Fifteen minutes with: David McCormack

David McCormack gives us a snapshot of his life as he and his band the Polaroids prepare the play the Between the Bays Festival.

yourGigs (yG): Is Between the Bays a festival you know much about?

David McCormack (DM): I know nothing about it. My old band Custard used to play it there in the nineties, but we’d rock up for sound check at 6 or 7 and play our gig at 10 or 11 then be back in Melbourne by the early morning. I know one of my favourite bands, ever, The Fauves come from Frankston and the Mornington Peninsular, but that’s about it. It seems a very groovy festival though. Seems very relaxed, a Saturday afternoon, sit down hear a few songs, kids running around a sausage sizzle – have it on a piece of bread with some fried onion and a bit of sauce – I think it would be quite nice.

yG: When you do get settings like that to play in, is it something that you do enjoy doing as opposed to your regular pub show?

DM: Absolutely, yeah, I think it is going to be very nice. Most gigs are just about people getting on the booze and getting on the drugs and trying to pick up each other, where as this will be more about sitting down and having a listen, I imagine the sound system is going to be nice, it’s going to be a cool day and clear and people will just be listening to the music, so it will be a really good vibe.

yG: Is that something you can feed off as a musician?

DM: Definitely, we play more of the – I don’t want to saw slower songs – less of the fast, loud songs, more of the mid-placed to slow quieter songs. And that’s nice, its chalk and cheese,  you don’t want to go out there on a beautiful afternoon down in Frankston and play something really, really fast and abrasive, you just want to just play something quite nice. I think I’ll be feeding on that, I want to sing as well as I possibly can, I’ll probably be paying attention to how I am singing as opposed to looking at people. Stephen Cummings will be there, and I’ve never seen him play before so I’m really looking forward to that, other than him and Justine Clarke with the kids audience, I don’t know any of the other band playing there so it will be a learning experience for the Polaroids.

yG: And the other recent festival you would have played was the Meredith Festival with Custard – what was that experience like?

DM: That was great, what we did, we had one rehearsal beforehand. What we did, we had ten year period that we didn’t play then we had one gig for the 150^th Queensland celebration. We played up there in December 2009 then we didn’t see each other all year, we had one rehearsal before Meredith, we all flew down to Melbourne, drove up to Meredith, played our 40 minute set then drove home again. It was wonderful. It was a very generous crowd as well.  There were generations; there were parents there with their kiddies, obviously the kiddies must have heard a lot of Custard music growing up because they seemed to know a lot of the words, it was very lovely, it was a lovely vibe.

yG: At the time you said the Custard 150^th show was going to be a one-off show – what was it about Meredith that made you play again?

DM: It just felt right. It was a good deal, it was going to be fun and I know some of the people that organise it so we are all friends. With Custard and everything I do, if I feel like it is going to be fun and it is going to have a good vibe – I’ll do it. If it feels like it is going to be hard work or a bit weird, I won’t do it. In the early days of Custard we would be out there us against the world trying to win people over and doing lots of touring and doing everything we could to try and get people to notice us. It’s 20 years later, I’d rather just do my own thing and if people like it they can come along. I’m not interviewing for new people, new music fans, I’m just want  people who already knows what is happening, they can come along and we’ll have a great time.

yG: Is it good for you to have the best of Custard release out now so people can discover you now

DM: I think it is, The Essential Custard, that was more Sony who owned all of the recordings of the Custard stuff. They just sent me an email and said we are thinking of putting this out, this is what we are thinking of the track listing what do you think of it? We didn’t have much say in it, but I was happy someone decided to release it. I haven’t really listened to it – I remember it at the time I recorded it, but I haven’t listened to it as a collection. That’s what I am going to do this afternoon actually – refresh my memory.

yG: You are also coming together for a flood relief concert in Brisbane as well?

DM: All of the four Custard guys are born and bred in Brisbane, we did all of our formative years up there and all of our early gigs, and we were based there for ten years as Custard. As soon as I heard the floods were happening we were desperate to get a gig up there and get something happen as soon as we could, so we were very happy to play a gig up there. It was just about trying to raise money, all the bands donated their time, so just any money we can raise and any awareness as well.

yG: Do you think that the Brisbane music has always been very tight knit as exemplified by shows like this?

