Almost all of the songs on the new record were written over ten days. I put some simple demos together and then played them for good friend, and wonderful musician/engineer, Jethro Pickett on a visit to their idyllic house in the Tasmanian countryside. Jethro’s house and studio were once old apple sheds and they sit on the Huon River. The quiet and the beauty of the place, as well as Jethro’s enthusiasm for the demo’s, inspired me to record the album there. Jethro and I are also both guitarists in a band together, The Moreland City Soul Revue (almost all the band members are also featured on the album), and playing together has always just worked. Without ever having to talk about it, we never seem to get in each other's way. The album was then recorded over a few return trips to Jethro’s Tassie studio, (and a couple more with Melbourne icon, producer Shane Omara), and the space and stillness there heavily shaped the sounds that are heard on the record.
Mostly I get my fill of creating music from years of regular playing in bands in bars and pubs around town, from Alt country, to Soul, to Blues. Only very infrequently have I sat down to try to write my own instrumental music. I really love a lot of jazz, but everything that came out of me sounded like ‘bad jazz’: overly complicated, but lacking something. In some ways this album is almost anti-virtuosic, though I still get to express my real love of improvisation which has been an obsession for 25 years.
Most music I listen to these days has lyrics, and with Nightsville I wanted to try to capture a feeling I get when I listen to certain music, but capture it without the lyrics. Most of the music I love by Bob Dylan, Ry Cooder, John Lennon, Tom Waits, has just a few chords and a beautiful simplicity. A deceptive simplicity. Those beloved songs are so profoundly strong — sometimes old folk melodies that had been reworked handed down through generations.
I was also drawn to instrumental music and soundscapes from movie soundtracks, made to accompany imagery and tap into an emotion, rather than be ‘impressive’ and show off a musical ability. At times, the music on this album has a cinematic sound, and in my head I always imagined it as a soundtrack to a film not yet made. My talented wife Lilli Waters and I collaborated on two music videos, which hopefully resemble short films rather than music clips.
I think the music that comes out of me, whether I’m playing as a side person or in my own compositions, is always a mix of melancholy, joy and optimism. All of the art that I am drawn to has some kind of pain in it. When my wife, a photographer, reworks her photographs, I often say, “Can you make the images darker?” until they almost disappear into the murky and imperceptible.
When I was a child music was our family's religion. It was always on, and not in the background either. Looking back now, my parents had remarkably good taste in music, though neither played an instrument. Or is it that I love all the music I was immersed in as a child because of that? I'm fairly sure it's both.
For better and worse when my father spiralled into depression, he would get lost in music, drink red wine by himself and turn the music up all the way. At the time it was scarring and heavy, but that music is still the most powerful on the planet for me, and still moves me more than anything else. Music can do that more than any other artform, tap into the past in a single sonic moment. In the midst of these dark spirals, my dad played big doses of John Lennon post-Beatles (who I avoided listening to for several years because it was too much), 70’s Dylan, Joe Cocker, Randy Newman, Springsteen, Tom Waits, Judy Garland, Billie Holiday, even early Bee Gees (before disco), and The Supremes. Music was always this experience powerful beyond words — magical, full of pain, joy and wisdom. At home, there were whole drawers full of amazing blues music too which became my first love. I ‘discovered’ Clapton, Muddy Waters, Roy Buchanan, even Stevie Ray Vaughan by scanning these drawers for pure gold.
I still viscerally remember how music felt before I knew anything about it. Before my obsession with the guitar, before I started ‘dissecting’ music. It really was just this powerful magic, so full of wonder. Like many musicians, I am searching for a kind of magical feeling, which is that same feeling of childlike wonder that goes back to those early life moments. I once read brilliant musician John Lurie saying something about trying to find God through the saxophone, which seemed to sum it up.
I’ve been seriously obsessed with the guitar since I was about 11. Once I worked out how to play some very basic blues licks, I was hooked, and have never been bored since. I was always a classic introvert. I still am. Music has been an outlet to express more than words could for me for the longest time.
~ Jacob Cole