Questlove Supreme: The Avalanches

Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another episode of.

Quest Love Supreme.

I'm your host Quest Love with Us. We have Fragmented Supremest. We got Fantego over in the house. What's up, brother, I'm still here, man.

What up?

What up?

We're here, sugar Steve, Yep, I'm not fragmented. I've never missed a show except the ones you told me not to attend. Wait, when did I ban you, Steve that purple roundtable joint?

Oh you're holding that against me? Yes, but let's move on. That's fired.

In the interact, Ladies and gentlemen, I will say that probably.

Our guests have single handedly at least changed.

And I'm making this introduction person, I'm making it about me, not about you or the audience.

I'll say that our guest.

Today is single handedly probably changed my trajectory or changed my perspective on how to deliver music.

And that's pretty much all I can say.

I heard their debut album and it just cracked my skull, cracked all of our skulls open in a way that really hasn't really hasn't done that probably since the days of Prime Bomb Squad productions of like Public Enemy and Ice Cube, or even the three feet hind rising in Daylight Soul's Dead albums of the early nineties. I'll say that Rick Rubin has taught us on the show that editing is necessary for smart pop music making, and you know, the ability to leave the basic necessities for you know,

As far as a sonic landscape.

Thereforeever classic debut album, now twenty twenty years old, called Since I Left You is probably personally one of my top ten favorite albums of all times, with over one thousand mind staggering samples and soundbites. I'm an invest We all gotta investigate how this was made. When he found out that they wanted to come on the show, it was an instant yes on my part. Yeah, I'm just honored they're here to share their story with us, because I don't even know if I can properly explain to

We have Robbie and Tony.

Robbie, what's your last Nameta, Robbie Taita, Welcome.

Where are you right now?

Where an?

How is it over there right now?

Yeah, it's pretty good. We had we had like a really hard lockdown last year, but we're coming out of it now. It's just really good. We just played our first live show in you know, three years on Friday, like, yeah, oh,

So it's hard like working your muscle memory for what the show was when you well with this particular show, was it was it craft it from scratch or was it the show that you were developing around the time when covid first hit us.

No, it was from scratch, so it was a lot. It was like our hometown first show back, brand new show. All the equipment too, has been like in storage and all covered in dust, and you know, it's like.

It was like.

Family and friends. Yeah. Yeah, we had a few technical issues that we that we were that seems like every like whenever there's a first show, there's always a few things that go down or go wrong. But in the end it was it was really incredible and we got so much love from the audience.

And I would imagine that the amount of research that you have to put into your product as far as your creativity is concerned. That I mean, was this time off with Covid. Was it a total time off for you guys, or was it just like okay, let's go back to would sad and create new product or did you just stop period and just you know, kind of see what happens until the world opens.

It was tough.

I mean, we went we were finishing an album as Covid hit, and we kind of got that done and got that, got that ready to go. But like Melbourne's Lockdown, we're in it for like two hundred days. It was one of the hardest lockdowns.

In the world.

And you couldn't you could only leave your house for an hour a day.

There's a curfew in the evenings. Couldn't go from.

Eight pm till five am. You couldn't go outside your house.

Will you guys get it right?

You actually did it right, and you know, the world would have actually caught up to you guys. And yeah, because after some point, once we saw your numbers go down, and then like a whole bunch of movie productions and a lot of my friends in the industry, we're going to melt, you know, going over over there, to Australia, to New Zealand, over the Zealand. You guys are just doing it right. So but yeah, you had to be strict with it.

We had to be strict.

I mean the payoff was like we got to do a show, you know, like now you know, and things are opening up. But at the time it was hard and we thought, well, we've got all this pre time will be creative. But it was pretty intense and the city was, you know, a ghost town. And really it made me learn how much that we rely on the

You know, the lockdown was.

I'm very uninspiring.

Yeah, well, I was going to say, you know, I still want to jump right to since I left you, but I do because I don't know about guys personally.

I do want to know the origins of.

The group and of you two musically before you even like what built to that moment. Could you just give us a basic kind of an overlay of what your lives were into creatively, like growing up, well, both of you were DJs for starters, Like what got you interested in DJ culture?

Like how did it hit you over there?

We actually, uh, well, we grew up in different suburbs of Melbourne and then both ended up in the same country town during high school and that's where we met and became friends. And we weren't DJs initially. We were like bad punk musicians.

And punk musicians. We say punk because we were so bad.

Yeah, it was noise, noise.

It's kind of like the Beastie Boys story, like boys, Yeah, yeah, they started off.

Punk and then you know that's right, and we So we were just I mean, I had no money or whatever, so we were buying old guitars and broken guitars and organs in junk stores, and then we started to find all these old records and it just sort of grew from there. I was doing it called a film school course at university, and they had a big studio for all the film scores, and of course everybody doing that course wanted to be like a famous director, so nobody

Really.

Yeah, So how were you when you made the transition to DJ oriented music, like away from punk and more into what we now know is DJ culture.

I guess it was like a gradual process between the ages of like sixteen and twenty.

Okay, okay, Was there a particular record that just spoke to you that said, like, Okay, this is the direction I want to go personally for both of you. Was there like one particular album that was for me?

It was like some of Prince Paul's productions, the Bomb Squad, the things you meant.

Yeah, yeah, So Princeville, he just remixed Since I Left You. That was excellent.

Yeah.

And because you know, like the records were finding in junk stores were just strange, weird records. They weren't like sort of cool, like a lot of the beautiful funk and soul records from the States never made it out here, you know, so we were they were junk store records.

It's a lot of music.

Exotic and strange stuff like that.

And Prince Paul, I think, showed us that, you know, you can use anything and you can make music with humor from from all these different bits and pieces, and we were like, we can do that, you know. And also we love like the Beach Boys and seventies rock and stuff, so we thought, would imagine if we like take his sort of approach, but like try and make like pop songs with it.

And that's how the whole idea began.

So how did you two meet each other at high school?

We met in high school. I was from Melbourne and at eighteen went and moved to the country town where I met Robbie and it was It was a very very for the for the early nineties, very backward kind of place like Country Victoria and sorry. It was just like a lot of football players and they were all the cool people and stuff like that, and like so the music people who are into music kind of gravitated to each other. So so we kind of started hanging out.

