Ned Colette - Interview

When, why and how did you get into music?
My Dad is almost wholly responsible, he always had music on. Saturday mornings are filled with Sun and Music in my memories. He bought me a guitar for my 11th birthday and I never really looked back. I had older sisters who got me into everything that was terrible about the 80’s, but also some gems. Lloyd Cole for example. The Beatles were an incredible learning experience for me too - I learnt all the little parts and sang along. I also got into hip-hop and then blues, which led to jazz and improvised and experimental music. Now I guess I’m back to rock n roll and folk which is kinda where I began.

What are the themes (if any) in your songs?
I think that might sometimes be easier to identify as a listener than a writer. I guess there are general themes of loss and memory, time passing, the current situation, the situations that existed before, and the one that might come next… I guess a lot of the time I try to engage personal experience with something grander, though I don’t profess to be able to speak for anyone but myself. There are certainly political motivations on the new album, but I’m not an overly political person, I am just very, very concerned with societies that are so apathetic as to install governments that are so morally dictatorial. I guess it’s a perfect coupling really.

What are the inspirations behind the new album?
A sense that things might be changing, even if just a little bit, in the way we live our lives and the things our society aspires too, for the better. Maybe that they’re not though - for everywhere you look these days you are being sold something - including your own right to “individuality”. But that hopefully, slowly, people will take notice of history - of real history - not the saccharine, bullshit John Howard “there was no one here before us” revision, and realise that all the lessons we need to learn are in there, and they have been for a long time. But probably not, because really the same bad things just keep happening, so yeah… a couple of love songs as well so as not to depress the shit out of everybody. Some made up stuff, some things out of books. Musically its all over the place as usual - a lot of the more elaborate sounds were influenced by things like the Peter Thomas Orchestra - 60’s East German Sci-Fi stuff, and just trying to strike a balance between intimacy and rawness but keeping the sounds pleasing and challenging.

Your material is very relaxed and seemingly laid back, does that reflect your personality, or a carefully crafted mask?
Well I would say that the new album is actually a lot less laid back, but maybe only thematically. Either way, I think there’s a fair reflection of most sides of me in my music. Of course I’ve never quite captured the loud drunken fool side on tape, but you can see that around the traps if you’re interested. I like to craft the songs quite carefully, but certainly no mask. I think people tend to like to ascribe a whole lot of personal attributes to someone they don’t know at all by the art that they produce, and that is a mistake. Also to think that all artists are crafting some sort of false persona - while maybe too often true - is depressing to me. You know, I listen to AC/DC and love it like anybody else, but that’s not what comes out when I sit down to write. What I do prize above anything in art, is honesty, and a lack of disingenuousness. I like it when people make the art that is really inside them, not what they think will succeed, or what they manage to Frankenstein together for lack of anything to say.

Published in Arcady, Indieoma.com