I want to make this website into a collection of interviews with local Adelaide (Australia y'all) musicians. My first interview is with Adelaide's musically tweaked genius, Home For The Def...

The following interview took place over a bevvy of emails sent back and forth between myself and Nigel from Home From The Def in late February 2003. If you haven't heard his Genesis II cds, I'm telling you that you should go out and buy at least one of them. If you want more info on Home For The Def, you should check out his website at <www.homeforthedef.com>. It's jam-packed with photos, history, links to mp3s, and is great fun to read.

Here's the interview:

BrainBrain: To start with, I've got to say I really enjoyed Songs I Covet - it was interesting seeing the background of Home For The Def, kind of behind-the-scenes almost.

Home For The Def: Yeah, I wanted it to show some sort of place where Home For The Def is coming from in a way. Which would make it *very* incomplete as far as influences go, but it's still a nice broad selection. I try to keep my tastes varied, I like all sorts of stuff.

BB: I knew a fair few of the tracks, but other stuff like Mel Tillis and Donnie Iris I hadn't heard of so I did some research after listening to your versions and liking the song.

HFTD: Awesome. I was hoping for that. I was a little worried that doing covers was too 'easy' as far as people being familiar with the songs already, but I've found a lot of people liking songs that they hadn't heard before. I hope people check out the originals. Mel Tillis is just royalty songwriting-wise, and Donnie Iris - it's good to see Rupert Holmes didn't corner the computer programmer look market all to himself. He (Donnie) has the worst teeth I've ever seen on a pop star.

BB: And then following it up so quickly with Genesis II! Another two cds, this time seperately. How did you get that done so quick?

HFTD: They were actually recorded at the same time more or less. I had noticed last year that I had a LOT of covers recorded, so I decided to sanction them off into their own seperate album and keep the originals to themselves. So the two projects were underway simultaneously and bounced off each other quite alot.

BB: You say 'all the originals', but Genesis II also features two covers - Bright Eyes and a 'version' of The Rainbow Connection. How did that come about?

HFTD: Well firstly it started with the version of Rainbow Connection. I'd had those first two lines ("Why are there so many songs about rapists / and the guilt that they must feel inside?") in my head for ages, and one day I finally sat down and worked out the rest of the lyrics (many of the original lines stayed cos they fit in perfectly), and then recorded it. It didn't seem to fit with the Songs I Covet stuff but I really liked it and so decided to release it with the originals on Genesis II. The big challenge was when I realised all the Genesis II songs had twin sister songs and hit on that idea - what could be twin to this song? I thought long and hard, then started thinking "what other song, like The Rainbow Connection, can bring tears to the eyes of grown adults?". Of course the answer was Bright Eyes. A beautiful song which I also went and distorted. No changes to the lyrics, but some pretty bad singing and some freaky samples from the Watership Down film.

BB: So the twin tracks idea wasn't there from the beginning of the recordings? Can you explain it?

HFTD: No, that was just something I noticed as I started compiling the stuff. Almost all the songs came in pairs of some sort, and so I set it up so that track 1 on one cd was the sister song to track 1 on the other cd, and so on through all the 21 tracks. It's like the same journey on both cds. The songs relate in some way, whether it's subject, genre, or atmosphere. For example, both Track 1's are gangster hip-hop bounce tracks, and the closing tracks - A Horselike Girl and Me And The Softsider - are both in the same tuning and have the same feel. It's wanky and prog and a little silly, but it works.

BB: The music on both Songs... and Genesis II sound really well produced - nice and full-bodied, I've heard you did some recording work on LeighStarDust's CD?

HFTD: Yeah, the Manly Detectives CD. I'm really proud of that, it was a lot of fun to record and Aliese is such an awesome songwriter. That made it easy. I also did a whole lot of stuff with 5!NYTK. They've just been adding a few finishing touches I think, and are releasing it ('Trouble In Snitchy's Paradise') real soon. It's awesome. I've also done some stuff with No Through Road, Onaka, Tom Smith from the Moonies, and a few others as well. I'm going to be recording Longhorn soon which should be fun.

BB: Wow. That's pretty busy. I'm assuming that you're unemployed?

HFTD: Actually no - I've been working full-time for the past year and with being in and out of hospital last year as well even I'm confused as to how it all gets done.

BB: Impressive. You must be planning a holiday now then? : )

HFTD: Actually, I've just finished two other side project CDs, 'Schemeless God' and 'quitequiet', which will be available only to the Church For The Def list cos I don't think that they're really right for going into the stores. More for the hardcore fan really - Schemeless God is Adelaide's first credit card music CD release (as far as I know), and is a four and a half minute black metal EP, and quitequiet is a CD of 'candid' acoustic recording walkman recordings.

BB: Church For The Def is the Home For The Def email list isn't it?

HFTD: Yeah, you can join it from my website at www.homeforthedef.com and it's basically irregular emails about what's going on and also has special offers like the two CDs I just mentioned, and the Songs I Covet Outtakes available just for the list members. I try to give them something more.

BB: You've finished those other two already then - how many more are in the works?

HFTD: Well I'm working on a few collaborations - one with Aleks Habus (Teenage Girls, Booster Suctions Inlets and more), and another with Synbiotec which is coming along well. I've got plans for some other collaborations too. I'm also working on a much more 'trained' album. Sticking with the classic 10-12 songs, 30-40 minute mark and really working on the songs. That one may take a while. That's another CD which I'm trying to get done that requires a female vocalist. It's going to be a really tweaked psychedelicate little 5 track CD with amazing sound textures on it. The lyrics were written by a guy named John that I contacted during some seance trance stuff that I was doing at my old house last year. They're pretty crazy. I put them to music and this guy really wanted female vocals on them. Unfortunately, out of the two people I've asked so far, one politely declined cos she didn't like the lyrical content, and the other has ceased all contact with me. Oh well. So I'm still searching for a vocalist for that one. I'm sure other stuff will happen as well.

BB: Is all this recording work the reason why we haven't seen you live for a long time?

HFTD: Yeah, I made a decision to just concentrate on writing and recording for a while. I did some shows over in Melbourne a few years ago and they were just really stressful and came at a bad time. They weren't worth it. They were my last two live shows bar a few small shows not long after getting back in Adelaide which were generally shit. I'm working on compiling a best of HFTD live CD called 'That's It, That's The End Of The Joke' at the moment, which will probly just be for the email list cos the quality of the recordings aren't quite good enough for radio and the stores.

BB: I look forward to hearing it - your live shows were always really different. Most people just turn up with their guitars and act like they're trying to bore or depress the audience to death - you never knew what you was going to get with one of your shows.

HFTD: That's what I hoped for, and that's kind of why I stopped. It was really hard to keep it changing. The shows were a lot of fun, but very draining.

BB: We should probably leave it there for now. Do you have anything else you would like to add?

HFTD: Don't play with matches unless you wanna get burnt.

BB: No problems. Thanks! Bye.

HFTD: Seeya!

BrainBrain: <[email protected]>