Did y'all were y'all in of y'all folks involved in music in any way? Or what did your parents do?

No? I mean my father would. My mom was a teacher, but I did. I do remember being fascinated with my father's record collection when I was a little kid, and when he would let me, like, you know, handle the records, I was obsessed with the line of notes and you know he had he was like into like the band and Bob Gil.

And the Neil Young and and all that stuff.

Single songwriter stuff.

That's right, gotcha.

I know that because you guys.

Developed early like pre I guess what ninety three ninety four is when you guys first started.

So without sort of like culture.

Colonialism, well not culture colonialism, but just the the idea of like you know, now with the Internet, someone could release something in the entire world get it at the same time where you know, really before in nineteen ninety seven, like just it was regionalism, like certain parts of the world had certain types of music or whatnot. Now I know for Australia kind of the inside joke. And again this is before like the really the age of the

What is it?

I noticed with Australia especially for their their embracing of like soul music, Like you guys have that big giant soul festival down there where you know, you guys have this this this festival for soul music that's sort of like Coachella, but it's just like all Neil soul artists and even now everybody from Kim like and again I've my friends have told me that, you know, New Zealand and Australia, like we tend to lump just that entire area one thing.

But you know, I see the right and you guys are like, we're not the same. But but there's.

So many like minded cool artists from down there that were like influenced by a certain type of soul music that's very niche to us here, Like what what was the what's the radio like there? Like what is it that turns you turn people onto that particular type of soul music? Whereas now years later, like a lot of these acts are coming out that are like really incredible, like Hiatus.

Coyote and.

A Theme a Billion, But yeah, what is it about? What was the music atmosphere?

Like it's a rock culture, I would say, like when we were starting out, so it's like there's the pub venues.

You know, there's a very heavy drinking culture in Australia.

There's the pub venues and all the bands that we grew up with came through this pub scene. It's like hard rock and roll, like ACDC and this kind of thing. I guess there's the Bad Seeds. You came in the Bad Seeds as well, or the Birthday Party came out of that sort of dark pub scene as well in Melbourne. But then something started to change in the nineties exactly

And something just started beautiful to started to grow. I don't know how happened, but.

It was very very like when we started playing. You know, every band we played, which was just two guitars, bass player, drums, and so we rock up with a sampler and the sound people were like, what's this?

What do we do?

And no one knew what it was. So I was like in that in that way we were kind of breaking ground in this country as far as like every little festival we'd do, it's like every band was the same guitar, drums, everything like that, and then we just have you know S nine hundred sampler and some shitty organs that work sometimes and didn't and so so yeah, to your question, it was a very rock and roll culture back then in Australia.

So the was the S nine hundred. Was that did your your weapon? That was the jam?

Yeah? Yeah, then they came with the nine fifty, the nine fifty, I think that was the one that the nine fifty.

We were loading.

We were loading off the songs off floppy disc. When we played live, every song was on a different flopping.

So we'd stop a song and then have to load for forty five seconds and just sit down and silence or just try and make up some stupid banter in between.

Again again you guys and DiAngelo. Okay, that's good. To this day, the Angelo still uses floppy disk I didn't even know that. Oh wow that that can that still and know they still made them? Yeah, you know how drive.

We had to search the internet to find floppy discs.

We just did. Yeah.

Wait, so to this day you still use it. That's your weapon.

When we were going to pull out the old samplers for this show that we just did so we wanted to bring back and really show how we made the music.

But we couldn't find floppy discs anyway.

Tiny had to order them online and arrived like two days before the show, just in time.

So wow, Really we're not using that.

We're kind of using computers and now as our main backing tracks, so we're not relying on the forty five second loads anymore. But we use the sample is just a triggle samples during the show because that's the way we used to do it. I mean, and it's such a fun you know.

It.

What was the period of which you guys discovered like breakbeat culture and as far as like at least I would like to think that you guys, you know, had to put a lot of time in researching like all the sounds and for you know, for your arsenal of sounds, your drums, your samples and whatnot. So at what point did you guys discover or at least like do away with kind of your rock backdrop and get to what we know is like breakbe culture.

I think it was like a gradual process and all of a sudden realized, like I think we had, you know, all these big sounds and big dreams in our heads, but you know, no money, and then you start sampling an old orchestral record, because a lot of the records that we were finding junk stores were like schmaltzy kind of like junk like Fifth Andres, Galant strings and games

There was.

Yeah, Daylight Soul, and even like the Fart Side Records and all these kind of early hip hop records, and we kind of in our you know, it's because we're so geographically removed from the rest of the world. You know, we would just get strange little influences coming through before the Internet, So in some way we'd way like a bit of Prince Paul, a bit of the Bomb Squad, a bit of the Beach Boys, a bit of my

When you formed the group, was it instantaneous that you called yourself the Avalanches or were you just like you know, DJ Robbie, DJ Tony.

We had a few we had a few name incarnations before we came up with the Avalanches.

The Avalanche's name was actually on it was the surf rock group from the fifties, one of these bands we sampled and then and we used to change our name every time we played, and that that one just stuck.

It just stuck. Oh, just randomly.

Maybe we had a good gig the day that we called ourselves the Avalanches, and we went, this is an open We'll stick with this name because I think we had a few gigs where we were different names.

So what was the first product that you guys worked on when you decided to form the Avalanches.

It was like, I think it was a mixtape we made in the studio. I was talking about it the film school studio that was made to send around to various promoters to try and get a gig, try and get shows. And then I think they pulled a couple of tracks off that and our friend pulled it out as our first seven inch that was called rock City.

Yeah, I think that was the first release.

Yeah, yeah, even then, Like was your theory? What was

So but for you guys, like, were you.

Guys even aware of kind of sample cultured almost being endangered species in the mid to late nineties to the point where you know, now a lot of the backdrop from America is far from that.

But were you guys aware of it then or was it just you.

Know, well, I think we were aware that the records that were made in that way that that were rare and were and you know, to find find them they would like sort of these gems that would stick out, like if a well made sample based record is just like such a beautiful thing and they don't come along all the time, you know. But we were we kind of thought, no, like, we're a million miles from anywhere, no one's ever going to hear this, so well, we can just sample anything, and it's we were just.

