyone appreciates a certain amount of contrast. I love really spacious stuff; The Necks, and the earlier days of Pink Floyd that was really spacious and psychedelic. I think the nature of Zeitgeber’s instrumentation – piano, drums – and playing this kind of progressive stuff give it its own character as well. It naturally gives it a certain sound.
Ez: Do you have an aversion to certain things because you’re trying to find what can you can do with them and make them interesting for you?
Evan: Totally. What the most important thing – and I think the best music out there for anyone else – is doing things that work for you. If you wanna write stuff for an audience or for of a scene… if you wanna do that, go ahead, but everyone’s got different tastes. Are you gonna be like “Oh great, I impressed this person but not that person”?
Ultimately, the thing that is gonna get you the most unique artistic voice is you doing things that interest you as an artist, and so that’s been my thing. That comes across to the audience. If you do something and you think “That’s going to be good for this genre”, then your heart’s not really in it. You’re thinking beyond the artistic realm of here and now and finding that creative voice. If you do something that interests you, then that passion’s gonna translate.
Ez: Do you feel that in a way Zeitgeber is an acceptance and rejection of “traditional, familiar structures” that you’ve found yourself working in previously?
Evan: My answer’s kind of related to what I’ve said before in the sense that-
Ez: Maybe I should just copy paste the same answer *laughs*
Evan: No, it will be slightly more nuanced *laughs* Marginally.
Again, for me it’s really important that I don’t predetermine too much. That I don’t sit there and overanalyse my music, its cultural references and influences and all this sort of stuff and say “Oh look I’m doing that, but on the third album I’m going to subvert it and go beyond it”. I know it this sounds cheesy, but I find that the most creatively satisfied I am is if I just purely tap into the ineffable thing that you cannot articulate that is the beautiful thing about art.
These sorts of questions are interesting as a follow-up thing to making the art. If I was to analyse it afterwards, I could say there are things I’ve done traditionally, and that happens to be because I haven’t attempted to keep things in a traditional sense; it’s just because that is a particular influence I have.
Ez: Let me reframe: Things that have been traditionally Evan.
Evan: My answer is still relates to that. I haven’t intentionally gone “Oh, I’m going to go beyond what I normally do.” It’s just really important to me to find that spark. Whatever project it is, I find that particular spark, the thing I enjoy doing. It’s the reason why I do it to start with.
I started playing on piano and there was a spark; there was an energy there, and it became apparent that the spark was alive enough in that to keep riding it to turn it into an album.
Ez: I don’t think it would have been intentional. However, you know…
Evan: Oh, of course naturally as artists progress, you’re gonna do things that interest you which is usually going a bit further than what you’re normally comfortable with. Of course though, anyone would probably say that and your newest thing you’re gonna push a little bit further.
Ez: So, Fellow Prisoners… is a two-part album. Don’t you think you said enough with just one?
Evan: *laughs* It was actually supposed to be one album originally. In the process of making it I realised when the songs were finished, it was way too long for just one. I recorded it all at the same time, and when I looked at the length, it was like “You cannot sit and take this whole thing.” It was going to be an hour-and-a-half.
Ez: You have some guest appearances on Part 2.
Evan: Ellen Kirkwood on trumpet is one. It was a section where I was like, “This particular key or scale would work really nicely”, and she did a little trumpet solo thing on one of the earlier releases which was really nice, so I thought “Yeah, great”.
In general I like to let other musicians do their own thing. In some cases, with Phillipa on clarinet, there were a bunch of sections where I asked “Can you play this melody?”. There were a bunch of things I suggested, but it’s important to get them to do their own thing.
Ez: The music’s not ambient, but it seems ambient in a sense. At what point do you think Zeitgeber sits between passive and active music? Because I imagine if the drums weren’t there, it’d be quite passive.
Evan: Again, to me contrast is super important. The Necks are a great example where I think they are so incredible in building that passive space, but when I write, I couldn’t sit there for an hour and play like that. I need to become more active at some point.
It’s not super predetermined or intentional… to be honest, there is a certain amount of structuring….