DM: Yes, when I was in Brisbane with Custard, we lived in an area called Spring hill, which is sort of near the city. But we didn’t really mix with the other bands – we sort of knew about Powderfinger and Regurgitator, but we weren’t really friends. Now we are all a bit older and we have done tours together we know each other a lot better now.  There is a Brisbane community, but we were never really part of it, we had our own little gang. We didn’t mix well with others; we were caught up in our own world. We were very ego-centric and thought we were better than everyone else, and now looking back I see that we were just egomaniacs.

yG: What lessons did you take from your previous experiences with Custard and how do you apply them to what you are doing now with the Polaroids and your own solo work?

DM: The lessons that I have learnt are don’t stress too much about anything, just do what you think is interesting, do music and events that are interesting to you. And don’t sweat about things. When I was younger I’d sweat about everything from the sound of the snare drum to the colouring of the lettering on the album.  Now I am much more like ‘it is what it is’ it’s much nicer to have an element of randomness and chaos involved. You just keep doing stuff, keep recording and have fun. That’s what I’ve learned over the past 20 years, don treat everything so seriously, don’t worry, it’s just music.

yG: There was significant gap between Little Murders and your previous solo album – how did that effect how the album took shape and ended up?

DM: The reaction to Little Murders was great, they way that I’ve worked over the last few years is that whenever there an interesting bunch of musicians around and I I’ve a bunch of songs I just go in and record them, never actually thinking about an actual album per-se. So I did that with Little Murders I did that for four or five years and I had so many tracks that I could just go through and collect my favourites and find the ones that work the best together. That is what I am doing now; I am constantly recording, and trying to play with the Polaroids and different musicians- I really need to get my act together though as I want to get an album out this year.  It should be so simple but it always seems to take me so long now, to collate it all as an album In this day and age – do people even buy albums? Or do they just download them off iTunes. From my point of view if there is something I am interested in I may download a song or two off ITunes and then if I really like it I will then go out and buy the CD and want to have the cover and the lyrics and have a physical copy. iTunes is like singles, you can just get a taste and if you like the stuff you can then go out and buy the album. So I am thinking why not just go and release half-a-dozen songs to iTunes instead of putting up the album. You don’t make any money from iTunes though. I’d just rather people can hear it rather than it not be available - I’m all about sharing.

It is all about promotion, if people like your song they will come and see you play. I’m just happy that people will come and see you play and are interested that’s more than enough you don’t need to sell anything that’s enough of a reward. Gosh I am sounding like a hippy. I’m not usually like this, but it’s a beautiful day, and we’re happy.

yG: After all you have gone through and your experiences - do you think you still have any of that enthusiasm or energy about trying to make it or do you think you have found a comfortable space for yourself?

DM: I definitely have found a comfortable place. I had a realisation in the mid- nineties when Custard were touring America for three months. We thought let’s go to  America and after three months of touring we were like oh god, this is so hard, and you have to lick so many people’s bottoms and you have to be nice and do this and do that and it all got too hard. Since the mid-nineties I’ve just felt I’m going to do what I want to do. If people dig it then that’s great.  I don’t like to force myself down people’s throats. But I like to make it available to people I don’t want to tell them that they really have to love it or anything, people are intelligent and they can make up their own minds. People are always on YouTube now and you don’t even need a radio anymore, everything is online. I’m obsessed with YouTube – I just go from song to another song and you just think oh man I haven’t heard that song for 20 years and it’s there on YouTube. What an age we live in.  

yG:  Do you think it has expanded your song writing palette having all this stuff available to you?

DM: No, I’m too old to have my palette expanded. I’m a horse with those blinkers on. When I was young I was obsessed by music, but in the last couple of years so my head is full of it now. So unless something really excites me I just tend to ignore it. But I do like looking for stuff.

yG: In your life now does the times and circumstances that you do get inspirations to write songs different to before?

DM I am still constantly coming up with ideas for songs, but I don’t sit down and do an album now I just sit and record when the mood takes me, I’m much more into that idea, I don’t like the limitations of an album.  But I am happy doing what I want to do.