Tell you what – we love hearing from artists when things go right. We equally love hearing from artists when things go dreadfully wrong. A song that was a piece of piss, written in 20 minutes? Or years in the making and a bastard to write?
Whether it’s a song that came together through great duress or one that was smashed out in a short amount of time, we’re getting the lowdown from some of our favourites on the one song that they can’t stop thinking about – in their own words.
Our old mate Ed Fraser returns to these pages, this time accompanied by the brilliant Rosa Mercedes as part of their ‘Beach Goth‘ duo, Kino Motel. Their debut album ‘Visions‘ is out now via Beast Records (EU) and Heart of the Rat Records (AUS) and from it, Ed and Rosa talk us through the closer, ‘Ran Right Through Dead Land‘. Take it away, Kino Motel…
Words: Andy Hughes (Photo Credit: RC Stills)
Ed Fraser: “I’ve played in heavy bands for most of my musical life, and while I do still love heavy music I reached a point a few years ago where I wanted to move away from playing it. Kino Motel offers me the chance to play with space and production, write songs differently, and also gives me the ability to work a lot more with dynamics and play a bunch of instruments I don’t usually get to play. Rosa, the other half of Kino Motel, is really a creative being, she has this ability to pick up an instrument and do something with it I never would have thought to do, I think ‘Ran Right Through Dead Land‘ is a good example of both of us just picking things up and seeing where they take us.“
Rosa Mercedes: “The way we’ve been writing so far is one of us will sit with the seed of a song and make a start. Usually the words and the feelings are there, but it might just be some verses and maybe some catchy parts that will later become a hook or repeat. Eddie began this song, and right away it was an expansive, lonely song full of quiet and humility. This is a part of Eddie that I have always admired and connected to right away. Instruments and chords were already arranged spaciously around a heavy feeling; there was an absense of judgement or linear solutions. I just wandered around in that space he created with the bass – I played for ages until I landed on something we both liked.“
Ed: “We recorded at Head Gap near our home in Melbourne, and mixed in Melbourne, and finally also finished the mixes in Bristol between European tours last year. There’s a bunch of different instruments on ‘Ran Right Through Dead Land‘ – the main arpeggiated synth you hear throughout is an early 80s Roland SH-101 we use on a lot of our songs. The SH-101 was originally supposed to be a keytar I believe, but apparently it didn’t sell well and was a bit of a failure until all these Acid DJs in the 90s realised it has incredible bass, and now they’re pretty sought after. We got lucky as I found this particular SH-101, never used, under a huge pile of old magazines while I was building a vinyl library for an LP hoarder in Berlin, but that’s another story for another time I guess. In the first verse there are these ambient synth lines you can hear which are also done on the SH-101, that’s all Rosa and her ability to make these great out-of-the-blue melodies, and I love the way the melodies bounce off the vocals.
There’s also a grand piano in there, plus an old Juno 106. The guitars are all played through a vintage Hammond Leslie, it gives them all this nice chorus-y thing. I also wanted to play with space so I used a lot of guitar jangly stuff to help create the atmosphere we were looking for. Our friend Joel Penman played great drums throughout. And another good mate of ours, Thomy Sloane, plays some beautiful bow guitars in there too. I think this song really rewards a good listen on headphones as there is so much going on with the production, and you get to really hear the layers and the depth of it all when those headphones are on. Finally, some of my absolute favourite parts in ‘Ran Right Through Dead Land‘ are all of Rosa’s bass lines. The bass is played in such an easy way, the lines are really spacious, and very tactfully and artfully done. I think without these bass lines this song wouldn’t really work.“
Rosa: “We ended up with some spare time on the last day of recording at Head Gap. That place is full of gorgeous instruments, and we thought we might as well have a go on them all. Eddie had kept his piano playing days pretty quiet until now, but he sat down at a grand piano and started playing these sweet chords and embellishments all around the song. I hadn’t ever really heard him play the piano before, and it gave me a huge kick. I couldn’t stop laughing as jazzy little notes kept pouring out of him. We didn’t use it in the end, but there’s a version of this song out there in the ether that is kind of Tom Waits in a saloon bar circa ‘Closing Time‘ and I can still hear it now.“
Ed: “Kino Motel is really heavily influenced by wide-open spaces. Rosa and I spend lots of time driving around Australia in a van, and I think this permeates the music. The colours of Australian landscapes stay in your head for weeks after you leave, in a way the outback influences you whether you want it to or not. Along with the open space, people often also tell us our music is very cinematic, and that’s definitely something we lean into when writing the songs. To me, ‘Ran Right Through Dead Land‘ feels like the theme to a film that doesn’t exist. Lyrically the song is about death, and trying to deal with and understand the death of people I love.“
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