ChitChat - With Tim & Craig from Loser
Interview By: Rory Beeforth (FUTL - Fuck You Tarot Lady Podcast)
Melbourne's LOSER reveal their first cut of new music for 2021 with the release of 'All I Need', recorded via the band's newly launched Restless Noise Studios.
On the track, LOSER vocalist/guitarist Tim Maxwell shares:
"'All I Need' is a song about feeling incomplete even though you may have everything you need or want in life, yet you still can’t be satisfied. It’s an ode to all the people out there that may feel this way and to let them know that they are not alone," adding:
"It’s been such a weird year and it really tested a lot of people’s mental health, this is my song for you to help you get through those tough times."
Churning away slowly before drawing on big sing alongs and trademark guitar solos, 'All I Need' will no doubt be a future staple live track for the band, who recently supported both Slowly Slowly (solo) and Shihad at their respective sold out Corner Hotel shows.
Listen to the episode below or scroll down for the transcribed interview.
Rory
Tim, tell me about the process of recording new songs for this upcoming album, the singles called "All I Need". How was the process different to the previous album?
Tim
Well, we were locked down. *laughter* Couldn't go anywhere. It was, it was brutal, because we had to basically find, it just changed all the time, it started off. Like, we knew that we wanted to do a lot of it from our new home studio, which is called Restless Noise, named after our EP. And basically, we got Sam Johnson, who we've been recorded, like me and Craig have recorded like, all our albums with this guy. And we know he has like a killer like drum sound and drum room. So like, the first thing we had to do was like, Alright, cool. We're gonna try get like as many tracks as we can get done, like recorded drum wise. So then we can come back to Restless Noise. And then we can send, you know, in the new wave of COVID just send files back and forth to each other and agree on it. So I was basically like, pretty much just me and Craig going back and forth over FaceTime. Like I'd sit there with like, on FaceTime, and he'd see every move I did. It was awesome. It was like it was completely different. But it was also cool to not be like stuck in a studio and you know, waiting on someone else's time. And they're just like, oh, are we going to do this? Now? You know, it was your own structure. So it felt a lot better to do it. That's for sure. Wow, it felt like you just get more inspiration out of things. And you had all the time in the world. You know, you could sit there have a coffee and a cigarette and then wait two hours, like, Oh, I got this idea. It's like I'm gonna ring Craig. All right, cool. He's home. It's not working sweet. Let's do this. I actually quite enjoyed it. To be honest. This is a cool process.
Rory
It's a really optimistic look at the COVID lockdown, and I think a lot of other bands, especially in a situation like yours that could have had the kind of woe is me. We just released this album.
Tim
Yeah, exactly.
Rory
But you've just used that instead to be really optimistic and record even more stuff.
Tim
Yeah, totally. Well, yeah, I'm pretty lucky to have the studio like my parents literally told me to move home so they could pay for this studio. So they'd stop seeing me work out of like, the front of their house or something, you know, or like, I mean, I started off like, with a tradieo in like my backyard in Footscray with like this old Mac that it like beer spilt all over it and now go to studio, so I feel pretty good about it.
Rory
Yeah, that sounds amazing. Tell us a little bit more about the studio space. Like what what was the...
Tim
um, so it's pretty cool. Because I, it was we were living in like, we rented this house like 17 years ago. And basically all there was out the back was this shed and it was like this guy who used to live there like cooked salami, and there any like hung up or salami and stuff like that. So it was literally this like unleveled like piece of shit shed. And we're like, Alright, let's turn half of this into a bar and half of this into a studio. So then I got my good mate, Nick Chugg who lives in Tasmania And basically just like built it over two weeks. Yeah. And it's cool because like part of the bar is like there was this piece of wood that was sitting there since we were last so many years ago, and that's the bar there as well. So it's pretty cool.
Rory
And is any of the salami still there?
Tim
No you couldn't smell the salami, but we had to take off all the hooks I remember when we were maybe I should turn the second half into a salami hang area. Yeah, pretty good.
