interview: tiger choir

Tiger Choir (L-R): Hamish Cruickshank, Elliot Taylor and Sam J. Nicholson

In life, I am perpetually late. I consistently turn up to work seven minutes after I’m supposed to start, and setting my alarm seven minutes earlier just makes me snooze it once more than I usually would.

Stereotypes would have you believe that musicians are always late, and in my experience, this is entirely accurate. So my interviewing musicians should be a meeting of cosmic perfection, except that in this scenario, I’m the ‘professional’ (ha) who should turn up on time despite knowing that, in all likelihood, I’ll be waiting around, and they’re the rock stars who could turn up an hour late, drunk and barely dressed, and I wouldn’t really be able to complain.

All things considered, I am rather surprised when ten minutes prior to my meeting Tiger Choir for an interview, they send me a text saying they are already seated at the Ed Castle having a beer, and I am forced to actually hurry there.

What ensues is the longest interview I’ve ever conducted, covering all manner of whatnot, including tennis, time travel and the art of breakfast.

Oh, and music.

How did your sound develop?
Hamish: Me and Elliot both did rock music studies at college together. We didn’t play so much in college, it was after that we started playing together.

Elliot: It was a strange progression. We realised we had the same music taste and after we both ended up front row at a Drones concert, we just realised that we were friends, getting really drunk together.

Sam: I think all of us weren’t really in the right bands so we made one that was a bit poppier and weirder than the ones we were in. And then Hamish covered his drum kit in red fur. We bring that up with everyone we talk to.

Elliot: Did we mention we have a drum kit upholstered in red shag pile?

Hamish: It’s a good weekend project for anyone.

Were you really oriented toward the sound that you’re currently making when you started or has that evolved?
Elliot: We basically recorded before we’d ever played a gig. It started as a project just to put that together to see what happened. We had a few songs that just came together when we started jamming and that’s what was on the EP. I think the album we recorded recently is diverse too, we haven’t really put it all together yet but we don’t really feel the need to.

Sam: Each song is its own little world.

Elliott: And it’s fun being able to play different kinds of sets. Sometimes we’ll try to do really weird shit. It’s nice to have that versatility.

Hamish: The best juxtaposition that we’ve got on the album has got hymn-like vocals and banjo. I think that is the strangest mix of things on the whole thing.

Elliott: That’s a song that came together during the recording sessions, it’s called Cotton Claws and now we play it live and it’s completely different to the recording so it’s fun when songs like that change.

What is the music scene like in Hobart?
Elliot: Diverse. You can’t really have a night where there’s just one style of music so we play shows with punk bands and college bands that are just finding out what they’re interested in playing.

Do you think that lends itself to people having more diverse music interests or have you ever had a confused reaction from the audience if you’re playing with a band that’s really different?
Sam: I think people are really used to going ‘what the fuck’. If a big band comes down, anyone could support them, it’s not always who you’d expect.

Hamish: The other thing about the Tassie music scene is that they love to heckle. It’s like a competition to see who can get the best heckle.

Sam: It makes you feel quite comfortable when you’re used to it. When we played in Brisbane, it was a really fun gig and when we met people, we just asked them if they could yell out that we were shit so that we could get in the zone.

You played at the Falls Festival in Marion Bay recently, how was that?
Elliot: It was really really fun.

Hamish: It’s one of the biggest gigs we’ve done, easily to the most people.

Elliot: It was a packed circus tent and we had giant paper mache animals hanging above our heads and a really excitable crowd. We had our first ever stage invasion which was nice. We got a photo with the people afterwards.

Were there any particular songs or artists that inspired you to pursue music when you were growing up?
Elliot: I remember waking up every morning once my parents bought the Beatles blue collection. I think one of the first songs I learned to play was Back in the USSR. And I remember playing Daytripper in the year six end of year assembly, there were like six of us playing guitar. The same thing happened when my sister bought a Nirvana Greatest Hits album, but I don’t know that that’s a big influence that I’m conscious of today.

Sam: I love the Beatles as well, it’s kind of hard to grow up without hearing them. I met Ringo Starr actually. I only became a drummer recently but I’d like to think that shaking his hand helped somehow because he’s such an underrated drummer.

Have you ever wanted to just throw in the towel and do something more conventional, thinking this is just too hard?
Sam: Not with this band, I have in other bands.

Hamish: This band seems to be such a good balance of work and play.

Elliot: We play a lot of tennis.

Sam: If this music thing doesn’t work out, we’ll start a triples tennis team.

Hamish: You think about playing in a band, you think about staying up late and drinking heaps, doing drugs, all that sort of thing but when we get together and practise, it’s really wholesome. It’s exercise and cups of tea!

Sam: Sometimes when we get together for a jam, we spend ages making killer breakfasts.

Elliot: Yeah, this morning we had scrambled eggs, coriander mushrooms, tomatoes, hash browns, avocado, bacon…

Is there anything you’ve always wanted to be asked?

Hamish: Do you believe in time travel?

Elliot: Hamish said it was possible.

Hamish: It’s a grey area. I think technically, yeah, but doing it would be impossible.

Elliot: Because you’d have to travel at the speed of light, which would kill you.

Sam: Often Hamish will explain something and Elliot and I have no idea what he’s talking about but we just start believing it.

Do you consider yourselves feminists?
Sam: There are so many different definitions of that, I’m not sure really.

Elliot: I guess we’re feminists in the way that’s about respect rather than being up in arms. Treat women equally, it goes without saying.

Tiger Choir will be supporting Deerhunter at the Metro in Sydney on Feb 8, and at the Billboard in Melbourne on Feb 9, before embarking on a NZ tour. Check out more at http://tigerchoir.bandcamp.com!