{"id":39575,"date":"2020-11-06T16:12:25","date_gmt":"2020-11-06T05:12:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maytherockbewithyou.com\/mtrbwy\/?p=39575"},"modified":"2020-11-06T16:12:46","modified_gmt":"2020-11-06T05:12:46","slug":"dave-gleeson-of-the-screaming-jets-2020-interview-bitter-pill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maytherockbewithyou.com\/mtrbwy\/2020\/11\/dave-gleeson-of-the-screaming-jets-2020-interview-bitter-pill\/","title":{"rendered":"Dave Gleeson of The Screaming Jets"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>\u201c2020 can go and get stuffed as far as I\u2019m concerned *laughs* the fact that on March the 14th<\/sup> every bit of work that I had or that we had lined up for the year got called off, that was pretty devastating for every band in the country really, every act, every performer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Faced with an uncertain future and cancelled tour dates, and a very slim chance of getting together as a band in the short term, The\u00a0Jets\u00a0set to work earlier this year to reflect on the band\u2019s past and carve a way forward.<\/p>\n

In Sydney for the first time in seven months we gave our old mate Dave Gleeson a call to talk about 2020, The Screaming Jets new EP \u2018Bitter Pill\u2019, the future, his love of facebook, and more\u2026<\/p>\n

How’s 2020 been treating you?<\/strong>
\n2020 can go and get stuffed as far as I\u2019m concerned *laughs* the fact that on March the 14th<\/sup> every bit of work that I had or that we had lined up for the year got called off, that was pretty devastating for every band in the country really, every act, every performer. So, it took probably about four or five weeks before The Jets decided we should do something here instead of just sitting around with our thumbs up.<\/p>\n

Well for starters it’s been eighteen months since we last chatted, and forgetting the last seven of those how were things leading up to before this all happened?<\/strong>
\nOh killer, it was unreal, we were on The Red Hot Summer tour with The Angels, once that finished around April I was going into the studio with The Jets to record a new album, so yeah everything was set up and ready to go. All through summer we played The Red Hot Summer tour and it was fantastic, with James Reyne, and The Living End, and The Hunters and that, we were having a blast and the rug got pulled.<\/p>\n

Then what about all the international acts that were going to tour, now everything\u2019s closed!<\/strong>
\nWell see here\u2019s the silver lining for all us Aussie bands, we are gonna have the run of the place for I reckon the next two years at least, once everything opens up, and I\u2019ve been saying this to people and I\u2019ll put this scenario to you. I\u2019m a multi multi millionaire recording artist from overseas right? Am I really gonna get on a plane for twenty seven hours and go to the other side of the world and cross my fingers that nothing like this happens again? I\u2019m pretty sure I\u2019m not *laughs*.<\/p>\n

I was saying that to someone too that a lot of the older acts I don\u2019t think we\u2019ll ever see them here again\u2026<\/strong>
\nYeah, they\u2019re gone. I know that the post Covid wrap up is going to happen over the next twelve to eighteen months but absolutely, anyone who\u2019s over seventy or in their seventies or whatever they\u2019re not coming here, no way. There\u2019s no way they\u2019re getting on an aeroplane and going round the other side of the world again.<\/p>\n

A lot of bands have either held back albums or delayed releases but you guys recorded and released a new EP. Tell us how the idea for \u2018Bitter Pill\u2019 came about?<\/strong>
\nWell band meeting used to be the bane of my existence, I used to glaze over in about five minutes, you\u2019d be going I want a smoke or I want a drink, but then they became our lifeline, our Zoom meetings once a week we were having became really important to us all and it was during that obviously lamenting the fact that we weren\u2019t going to get to record a new album we kinda between us all came up with the idea that we could record something in isolating. We were working out how long is this going to go on for, maybe we will have to record our album like this, so we thought we\u2019d give it a try with the songs we already knew and loved.<\/p>\n

So what was the process like picking the songs to re-record?<\/strong>
\nThe thing is that those songs, we decided we\u2019d give \u2018Better\u2019 a wide birth, we\u2019ve probably got enough versions of \u2018Better\u2019 *laughs* recorded over the years, but the good thing about songs like \u2018Sad Song\u2019, it\u2019s a different song to the one we released, it\u2019s got a lead break in it now, \u2018Shivers\u2019 goes for longer it\u2019s kinda got an extra lead part in it, but the songs weren\u2019t kind of exactly like they were on the records that we released them on, so that kind of gave us the inspiration that we weren\u2019t just going to be going over old ground, people would be hearing how the songs have grown live over thirty years or so since they\u2019ve been recorded. So we just picked ones that we knew intimately but ones through the live process had become a little bit different to play.<\/p>\n

