Perth’s very own Dead Jerk are a force. Pulling you in from the very first note, this four-piece use their love of analogue synths, hard-hitting percussion and driving bass tones to bring their inward journey to light.
Creating instrumental soundscapes to films that don’t exist, they brought out their debut self-titled EP late last year. We chatted to bassist Jack Midalia about what influences their otherworldly voyage ahead of their performance at ALT//FEST on Saturday, March 20.
Describe the sonic journey the band went through to produce your EP?
Essentially, we just wrote like crazy for a couple of years, throwing out most of what we came up with along the way. I think a large part of the uniqueness of Dead Jerk’s sound comes from actively avoiding using other bands' as reference points, but this also means it’s hard to communicate with each other over which direction we’re going in so there’s a little bit of trial and error. This record is basically the result of us editing an infinite number of monkeys on analogue synths down to a tidy 22-minutes.
A big part of the evolution of the band was learning to use two drummers in a way that actually served the song and wasn’t just a gimmick. I feel like it only properly clicked when we were actually recording. We were also lucky enough that Matt, our keyboard player, has an excellent rehearsal/recording studio (Dirty Merkin Studio), so we were able to do things like figure out the technical difficulties of how you make a record with two drummers at our own pace.
The flow on this release is outstanding. Was it written as a whole, with that in mind?
Delving into the creative process. Songs were mostly either written purely out of jams, or from someone bringing a single part to the band. I don’t think any of us have ever brought anything fully formed to the table. And while the bones of the songs were all written separately from each other, we set the order pretty early in the piece and that probably had a lot of impact on how their finishing touches were done. There was quite a bit of “…this outro needs to go longer because then that’ll transition better to the intro of the next song, etc.” You know, boring music nerd shit that bands spend hours arguing about and then nobody else notices or cares anyway. So, uh, thanks for noticing?
This flow extends even to the song titles. How do they reflect the EP’s themes?
The song titles are just from the NATO phonetic alphabet and were used as a way for us to remember what key each song is in (e.g. Foxtrot = F). But then we also have a song called Oscar so who knows what’s going on there. We basically needed a practical way to remember which song was which without having to continually try to describe instrumental songs.
There’s no real consciously constructed theme to the EP, either. Unless they’re master musicians (which we are definitely not), I find most instrumental bands struggle to express themes more complex than “I am sad” (song is in a minor key), “I am angry” (song is fast and/or loud), or “computers are cool” (song has a drum machine). We prefer to just keep bits that sound like they could be a Dead Jerk song and throw away the bits that don’t, and hope that our collective subconscious is working miracles.
We’ve spent a lot of time trying to make songs sound good next to each other, but the closest we’ve come to incorporating any overt thematic elements was when Matt tried to get me to use the “Devil’s Tritone” that was apparently banned by the Catholic Church because it was “Satanic”. It turns out that they probably just banned it because it sucks and even the Catholic Church draws the line at music theory nerds.
Considering the musical pedigree of this outfit, what was the initial thought that brought all of you together to create?
I’m not sure that there was much of an initial thought that went into what we wanted the band to end up as other than just trying to make weird music. Somehow that has ended up as a band with two drummers and no guitars.
I think things started with me and Matt (synth) just making noise together, before realising the only thing more boring than watching a noise band is being in a noise band. So we started writing melodies. Then we got a drummer (Mike) and made some very rough recordings on someone’s phone. Jose heard it, said he liked it and suggested we needed another drummer and that he should join the band which we agreed with because we’re all such needy losers that you can get us to do literally anything by paying us even the mildest compliment.
There is something special about a Dead Jerk live show, right from its winding nature to even the band instrumentalisation. Can you break down this feeling from the inside?
From my perspective as a bass player, we’ve front-ended all the hard songs, so I just try not to fuck up for the first half and then I can relax and have some fun. It also helps that the bass lines in the second half of the set have a bit of space and allow me the opportunity to sneak in some mid-song drinking. One thing they don’t tell you about getting older is the amount of time you’re in ‘the zone’ (that magical point of being just buzzed enough to dominate a pool table or actually be able to play your musical instrument) declines dramatically. Mine is down to about 15 minutes now, so I need to keep strategically topping up as the set goes on. It’s important to be professional about these things.
ALT//FEST is on Saturday, March 20 at Badlands Bar. Tickets available now here.