Doing ourselves famous last words, I was going to say, it's.

Funny that he said that all the way in Australia because that's also where I was when I decided to play Really Love, because I quite I didn't understand.

It was going everywhere.

Yeah, I thought it was on something like local underground radio station that the world wouldn't hear of, and then that shit happened.

Yeah, we've kind.

Of got the same attitude to samples of just like, we'll just use it and see.

What nobody.

It's you can't tell?

Okay, so let's let's we're twenty five minutes and let's cut to the goddamn chase. How just that's my first question is how can you tell us the story of Since I Left You?

And it's hard to explain.

It's really hard, even when you know that album is so perfect to me that even when I explain to people who are, you know, just casual music listeners, like, they're still not getting the genius that every last thing you hear had to be manipulated and edited in a way so that it fits melodically structurally. So tell us the beginning of how you guys even thought to meet this, this this classic album.

I think we I mean, I let Tony jump in, but we were kind of doing gigs in these rock venues. We're using samplers and our friend Darren would emc over the top and we had some live drums, and as we got into the studio more we realized it sounds so much cooler if we just remove ourselves from it. You'll remove our voices, remove any live drums, and we'll do it just with samples. And it was almost like there.

Was a bad beast I always or something to start off with this kind of wrapping that was a little bit Doctor Octagon kind of lyrics and a big kind of beast, and it was, you know, some cool stuff. But then we did, you know, it was like, let's just make all the malady samples and use no voice.

How long was that a process of working on that record? How long did it take you out?

To me, probably like eighteen intense months, but there was like maybe three or four years of like collecting samples before.

Then and finding your way.

And then it's almost like there's this I mean, there's two sides to it. There's the technical side of how you actually make it with the samplers or whatever that we can talk about, but the other side of like how you think, how you know, how you conceive it or the feeling behind it is harder to talk about it because it's like we just hit this period of a beautiful flow and it was really just a love for music and discovery. And when I listen to it now,

You definitely not true.

Yeah, it definitely came through for me. I think.

You know, at the time when I discovered you guys, this was when my.

Band Little Brother, we had put out our first record.

Listening and a mirror actually had listed his uh I guess the top albums he was listening to at the time in uh in Rolling Stone and so he listed like like fifty cent Little Brother and then you know, the Avalanche since I left you, And I was like, all right, if he if they on the same list with us, I know I should bang it. So these motherfuckers got to have something. So I'm like, so, I'm like,

But then when I heard y'all.

Shit and that damn three two hearts and three four times, bro, I played that shit, man. I played the MP three tags off that motherfucker.

Bro.

Listen, I ran the record in the ground man. And the thing, you know, when Tony you're talking about just kind of that spirit of just you know, the you know, that discovery. The thing that I always liked about all you guys records is that the way you use the samples, it doesn't feel like in kind of just a bastardized way. It really makes you want to search what you guys use. It makes you more For me, just as a love of music, it just made me more curious to know

It was like S nine hundred, and then we got a S two thousand, which had more memory kind two thousand. We were like, oh, this is this is insane. We're going to be able to do anything with this no stuff.

Yeah.

So and by that I think by the time we're making since I left you, we had a ZIP.

Drive for the.

Yes, sir, yeah, yeah, yeah, I know. It was literally just that and and at a shitty old turntable and two dollars junks store records and.

You know what that limitation is what is beautiful because.

Then drives the ingenuity.

Yeah.

And then we had a there's an op code program called studio Vision.

There was a sequencer.

I didn't have any audio, but that ran medi into the samplers and so that's how we could sequence the samples.

And it was all done like that.

And if I came to work again in the morning, like there was nothing on tape, no pro tools, so I would have to load it all up again and to hear what the song sounded like and to remember, you know, or if I wanted to burn a demo, make a demo, would have to like bounce it, burn it onto CD, put it in my CD, walkman and go for a walk or something to have a listen to it.

Where we're at.

Yeah, I was going to ask, do you have all the discs saved from that album? Or was it just like once you track it and once it's on tape or once it's recorded, then you just unplugged your machine and that's it. You don't save the samples. You don't any of those things, Like is there a flap? Like if I were to ask you, like, could you get the either diners from whatever? Yeah, Pablo Cruise, like, could you actually get the floppy.

Disc some of them I've got, I've got some and I've got I've kept most of the records when I sold my record collection, but I kept all this.

Since I left you once.

And we just found the stems recently from because we eventually tracked it to an early version of pro tools.

When we went to like a proper studio, we were like, wow, this is like.

And they had like about four different engineers helping us to like get it from this from out the back of our samplers onto recording into pro tools and then we mixed it from So we've got those stems and some of the some of the flopping discs.

Okay, so what is the what is the accurate number?

I know that you know sometimes these stories can be exaggerated. How many samples do you believe are on that album?

I've got no idea. I reckon there would be.

Like I think I figured it out once by working out how much the five thousand could store and how many samples in a program. And because it was every every zip, every song was you know, the sampler memory was full. So it was probably like around three thousand because all the little drum hits and little bird noises all.

I won't say, man, when y'all use the part, they got me because like I mean, I listened to Recon, I was like, hey, there's don't the part why I've realized them. I'm like, okay, they know what's up when y'all use the ray.

Kwan yeah exactly.

I was like yes, I was like yes, yes, yeah, she was so dope.

Yeah.

So your guests like I've read nine hundred samples, I've read four thousand samples. I mean of course, for the legend of it, four thousand samples is a way better thing. And I believe, you know, I believe anything, but baseball guests baseball estimate.

I think two to three thousand, like like when you consider every little bump here and everything, because it was it was a lot.

So Okay, when you're when you guys are at least at the let's say the ninety percent mark. Let's say that you have fifteen songs down already as you're creating this album in your mind, are you like, there's no way in hell we can ever clear this or sell this to the outside world, Like I mean, at this way, is it just a passion project to you?

Yeah, I think, But I think we were just thinking, not even of the legality of the whole thing. We were just like trying to put together this amazing thing, and there it was just kind of a record company. You do your thing and just get it out. So it was good for us because we didn't have that limitation, where whereas now we're you know, we have to be more aware of samples we use and you know, clearing

Yeah.

