Battles
Battles won over Brian Eno with a mix of punk, jazz and post-rock, but guitarist Ian Williams would like to talk about his luggage
By Andrew P Street
Congratulations on the Luminous berth: it can't be every day that Brian Eno says "Hey, fancy being part of my festival?" Yeah, thanks, that was totally cool – we're really excited to do it. He had come to see us a few times in London before, so I mean we're weren't totally surprised - we knew we were on his radar. But it's an honour to get to play in the Opera House. That's really cool.
And few contemporary music acts get to rock the Opera House. I know, so it's going to be pretty intense I think. I was there once before about a year or two ago when we played the Big Day Out and I walked past it and took a picture because it was like "There's the Opera House!" [laughs] It's going to be fun to go inside and do a sound check and stare at that big room. I can't wait. The whole variable for the set right now is the new stuff because we're mostly in a mode of making new music for our album.
So will you be debuting any of the new material while you're here? That's the question. I don't know: we'll have to answer for ourselves in the next coming weeks. I'm actually sitting in our practice space in Brooklyn right now so you know, as we piece things together to decide what's going to sound good. But the answer won't make itself present at the moment.
Is it logistically difficult to get things happening with Battles? You're all busy guys, and [drummer] John Stanier's in about 15 bands... Well, yes and no: this has sort of been the main thing that we've been involved in doing now for a number of years now. The biggest logistical hurdle was getting a practice space and getting us all to commit to a schedule in there and writing songs. There was about two years there when our album came out and we didn't have a practice space at all: we really just showed up when we had a show booked and any practising we were doing was basically done on stage. But we've got a space now.
You use a huge amount of gear: aren't you tempted to make a really straightforward plug-in-and-play sort of record just to make the touring easier? Yeah, like, you made your first record with tubas and you realise what a pain it is to tour with tubas. [laughs] No, we're going the other way. Our overweight fees on airplanes are pretty intense. But we all grew up playing in bands and were from a punk rock DIY world, you know: that ethic of "don't be a baby and know how to carry your own equipment and know how to set up your own stuff."
You could go the Iron Maiden route, with the semi-trailers and custom flight cases. Yeah, it really is all about those flight cases. Normally when we come up with new songs we start imagining new flight cases for the gear. You know: "Mmm, that's a good song - what kind of flight cases am I going to need for that?"
So every rehearsal's spent with carpentry tools, endlessly customising boxes? Yeah: "Oh wait, there's another section to that song? OK, I just need to recut the foam."
Battles play at the Opera House on Sat 30 and Sun 31 May for the Luminous programme of Vivid, presented by the Sydney Opera House.
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