The art pop trio, The Good Minus, is teasing us about their upcoming release. They recently dropped, “Laughing Full Steam” to entice our ears and prepare us for their album coming next year. Matt Welch, David Kean and Stu Hazelman are multi-talented musicians who each carry a decade’s worth of experience to the band.
October has been a great month for us at Two Story Melody so far, and I look forward to the batches of music I get to review every week. Within 3 seconds, I instantly swooned over The Good Minus and their intricate melodies. Check it out.
It’s good to keep our ears ajar to listen to genres we don’t usually consume. Every now and then, an artist or song comes along that pushes us to realign our tastes and capture a fresh listen. For me, The Good Minus encouraged me to revisit prog rock and similar styles.
If Fleet Foxes and Chon had a child, I imagine it would sound something like The Good Minus. Personally, I prefer the laid back prog they play with in “Laughing Full Stream”.
The track was recorded and mixed by David Kean at Tender Trap Studios. Mastering fell on AJ Bradford’s shoulders. Both engineers did a fantastic job at bringing out the best of the band. Guitar harmonics twinkle just about everywhere, but it’s isn’t excessive. “Tasteful” is what comes to mind. The three-part harmonies are placed pretty nicely in the mix. Everything is easy to pick out and every element holds it’s own space, so we can hear it all clear as day. Mixes carrying excess “mud” are a huge turn off. I’m currently on my 12th listen, and my ears haven’t grown tired in the slightest. It’s a soft, well-rounded mix hard that’s hard to mark with red ink.
We caught up with the guys from The Good Minus and picked their brains about what we love most: songwriting.
Thanks for taking the time to answer some of our questions. How did you three come together to form The Good Minus?
We’ve known each other for well over a decade and each performed in our own bands and projects. Stu performed with his brothers as The Hazelman Brothers and David still also performs with his brother as Cavanagh and Argus. I (Matt) played with David in another band called The Smitten. I always thought that we could work well together if we joined forces and started a band, so in 2015 we finally made the leap and began playing together.
How did you come up with the name, “The Good Minus”?
David, our bass player came up with the name. We had a few ideas kicking around and found it really hard to decide on a name. He really likes The Bad Plus so he came up with the idea of reversing their name.
According to your “About” page, you all have different musical influences. What are some of the influences you each bring to the table?
I (Matt) really like music and bands from the 70s 80s in particular. Big influences for me and my songwriting would have to be David Bowie and David Byrne. As a left-hander I tend to be obsessed with other left-handed musicians and songwriters.
Dave loves the Beatles music and the bass playing of Paul McCartney and like Matt is also a big fan of 60s and 70s music in general. One of his favourite albums, would be ‘Close to the edge’ by Yes. He loves the DIY approach of artists that record amazing albums themselves, like Sufjan Stevens and Midlake. Being a singer songwriter himself he loves the music of Judee Sill. Like Stu, he’s also been enjoying Doctor Dog’s music, in particular a track called ‘Survive’, that’s got a great groove and bass sound.”
Some of Stu’s drumming influences are Richard Jupp from Elbow, Nick Kennedy from Big Heavy Stuff, and Arron Light from Ainslie Wills’ band. Singing-wise he’s recently been really into the new album by Dr Dog.
You each have quite a bit of experience with other bands. How have your professional experiences helped you grow as musicians/songwriters?
I think for myself, studying classical guitar at Uni really influenced my style. We’re all singer-songwriters originally so being able to sing together and add vocal harmonies to our songs when we play live is a feature that makes us unique and keeps our songs interesting and fun to play. I also think it helps us reflect on our songwritting and let each other know if we think an idea is cheesy or too generic. I guess there’s also a risk of going to obscure or intellectual/self-indulgent with the songwriting so hopefully we’re finding a balance somewhere in the middle. I like songs that can be accessible but have elements that make them stand out so they aren’t too predictable.
We love the mix. What was it like to hear “Laughing Full Steam” finally come together in the studio?
David Kean (our bass player) recorded and mixed this. We recorded the main parts as a band live in the studio and then overdubbed the vocals and a few other layers- piano accordion and other guitar parts.
I think we work well together because I’m a bit slap dash about things and all about the big picture, David is a perfectionist and wants to get things right and Stu is somewhere in the middle as the voice of reason. If either of us
What came first for “Laughing Full Steam”? Was it the lyrics or the instrumentation?
I was trying some different tunings on the guitar at the time and was mucking around with DACGBE, a tuning that my cousin had mentioned he used sometimes and came up with the verse riff using that. I think the vocal melody came together in the shower. We then fleshed out more of the structure of the song as a band. Often I bring half finished songs to the band or even just a riff or phrase and I really like collaborating and workshopping each song together in the band setting.
The guitar track(s) sound great on “Laughing Full Steam”. What kinds of effects are you using on your your pedal board(s)?
Playing live, I’ve been using a Hungry Robot Stargazer reverb and have really been enjoying a Skreddy Echo delay pedal that does a really nice modulated/tape sound. For overdriven sounds I’ve been using a JAM Pedals Rattler which is a RAT-inspired pedal. On the recording we used a plugin called Valhalla that almost emulates a Neunaber sort of reverb sound, particularly with the Shimmer effect. We got a bit addicted to that plugin and the outro of “Laughing Full Steam” is actually just the reverb send from the piano accordion track (an instrument lying around in the studio we decided to use). We thought it created a really cool outro swell.
Ultraviolet described the “Johnny Greenwood/Radiohead-esque lead guitar parts” in your music. That’s a pretty big name-drop used to describe your sound. How does it feel to get that kind of praise?
I’m flattered that they drew that comparison. I don’t think I’ve got one guitarist in particular who’s influenced my style or I’ve tried to emulate. I began fingerpicking as a kid because I felt I couldn’t use a plectrum very well. Although I am left-handed I learned the guitar right-handed. I since think it’s maybe an advantage for some things such as using vibrato and voicing certain chords. Mark Knopfler, Paul Simon and Billy Corgan are also lefties that play guitar “right-handed” so they’re definitely other influences of mine.
How are you guys planning to spend the rest of this year?
We’ve got a few shows lined up in Melbourne over the next month or so but we’re also going to decide on which songs to record to finish our album and also make sure we are very tight and well rehearsed before we go into the studio.
Here’s the last question for the band. What can you tell us about your album coming in 2019?
We feel we’ve got another six or seven tracks that are maybe stronger than “Laughing Full Steam” is. We are thinking of recording to tape or at least doing most of the tracking as a full band to get a great feel and vibe for the songs. We want to put together a killer album with no filler songs, hopefully 10 songs that we are really proud of and want to share with everyone.
Header Photo cred: David Cosma