But also nobody knew who we were, like, yeah, we didn't think anyone would ever, you know, it would get

And we've done an EP before that as well and didn't clear one sample from that. So it just kind of like didn't care to.

Be nice, all right, So we can't do that anymore.

Yeah, when I was my ass so when people came to about you know, samples and stuff, what was it like? Were they like honored? Were they like like fuck you pay me?

Like?

What was the what was the feeling.

Like back then?

It was?

It was pretty nice.

I mean some people didn't even know what sampling was, or you know, we would track down someone who they'd inherited, like their grandfather's catalog, you know in a willis they didn't even know they had it, and we would find find them and say, hey, you know you own this music and so and some people just were like a flat out no, like Rogers and Hammerstein and people like that.

Oh so there are songs that did not make.

It, samples samples that didn't make it. Yeah, and then other people like John Kale, like he was super cool because like, ah, that song two Hearts and three four time, it was going to work out that like there was five main samples and they all wanted twenty percent each, so we were going to get nothing. And John Klee was like, no, no, we the sample owners should all take a little bit less. So the dudes that made the song can get a little bit too.

And so that what's up.

That never happens that never.

It's probably never happened again, never happened again.

You represent us, please, this never ever happens in real life.

This is being unknown in Australia.

I mean I got people like come after me for like a snare drum yeah, let alone and want like seventy percent of it.

That's a snare drum. Yeah, okay. So when you're this, this was on double Excel recordings.

Correct Excel in UK, Yeah, double Excel.

I'm sorry forgive me Excel recordings.

So when you played the final product to your company, how long did it take for them to even start the process to clear this? Because again like I yeah, man, yeah, usually okay. So the obstacles that I run into are okay, say I create a song and uh okay, I have this situation once where I used Hey Bulldog by the Beatles and they wanted like one of the publishing which then left no space for like the others I sample.

We had this amazing lady called Pat Shanahan, who I mean, she would have been in her sixties or seventies. She just passed away recently. So she would clear all samples for us, and she'd done like Beastie Boys records and iced Tea and all stuff like that. So she used to work at Ireland Records for many years and had a lot of contacts just through the whole industry. So when we were clear in his samples, she she would be like, Hey, I know him. I used to work

Yeah, Record one one lady, And Yeah, she became a dear friend actually, Jally Patch. She was just the most most lovely lady. And I think she she worked with who did she work out before Island? I can't remember, but she sort of knew everybody in the industry since like the sixties, had seen that there was a niche for someone who just specifically cleared samples, and so I think she left the record label. And then the first record she cleared was like the Tone Low Record or

Yeah, so she helped us a lot.

And then there were other personal relationships that Richard Russell at Excel.

Helped us clear. The Madonna sample, uh.

Yeah, yeah that that was to be when even when I heard it in the car. Now my story of

Sop yeah no, no, no.

From like from the from the airport to my hotel room, I was under the press. He was playing me his shit, and that's just that had me wide open. And then like finally he gave me the bad news. Twenty minutes into it like oh no, no, no, this is some cats from Australia called the Avalanches. I was like, oh man, I thought it was your shit, all right, never mind, all right, right, but what will wound up happened?

I asked him? Can I borrow the CDs? I could hear it?

And like, actually the same story with little Brother when I heard Fonte's thing, like, I rarely have dedicated so much hours, so so many, like a lot of hours just to listen to product over and over and over again.

And I just I just couldn't believe it.

Well, because you guys worked on and what you said earlier about how limitation studio limitations makes you more creative, that makes sense because a lot of my favorite guys like use you know, with with Fonte's group, what did you got do?

Everything on fruity loops?

Everything was fruity loops and a compact had We had a compact computer.

Yeah, and that was.

You know, I let it pro that was what we recorded A vocals and cool litter or Sony acid like something real primitive. So what I want to know is how do you how do you bend samples to your will melodically? Especially back then, without you know, the aid of a MacBook pro to instantly you know you could do that, yeah, yeah, seconds, But how were you able to bend these samples to your will so that they melodically fit the song?

And with with that primitive equipment?

How I think it comes back to what you're saying about just how limitations can be really powerful, because it was just like I just remember going, this is this act like sampler. I'm just going to get really fucking good at this one thing, and that's all I'm going to do, you know, And so once it just becomes almost invisible, so you're not even thinking about how to use it. You know it so well, and so it

So that is not easy to do.

People, that is that is that is not easy to do.

Which leads to my next question.

So when I asked the bomb squad how they created nation of millions, I guess Keith Shockley explained to me that basically the process that they were doing, they would have jam sessions. So the way that the engineer was set up was Eric Sadler had his sampler on his side of the room, Keith Shockley was probably on turntable doing his stuff, and then Hank would have his bit and they would start with a drum beat and when they were satisfied. Their theory was that if you took

Meal?

And also subsequently, how do you tell each other that doesn't work? Like Okay, I don't know if that fits or whatever, or is it just like whatever works thrown.

In I think, I mean definitely. Robbie is the great

I was just like, the hell.

Because no no I heard.

I was like, it was like DJ Munks and Cypress Hill and you know that squeal noise he had.

Yeah, yeah, I had to try and.

Make a noise like that.

And then I was watching an old Western movie and there was this horse.

I was like, that might work.

So how did you get the horse to clear the sample?

The horse to this day still doesn't know that he's on the record.

Well, not just with music. Uh, how did you guys even know?

Because because movie soundbites are also a big part of the.

Kind of the structure.

Here, how how did you guys even source or even figure out clearing all of the non musical elements of the song that had to be clear? Like I'm certain that with movie dialogue? Or was it just like the Wild West? Like if they come to you, then you admit it? Or never mind, this is.

Yourself? I think never mind. I got my answer. This is this is quest love supreme, not d.

Oh my god.

I never compare me to would you like would you like our answer? All the record label answer?

Never mind?

I just never mind, forget it. One thing I was I was curious to know for two things. One just the making of a Wildflower, because you know, we've read a lot and if you guys have talked a lot about to make it since I left you, Wildflower was like other Thandiangelo's Black Messiah, that was those were neck and that those were like my two most anticipated records of that decade.

