The Drones - Interview

The Drones are an Australian Indie institution, but largely unknown outside of their growing and loyal fanbase. Yet another interview I entered without knowing a great deal about the subjects, however, after hearing so much about them from friends, I was eager to learn more. I spoke to Mike Noga (Drums) about the bands busy history and how he celebrated his 29th Birthday by being mugged in London, life on the road!

It seems that almost every Australian and New Zealand musician I’ve ever interviewed has had ‘problems’ in London!
Yeah, it seems like all of England is like that, maybe we’re less streetwise than ‘natives’, Happy Birthday to me!

I’ve heard about your tour diary and it’s popularity. Is giving something extra to the fans something you believe in?
Well, we’d never actually done it before the last tour, it was the first time we tried it and it’s mainly Dan’s (Guitarist) idea, I guess to keep him sane on the road and for a record of our experiences. Then it suddenly became really popular and we started getting loads of messages about posts from everyone.

So you wouldn’t consider yourselves distant rockstars, you’re happy to hang out and talk to your fans?
No, no, quite the opposite, we’re just a bunch of idiots with guitars and drums, we’re pretty relaxed, we don’t consider ourselves stars, just four people playing music.

A lot of people in Melbourne know the band very well, and talk highly of you. The band also has a lot of international success, unyet, somehow, I’ve managed to completely miss you, so do you feel that you have the same cult status you have in Australia all over the world?
It’s pretty good globally, we’ve spent the past three years touring non stop, and whilst we’re not everyone’s cup of tea, we’ve spent a lot of time working hard and slowly building up a fanbase, crowds are generally pretty good.

Your releases start around 2001 - 2002, did the band exist before that?
Yes, but I didn’t join the band until about three years ago. The other guys started in Perth in other bands and have been running as The Drones for about six years now.

So how long have you been a ‘cult’ band?
The first album (Here come The Lies) received really good reviews, but was still very underground, Live the band have always had a really good reputation, which grew and grew and the second album (Wait Long By The River & The Bodies
Of Your Enemies will float by) won an Amp award, so from then things really took off with sales and audience numbers rapidly growing. I think we’re a lot like the Dirty Three in that respect, they never get a lot of radio play, but are always popular, their fans always turn up to gigs, and their albums always sell well.

Is the band full time?
Yes, it’s full time and I don’t take it for granted, it’s a rarity in this country. It’s full time because we never stop touring, if we stopped, we’d make nothing. I’ve not had a real job for about three years, but at the same time you sacrifice a lot, I’ve not had a home for three years, when we’re not touring I stay at my Sisters.

I get the impression that the music has changed over the past few years, earlier in your career it was noisier and more discordant and now it’s more tuneful. Was that a development in song writing, a change in direction, or just something that happened?
It wasn’t particularly conscious; even I admit that the first album is hard to listen to now, its music to shoot your head off to. It’s a natural progression, we recorded the recent album on an old farm in Tasmania, maybe that had something to do with it, we were in an old beautiful place and that influenced the sound. We are getting old now, we can’t get up there and bash out thirteen flat out songs anymore, we want to relax a little.

Judging from some live videos, the live versions of songs still seem to be a little more wild and noisy.
Yes, it’s hard not to get into the songs and improvise with them, experiment and take them further; it’s part of the experience for the audience and us

Published in Arcady, Indieoma.com