I mean, my answer’s kind of the same as previous answers.
Ez: Copy paste
Evan: *laughs* It’s because of my love of contrast in music. There are bits where I love to have space, let things breathe a lot more. Then I tend to go “Now I feel like it’s time to go into something more intricate and active”, and that’s a thing I enjoy.
Ez: Let’s talk about Helu quickly. What’s going on with Helu?
Evan: Things are going really well. We’ve kind of got a new set and new album. It still needs a lot of tweaking, but I feel like we’re seventy or eighty percent there.
Ez: I remember you were playing at Lazybones a few months ago, and your thoughts on the new stuff was that there was potential there but you weren’t quite sure. So that’s been clearing up a bit.
Evan: Yeah, a little bit.
We’ve been working on another new piece since, and that’s really cool. But we’ve just gone back to that [prievious material] to work it ‘cause we’ve got a gig at Lazybones playing for Art As Catharsis’ fifteen-year anniversary.
It’s getting there. I feel like there’s still some tweaks to be done. Not major changes, but a I think a big thing with the Helu stuff, the reason why that was a challenging gig is not even so much the content; I think we’re all pretty happy with the content. It’s just that some of it is really fucking complicated and we’re not at the point where we’re comfortably and confidently play it.
As soon as you get to the point where you can play something like it’s fluent, that’s where the magic is in my mind, and we’re not there yet. As soon as it becomes effortless, it really just takes it to the next level. We just need to play it more, basically. But I reckon by the end of the year we’ll have an album ready, and then who knows when we’ll record it.
Ez: So would you say that your Art through Zeitgeber and Helu, and Hashshashin if it happens again is your… Catharsis?
Evan: *laughs*
Ez: I mean you already kind of jumped to the fucken’ promo bit. That’s my thing.
Evan: Oh, did I ruin your little punchline question?
Ez: You ruined my thing.
So you’ve known Lachlan for a while. Is that how you got onto Art As Catharsis?
Evan: It was a bit pre-Squat Club. I was in a band (The Mabobs) with Brendan Gloag and Tim Brown, who was [playing with Lachlan], so I was around when Lachlan started the label. It’s really awesome to see after fifteen years how much that label has grown.
Ez: So you’re really looking forward to the fifteen-year anniversary shows.
Evan: Yeah. Absolutely.
Ez: Excellent. Sweet.
Evan: And Lazybones is one of my favourite places to play. It’s always good sound…
Ez: *laughs*
Evan: It is! Upstairs, believe it or not!
Ez: No, I agree with you, but that just sounded so facetious.
Evan: Okay, yeah yeah. Well, it’s the truth. Lazybones is awesome.
I can’t even remember who else is playing *laughs* But I remember looking at the lineup and being like “Oh yeah, that’s cool!”
Ez: Why do you think Art As Cartharsis is important? If you do.
Evan: Well luckily, I do *laughs*. That would have been embarrassing if I said “I think it’s really unimportant”.
Ez: *laughs*
Evan: It is really important because one of the best things about it is that Lachlan has always championed and supported real diversity. A lot of labels say this and then you’re like “Oh, so you do some different strands of black metal”. I mean, o each their own, it’s a really good thing that there are super-specific labels. I think that adds up to a lot of awesome music, but Art as Catharsis, is truly diverse. There’s stuff that’s acoustic, there’s jazz, the progressive, there’s metal, but everything is from artists trying to tap into their own creative energies without trying to come out with a product for a particular type of person for a particular type of scene; just artists doing their thing and doing it well.
Lachlan could’ve been like “I’m gonna really focus on the metal”, and that may have helped the label to grow a bit more because that’s how in a capitalist society… to really hone in on something is how shit sells. He hasn’t done that. Hes gone “I’m gonna stick to really diverse, interesting music” and that’s what it’s about.
Ez: And what does Art As Catharsis mean to you?
Evan: It is that it’s awesome that there is a label that supports strange, interesting music that’s out there. It’s not not trying to be something that it’s not. It’s honest music, artists just doing their thing, and it’s awesome that Lachlan supports that.