Just as long, yeah, just as long.

And and I remember it, you know, I We've been hearing about it for a while and I was like it dropped and I was like, holy shit, this is really here. And you know, it was really inspiring me because it sounded like you guys picked up like right where you left off. It didn't even you could listen to since I left Your Wildflower back to back and aside from the cameos, you know, you would sound like

What took so long?

A what took so long? From uh since I left you the Wildflower? And two, uh, the you guys picking your mcs, because you really picked you know guys that weren't you know, you know, Danny Brown and Camplow and you know what I mean, Like you guys worked with some kind of unorthodox people, So how do y'all go about choosing that?

That? I mean Camplow?

That first Camplow Saturday Night was like a favorite record. We would just play that NonStop, and some great sampling in that record too, So we actually sampled Camplow on Since I Left You, So it was really nice to kind of go full circle and then work with that.

Whenever we played live, we'd always have a bit where Luccini would coming after a song, so massive Camblo fans.

That Before you answer Fante's question, how how did you guys? How did you guys deliver the album live?

Like?

How does that even happen?

Or what's thet Like I only saw you guys when you guys finally came to the Tonight show for the Wildflower album. That's the first time I got to see you, like actually perform. But when you're when you made Since I Left You, then how do you decide how to deliver this in concert?

We still when we were touring Since I Left You, we were still like in live band mode because that's we still had that element from you know, when we were starting out, So we would sort of do like kind of like there's like a big party with live drums and kind of like I don't know.

Space guitars. Key yeah, but most of everything was just like on a on a mini keyboard and we'd have the samples would just be that key chorus break horse. So I was just triggering live and then the drama playing along to it. So there's no like you know, time code or anything into a computer or anything like that when we did to it Since I Left You, So it was still pretty organic in that way.

One of the guys in your band man hold, I'm a big fan of Johnty. How did y'all how Joko? And what's his role in you guys band?

Oh?

Yeah, he was part of our touring group for around the Wildflower era.

We came and did.

Costello and we I think we heard his first EP and it was really cool, and then he did some vocals on Wildflower and then we're like, come come on the road.

Yeah, And so.

He also he also did a it was Since I Left You. He put a band together of about fifteen musicians and played Since I Left You front to back really and did it live around Australia and we were like, oh, let's let's go check this out. And it was kind of like really weird to just be you know, played yeah, and we didn't played so well, and we're just like, hey,

No, he's really dope. I'm a big yeah. But what's the gap between the first album and Wildflower? You know that eighteen years sixteen years old?

What happened?

I got admit I thought they threw you guys under the jail. I really admitt I was they got thrown under the jail. You don't got our money? Fuck it?

Yeah?

Yeah, I mean, I mean there's many ways to answer that question, but the short answer is like was like, you know, you make since I left you with no money, no equipment, you have a success, You get an advance to make your second record, you buy all this equipment, and then but it doesn't flow and it doesn't happen sitting there sitting around with compressors all day and like outboard gear, and we had none of that before. And it took a long time to get back to that

Well, you know, we were young and we had to learn that ourselves.

And now we're back to like I don't have the studio in my house anymore, Like I just back to the same sympatic I started.

Yeah, so you purposely wanted to go back to square one.

Yeah, it took us sixteen years to realize that. But eventually, and the thing is like, like in all honesty, as as the time went on, kind of since I left, you started to growing stature. So we were a lot

I'm just curious, what, So, what equipment did you use for a wildflower and the new one specifically the same?

No, we use pro Tools for this one. We were using Vision for since I left it, which that program actually they stopped making it in nineteen ninety seven, and Robbie was still using that up to two thousand and six.

It ain't broke.

How long did it take you to learn how to master updated equipment or were you just stubborn, like I'll never it's this or nothing.

I was stubborn for a long time.

But now I'm just like pro Tools and I just edit in pro Tools and it's just like second nature to me again. So it's just like it's just like a tape recorder and it reminds me of like when I was like fifteen and learn me how to make tape loots and stuff. You know, it's like as long as long as I keep it simple, you know.

It's what's the what's what are the pros?

And constant.

You know, when pro tools, you're now able to see your music and your samples, and back in the day you couldn't. So what are the advantages and disadvantages to that, if any.

That's an amazing question because you're so right.

I mean, you can't see the waveforms when the sampler, you know, you don't see you're just listening and you're kind of like looking at.

The window almost, you know.

So it's just a feeling thing, and it has been a big change because you know, pro tools can grit everything so easily, and everything can get tight, and like you can make so many different versions of the one song, and it's almost like you can again get too out of control with limitlessness of things like pro tools, and even just going back to Wildflower, the way you know, we used to sample, to just just pick up a record, put it on, find a sample from a you know,

Let's just collect samples. So we just collect samples without like thousands and categorize them without even really making songs. We're just like, we'll do that later. So it almost became like this story and administration process of making music. So so that just that the limitlessness of that is like.

Yeah, I was gonna ask just in the sixteen years you know between those records, were your what would you guys mean source of income? Like how was ill able to stay going for that long?

It was a struggle, you know, and it's certainly not not what people think. It's like, you know, being in a band and like, for example, the song since I like talking about sample clearance, like the song since I Left You is like I don't own any of it, you know, it's all owned by samples. So we don't

We don't really want to go and do a show because it just seems like we're in all.

These yeah, I mean, you know, max credit credit cards.

Well, were you guys did you ever consider like just going back to your roots and DJing, like just doing DJ sets as a duo, but without the pressure of here's our new album.

That sort of thing.

We did that a few times and that was able to to Warness some income. We did like a couple of songs for a musical. It was King Kong Music Hall that was here in Melbourne, so that kind of helps it. And we did have a lot of help from the record company who had just signed to So it was like an independent record company who had just like being half yeah, half brought out by Universal which

So Forness, he was wonderful.

He was really good.

I always wanted to know, Okay, so I'm not I'm probably closer to Robbie's theory on kind of staying intentionally ignorant to technology so that it doesn't destroy me, you know, like I don't.

I don't.