Rory
You can get it sorted. Yeah, when you're not recording stuff.
Tim
It'll smell really bad. Not as bad as cigarettes and weed though so thats good.
Rory
That's awesome. You've got this free time now you're writing all these songs? What were the things that came out in COVID? That was different to previous Loser? Like, how does this kind of differentiate?
Tim
I think by spending so much time alone, you sort of discovered who you were. And also like, I was going through a pretty bad time mentally and I was on medication and once that sort of shine through then it helped. I don't know it's weird because like, the songs that are written like the new singles and that were actually written like, like, for instance, like upside down was written before COVID but it eerily relates to it, like you know, like it's and "All I Need" was the same and it's sort of like so we were sort of it wasn't actually really like writing heaps it was just like recording all the stuff that we had planned anyway, but all the lyrics sort of like all the lyrical content made even more sense as like the journey went on and stuff and it was crazy.
Rory
Yeah, wow that's pretty fucking great. I'm really impressed that you guys have just managed to be so positive in all of this and find that silver lining I think a lot of other people found it as a an opportunity to give up a little in a little bit you know, but enjoy the not doing but instead you kind of went fully into doing
Tim
yes like fuck it let's let's get creative. Why not? We've got the time let's do it.
Rory
But what about you guys playing with Shihad the other night at the Corner Hotel we were there. Can we do you want to talk a little bit about that, Craig?
Craig
I would love to they are one of my favorite bands. Especially I got a bunch of family from West Auckland. So when I was a young lad, they were always force feeding me Shihad, and yeah, ever since, like, I was probably 10 or something when the 'Fish' album came out, so I was sort of I went back to Killjoys stuff later, but from Fish onwards, I was hooked, as they say, and so to actually play with, Shihad was fucking mind blowing man was great.
Rory
What was it like, you know, playing at the Corner Hotel, which is usually like such an epic venue, but then having the kind of constraints of the sitting down. Did that affect you guys as a performance way? Or was that something that was weird?
Craig
I think it affected every band member differently. I know. Tim's sitting here shaking his head, but for me personally, I was I felt like a dog on the at the beach, who was on the lead for like a year and then someone just unclicked it And so I had a great time. I went straight in the water. I went for a swim, I rolled around in the sand. I had a great time. Not so much, possibly for others. But the weird thing I thought was those two shows in a row. It was a Thursday night, the Corner and Friday night at the Espy both, you know, within Melbourne, I'm assuming the same issues with COVID. But so there was tables and chairs at the corner and it was pretty, you know, COVIDY? But then the following night, it was like a time capsule of a gig before COVID. And people were crowd surfing and there was no it was like a totally different.
Rory
We should have gone to the Friday night!
Craig
You completely forgot. Yeah, it was it was um, awesome. So I don't know who I don't know how they managed to swing out or what they're different, you know, different councils have a different code or something.
Rory
Different policies?
Craig
Um, yeah, definitely try and book a gig at the Espy, was rockin. But not to take anything away, I have to definitely point out that both the staff at both venues were awesome. Like, I think that was something you can take for granted in the pre COVID era as a performer sort of rolling in and everyone's a bit like yeah, the gig and all that and you sort of forget that the people at the venue are really setting it up for it. And they really did their best of both venues to make sure everyone was safe but was still felt like they're at a gig and having a good time and I think it was pretty awesome considering the years at both those venues would have had they came back with a positive mindset to set the stage.
Rory
They kind of like went running back into the water as well, you know,
Craig
yeah, man. Oh, yeah. We're all getting wet.
Rory
That's great. Oh, to wrap this one up, What's the kind of end piece or is there anything else you want to talk about with
Craig
All I can say is that we got lots more music coming, and hopefully as much touring as possible. That's safe. But yeah, heaps of tunes.
Rory
Excellent. Thanks so much for chatting guys.
Craig
Thank you.
FOLLOW, LISTEN AND COVER YOURSELF IN LOSER MERCH BELOW