That's my excuse, Like I don't want to learn all this technology because then I'll lose what I had in my magic period, that sort of thing.

But I have to know.

So when I first saw the demonstration of I hope I'm saying this right, And I prefaced all that to say, like, I really don't know the technical terms, but with the program melodim, that enables you to sort of like erase the DNA of a song, like if I could take a Stevie Wonder song and erase his vocals out of it and make it just an instrumental that sort of thing.

Where they can now really manipulate and bend.

Sounds to the you know, or like y'all, or like Ableton, like the avalanches were Ableton.

It's like, that's fucking scary exactly.

So like, have you guys even created songs to that level?

Like it's weird.

I don't know if someone has fully taken advantage of like it's to me, it seems so grandiose and so attimidating that I haven't even I think maybe once last year I decided, like, all right, let me let me take the Fender Rhodes from this particular song that I don't have the stems to and see if I can build a song from that. But besides that one moment, like I kind of thought it was going to be just a flood of kind of a return or at

Yep, totally, Okay, totally. It feels like it's a strange crime.

I also feel like it's a concept a crime, so a little bit.

I feel every time I use it.

I asked someone last week to like, you know, you know, astract some vocals from a song, and even then I felt guilty.

So my heart was into making it.

You know, No, it's it's it's it'll because it'll start off innocent now with just music, but then who knows, like what they'll use it for thirty years from now.

With identity thefts.

So I think I'm kind of scared of jumping in that pool because I feel like this is the beginning of the danger period. But what is your relationship with that level of technology and sampling.

I don't think we thought about it too much. I know we bought Maladine maybe three years ago and I personally haven't used it once. We were like, yeah, it's

Never that one song you man, if I could just give her the vocals.

On that, Yeah, we try and do that with filters, but who knows what the future holds are. I don't know how Robbie thinks about that, but I.

Don't know, Like I think some cool stuff like you mentioned able to and stuff like being able to stretch a sample, like a really really really far way further than we have could, Like we've done some of that kind of stuff. But I also love you know, the art form of like like say, the vocal sample for

You know.

I think things would get quite clean and really like pristine sounding if you can like forensically remove elements, but I don't know if it would still.

Have the magic.

Yeah, it takeaway like the layers that you don't necessarily hear but you feel. And then if you do take them away, you're like, hey, something's missing here, but I can't tell what it is.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's the thing with like sample beast music. It's just so like even when like trying to replace stuff or you know, and it's just like, dude, when you sample something, you're not just sampling that song. You're sampling that day. You're sampling the engineer, you're sampling the outboard gear. You know, there's so many things that made it what it was. And when you start manipulating that a lot of times you can't kind of get too.

Far away from home to where you lose the magic.

Yeah, and that's like a spirit spirit in the music.

Absolutely.

Yeah, engineers should get paid for samples.

Shut up, Steve. Yeah, that's real wrap.

I'm gonna start at a petition.

On the Sugar Network.

Hey, oh, another question that I have. I have a theory, but I want to see if I'm correct. What was the What was the inspiration for the Wildflower album cover?

It was that slashed down cover.

I knew it. Yeah, when I first.

When when literally when I first saw it, I was like wow, like and then all alternative world where Sly was was happy with his life and everything was going swimmingly. This would have been the album covered too. There's a ride going on yeah and always Wow.

Okay, we actually got it founder World Quilting Champion, who she lives in Nebraska, and she quilted that cover for us, and we just took a photo of it, so we wanted it to look real like the Sly cover.

Wow.

So that's an actual made Yeah, that's a quilt.

Whoa ship? No, I thought it was animated. You said, Oh my god, you're right. I'm looking at it right now.

Who yeah, who got it?

He still sleeps with it on his bed.

You do. Congratulations, Robbie, there for it.

Yeah, man, I wanted to ask y'all on the on the new record, Man, bruh, where did y'all find shrindav Yo?

For real?

I mean Sonanda, Sonanda Montreal, that's you know what. It's been going back for the past few years. But yeah, I was so happy.

I can't remember how we got in touch, but we had this song and Tony and myself and I collaborate on this record and he it was like this beautiful piece of music. We had this fashy Bunian vocal and it was honestly not going to make the record because it was like there's just no voice that can that can fit.

And I can't remember.

One day it was Tony and myself we just had this idea and we were like, we wonder if we could ever get in touch with him, or if he would know who we are. And somebody got in touch with Sernanda and it's been honestly the most incredible, one of the most beautiful experiences in my life.

He's warmer.

Answer. I didn't know he is.

Incredible, so open hearted and just so generous with his time. That's probably the most beautiful thing that, like people just don't dial in a vocal and here you go. It's like so generous with their time to go back and forth and really get something that feels like it was meant to be there.

You know, his emails to track that together, y'all tracked that together? Or was he tracked it on his.

Yeah, he tracked it on his side, But there were a lot of back and forth with emails and stuff, and his emails are an absolute joy to read. It's it is. He's so eccentric but smart and expressive in his emails and he's just like Robbie, go, we couldn't you email from Sernandra and go send it? I want to read it. It's like a it was so amazing to read.

And then poetry, really real poetry, and just listening to his voice, it's like it is one of the great voices in my opinion of all times.

He's still incredible, like that song and I still just go, what a vocal performance. It's incredible, incredible.

So on the other side, I guess maybe the polar opposite tricky, what was that like.

That.

I love him, man, I love it.

Actually, actually we should have mentioned when we're talking about nineties sample music too, like his first record.

Massive Attack, Oh yeah Max and Kay Yeah.

Yeah exactly, and so that that was stuff that was filtering through to us from England at the time too, So it was like he was one of our heroes, you know, and the Massive Attack records, and he was in Berlin making a record.

He just put that record out last year.

It's a really great record, and he was just like, I happen to be in the studio right now, what have you got? And we would just send him a song. The first song the next morning came back with full lyrics and then he was like that was great, send me another one. And we ended up that went on for like two weeks. We did like eight songs together. And then we got like a message from his management to our management, who didn't know anything about this, and

At the moment, and it is.

So good when it's when it's just the artist to artists as well, and it's not going through so you know that the management obviously didn't know what was happening or whatever, and we were just doing our own thing without all that, and it's that's, you know, such a rewarding relationship for us to kind of, you know, have that situation with people we grew up listening to and

Yeah, like you guys, the people y'all picked. Man, you know, I can't front like it is pretty much. I mean it's like a dream, you know, just just me being just the music nerd. I am like the people you get on every record. I'm like, yo, like that was perfect fit. And when I saw it was, you know, Terrence Trimp Darby was on this one and then Tricky.

But when I saw that y'all got fucking Cornelius.

I was like, yo, dude, like, yeah, they've been in my iTunes or some ship, like you almost know, Like what was I'm like, dude, they picking all my guys.

What was he like? Man? What was it? What was it like working with him?

But I don't I don't know what to say about Keg. Really, he's like he's a dear friend. And we met him like in two thousand and one or something because he.

Put on that album Fantasma Asthma.

Yeah, and we were making since I left you listening to that album.

Just this is my check.

That was my ship.

My check exactly. But it's kind of like.

Disney one two three four, five, one two four or five exactly.

Yes, because Tokyo is only like same time zoners here in ten hours, we go a lot to DJ and so we've become friends over the years and he'll always show us like record stores and Everything's this sweetest guy. And then he just happened to be in Los Angeles doing a show when we were there recording, so that song just came about, like and it was.

Robby's birthday at the time.

Yeah, recording with him with a happy birthday.

The recording with him was so incredible the process because we kind of had the beat just going and he just had a guitar there and he'd be like, all right, let's do some takes and just you know, it just all around, and so we'd sit there and go the comp the COUMP. Then the next take they were just all started layering up that you got that. We're all like okay, okay, and then towards the end everyone's like, oh,

That's him.

Yeah, that's so incredible to watch.

It was fantasma like fantasma like fantasma like that fucked me up when I heard it. And then the one that like when I think it was after I graduated college when he came with point like I played, I still play that record, like, you know, I love that album.

Man, he's a nut. I love can I ask what was it like working with Johnny.

Moyer that that was another one that was done remotely, but I still remember the morning actually that you didn't get.

The nerd out on any Smith's questions.

Or oh my goodness, I think we would have overwhelmed him.

I think, yeah, when he when he came to sitting with us, like I think we I that's probably the only time that we really nerded out on like tell us more stories, you know, that's what.

Yeah, but we actually met we we saw him even before we approached him to play on the track. We were like he was at the next table at us at Fuji Rock Festival, like just backstage, and we'll both just go go up to him and ask him, no, you go on, come on, say something, meet him. For about fifteen minutes, we're trying to pick each other up to go off to him and in the end room

Hey, have you guys even considered at thought about releasing like all instrumental versions of the last two records, no, just for the Avalanche Purists or whatever, like just to hear it, because sometimes I you know, I know that you guys are going through a progression and you're the the you know, the metamorphosis of the group sort of blooming. But so there's no just there's not an instrumental mixed version of of of any of any of this stuff out there.

Not no, but we have them.

We have them. Yeah, I think we can. We can.

That's really what I want to ask.

Interviews.

Yeah, yeah, I just want to see the now will you do you do you guys ever think that you'll try to do another all instrumental project as far as I know, you're probably working on something now and just yeah.

We're starting another now?

I think yeah, because it's just like, I mean, working with vocalists like that for us is almost like it's still you know, an active curation and almost sampling in a way. But I feel like we're we're we're making a slight back towards just to sample records.

Well whatever, whatever the next record is. I'm putting my bed in. I won't end on that motherfucker. So hey, listen, man, just talking.

Yeah, whatever, let's do it.

Man. I'm dude.

I almost feel like this is this is probably the least that I've I've inserted questions in an interview only because I feel like every question that I want to know the answer to is almost like inconsequential, like just okay that particular snare that you use on this song versus the problem.

Wait, I do I do want to know who?

Who uh decides the concept for your videos man, especially with Frankie Sinatra, Like well just all your videos, all your videos are just some next level ship Like who comes with those concepts?

It's mainly the the video people. So we get we get pitched some things and then we kind of, I guess just pick the craziest one. Really yeah, but yeah it was Frankie Sinatra. I hope this doesn't sound bad, but we we actually had a zoom or a skype with the producers who were gonna be shooting the video, and there French and like we struggled to understand what.

I'm just like you guys.

Kind of sounds.

The lovely people were so.

Sweet and and the lady had this beautiful voice. It was almost like a movie like it was just and we like, oh.

Look whatever, oh my god, Wow Wow. Can I ask one more question?

So, in messing with loops and sample and beats and things like movie dialogue and horses and everything that you that you end up creating your music.

With, how often do.

You go in with with an idea, I'm going for something specific, but then as quest eleven, I am constantly talking about, yeah, some kind of happy accident happens and ends up something better than your original idea or different. And how often does that play into what we hear in the final product.

It happens all the time. Really, that's almost the whole thing. Like you know, like we will talk about like where we want to try and go next, but you but you can't predict the mood you're going to be in and the record you're going to be sampling at that time, and maybe just one little like a bit of atmosphere at the end of someone's song or something. It's like and you're just in the right mood to hear how you could flip that.

Moment and.

If you put something, if you put something in the wrong spot, and then if you put it a beat behind or something, and suddenly you're a rhythmic genius.

That's also like our friendship too.

It's like having to be able to tell each other that you know, that thing you made yesterday morning in five minutes is like, is better than the thing you spend a month on when you had this big concept and you know, yeah, you just captured some magic there,

I don't know.

Yeah, Kurt vow Man, how did y'all go with him his record? He's all right, that's like I love that song and I always dug him. How did y'all hook up?

It was?

That was like a last song we finished for the record, and once again it was a beautiful piece of music. But we just and I just play his records like all the time, so huge fan, and we just reached out, which reached out on Instagram and he was like down for it. I think he might have meant messaged us about something else in the past and then we're like, we've got this song and yeah, he just did this beautiful kind of like poetic rambling spoken word thing that was beautiful.

I still remember the day that that arrived. Actually, it was like.

Like I remember the day that that Robbie played it to me, and after he put the vocals into the track, and we had that track for a long time and it was just kind of like what do we do with it? Like the melodic kind of thing, and then he played with the thing that curtain and I was just like, played again he played. I just went that's done. That's perfect. That's exactly what you know. Just one of those things where you're like you don't have to am

Yeah.

What made y'all come back? Because I'm be real, I was surprised to see that we got an Avalanche's album in twenty twenty because after Wildflower, I was expecting Night we would be another ten years. I was ready to wait it out, but y'all came back. I was like, all right, what led to the I guess the quicker turnaround in records like where are you'll at now? In your lives where y'all can kind of turn around a little quicker.

I think we were just freed up from the long sixteen years. You know, we felt the pressure to follow offense I left you, and then once we made another really great sample based record in Wildcloud, that we felt like, you know that that was a really worthy follow up since I left you, we just felt free, and you know, we just got back to the very simple flow of creating and not overthinking, and it's just flowing really quickly. We've already got a bunch more songs as well, and.

It's so it's so fun to be an actual touring band and not you know, broke musicians in our houses working around you know, we played Coachella and we're doing Glaston Raymond, like what we should have been doing this ten years ago. Like that's inspiration for us.

And brand I love it.

Wait, my last question about a guest on your record, what.

Was the process of like working with a River's Kuma? Yeah?

Yeah, And did you did you resist any Pinkerton fan out moments or just you.

Know that was so cool And I think we grew up loving like you know, we have love for like the beach boys, and he's someone who I can hear that in his music and he's like, I can write such an amazing pop hook. Yeah, you know, And I mean Tony can tell the story. But I think we'd already tracked the song. And then he was in Melbourne. Did we meet him beforehand, Tony or no?

He so he sent us like the vocals, so he had like sent a spreadsheet with three different lyric lyric paragraphs of.

All his hooks, just in a spreadsheet laid out, and he.

Was like, choose, choose one, but we need to hear the melodies, like we want to hear how it goes. So he's like, okay, and he set the melodies for each you know, little lyric thing he had and.

Like a whole bunch of hooks and you could choose.

One, he said, he said three. So in the end we were just like, they're all really good. Can we have them all? So, I mean we worked them all into the into the track eventually, and you know, like the outro and the verse of the chorus and so that made up the three different things. But and so we ended up meeting him in Melbourne and like they were out they were supporting the food fighters at Big

Well, actually, wait, speaking of your Beach Boys fandom, assuming assuming that the woman who worked with you for sample clearances is the same lady that cleared the samples for Paul's boutique. I don't know which albums he did it for, but I would assume it's Paul's boutique because there's a lot of samples. Were you guys even aware of Brian Wilson's hip hop album that was produced by the Dust Brothers.

The world question does not.

Know about this? Yeah, so, uh, I guess the story is that, you know. I mean, at the time when the Beast Boys first signed a Capitol, I guess, uh. Brian Wilson had gotten a copy of Paul's boutique and was kind of impressed because they explained to him and like how the album was made and how all these samples and that sort of thing.

He was really impressed by it.

So he hit up the Dust Brothers and said, I too want to do uh an album, and he wound up making a I think they made like five or six songs together, and.

One of them I think was called smart Girls or whatever.

But it's it's nice Brian he rapping, or it's just oh boy.

I think YouTube if you if you YouTube, no.

Check this out?

Yeah wait wait wait.

No, no, no, no, Because the thing is is that every time I tell the story, I'm like, wait a minute. I know, I know for starters that I actually talked to Brian Wilson about this in person, and I talked to the Dust Brothers, But even in my mind, I'm like, wait, did I imagine that, but.

It's no, it doesn't seem real.

Wait is it still on on YouTube? Yeah?

He he did it. He did a song. Okay, so smart Girls, Yeah, Smart Girls. Capitol rejected the album, but it's still out there. It came out in nineteen ninety one, and yeah, Matt Matt Dyke like the yeah, yeah, yeah, those those guys produced it, and yeah it was.

It was the Brian Wilson rap album. It was called Sweet Insanity.

Yeah, that's it. That seems like a fitting title for it.

Yeah, it is.

I just want to say just you know, like I try to keep my cool with guests, you know, half the time on this platform, but yeah, man, I want to thank you guys personally because I will say that in hearing your record that's what really planted the seed in my head on how my DJ gigs should go, because I just never thought, I mean, yeah, like again, I was raised on that certain bomb.

Squad type of hip hop that anything could go.

But when when I heard this album, that's when I realized, like, oh, anything can really happen in a DJ set in a

Man.

I thank you for doing the show with us.

Oh, thank you. That's really cold.

This has been yeah, this has been so fun.

O thank you guys. Thanks you really all right? Well are you done?

Oh? I was just gonna ask because I guess my last thing. The other artists like kind of soul artists in uh in you guys region, So yeah, Australia. So like I'm thinking of course Highest Coyote, Fat Freddy's Drop. I know they're kind of more of a ska uh kind of band. Lisa could call it, like what relationship do you have with that? Community that the soul you know, I guess R and B community.

What's that like?

Well where where just like kind of a couple of old men who liked each other on the pod benchit every day and talk about the weather or whatever. Like we don't like I guess we're off and traveling, but we're kind of not really like.

On the scene.

Yeah, except that, except to say that there is just like it's just a very warm music community here in Melbourne. Everybody is very supportive. I think it's maybe because it's so geographically isolated. It's like there's there's just like it's very supportive. Anyway, we always feel very supportive.

That's what's up, Steve. That's right.

Yeah, you left me out of the Michelle Obama episode and the jimmyown as well.

For great callback, greatback. We have a quest love supreme fan Ticcolo and Steve. We like to thank the Avalanches uh for for kicking it with us.

Oh my god, yeah man.

This is I never thought. Yeah, I'm I don't think I've read an interview with y'all let alone, you know and a half, So this was this is a dream Cone Drew Man. Thank you guys.

Yeah, seriously, it has been so much, so good, so much fun.

All right, thank you guys, Thank you guys on behalf of Fun. Take Alottle, Unpaid Bill and Layah and uh Sugar Steve, quest Love and this is quest Love Supreme.

We will see you next week next co Ran. Thank you.

Hey, this is Sugar Steve.

Make sure you keep up with us on Instagram at q LS.

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