Who does vocals on \u2018Friend of Mine\u2019?<\/strong>
\nThat\u2019s Paul Woseen, he wrote the song, that once again that\u2019s something that\u2019s grown live, I reckon about four or five years ago we were going \u201cwhat do you want to do for an encore? I\u2019m gonna go have a smoke Paulie why don\u2019t you go and do something?\u201d *laughs* So Paulie went out there and did \u2018Friend of Mine\u2019 and the crowd absolutely loved it, and to me when I hear Paulie sing, because Paulie brings in songs whole he doesn\u2019t bring it in and say \u201chere\u2019s a bit of a song let\u2019s work on it\u201d he walks in and says \u201chere\u2019s a song, it starts like this, ends like this, and goes like that\u201d so when I first heard \u2018Friend of Mine\u2019 it\u2019s exactly like you heard it on the EP, and so yeah it was a really great refreshing thing to say to Paulie, well you go and sing it, it\u2019ll give us something new but it\u2019ll also be the way you envisioned the song being recorded in the first place. Paulie\u2019s got one of the most amazing voices I\u2019ve ever heard, I still remember the first time we went into a studio and the engineer said \u201csing something into the mic, Paul\u201d and the engineer was madly grabbing at the sliders thinking what have a I got turned up so loud, what\u2019s up so loud? It was just Paul\u2019s voice smashing through the microphone.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve heard him sing and it sounded so different and when he does his harmonies it\u2019s a different voice again, I honestly had no idea it was him, that\u2019s amazing\u2026<\/strong>
\nYeah he has a really versatile voice and I think he\u2019s hid his light under a bushel for far too long and we might even get him to do some more lead vocals on this next album.<\/p>\n

Talking about process, obviously this was a much different way to record but what did this EP allow you to do that you haven’t done before?<\/strong>
\nWell for a start I\u2019ve never recorded a song in one take out in the beauty of nature, which is what we did with \u2018Helping Hand\u2019 because that was the first track that we did, and so I had all the backing tracks and I\u2019ve been doing this streaming thing from my backyard and so we had all the stuff set up outside and the guy that I did the stream with said \u201cwe may as well just do it out here\u201d so we set up the camera, set up the microphone, played it back, I sang it once, and bang there it is. I think you can even hear birds tweeting in the background at some stage but that was a bit of fun, I\u2019d never recorded outside before.<\/p>\n

Working again with Steve James who worked on these songs before, what did his previous knowledge of the songs allow him to bring to the new versions?<\/strong>
\nI think that was kind of the magic link in the whole thing, we all knew our parts but it was a matter of being able to get a producer who knew the songs intimately enough that he could put them together and make it sound like we were in the same room, and that was the amazing thing, hearing it back I thought it was going to be a bit scattergun you know, but it just sounded like were in a studio. His knowledge of the songs, I think the only song he hadn\u2019t worked on out of the bunch was \u2018Sad Song\u2019 and he often said to me in years gone by \u201cI really wish I\u2019d worked on that album\u201d because he didn\u2019t work on The Gorilla album, so it was great to give him a chance to do that. Yeah, he was the lynchpin in the whole thing, we all sent our stuff to him and he kind of made us sound like a band which is what he\u2019s been fantastic at for the whole thirty years we\u2019ve known him.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m pretty sure you guys know how to sound like a band *laughs*<\/strong>
\n*laughs* You know what I\u2019ve missed but? There\u2019s certainly not as many shenanigans going on in my living room when I\u2019m recording a vocal than there is in a studio when I\u2019m recoding a vocal you know *laughs*. I look out the window into the main control room and think what are they doing out there? I want to do that too. Whereas in your living room you just kind of get it done and send it off.<\/p>\n

Are you 100% zoomed out?<\/strong>
\nI am just about Zoomed out, I\u2019ve missed the last couple of Zoom\u2019s and I think we\u2019ve got one this afternoon that I might miss as well, yeah this whole new string to your bow that I probably would\u2019ve preferred not to have.<\/p>\n

Although looking at this year and the changes every artist has had to adapt to. Has there been anything to come from it that you would continue with?<\/strong>
\nDefinitely I think the streaming is a great idea, as we were saying about not being able to go overseas or people come from overseas I think streaming is going to be something that\u2019s really going to bed in, we\u2019ve used it, I\u2019ve done thirty streams from South Australia on my facebook page over the last six or seven months, and I think there\u2019s some value in it. I think just the ability to stream yourself live into any situation I think that\u2019s not a bad thing at all. It must be going to work because I don\u2019t know if you\u2019ve heard about Mark Fuckerberg he\u2019s just decided and come out in the last little while and said, look all you people live streaming content, that\u2019s not what it was for, facebook\u2019s for friends and family to keep in touch with so what we\u2019re going to do is start charging a premium fuckin\u2019 price for you guys to use the streaming fucking thing. So you know, what a cunt, he should just come out and say look I\u2019m a cunt and now that I\u2019ve seen everyone is using it I\u2019m gonna jam you up the ass what do you think of that. He comes out and says facebook is for more altruistic purposes for friends and family, lying prick, I would like to punch him in the face. Anyway, that\u2019s my bit on Mark Zuckerberg.<\/p>\n

*laughs* Can I put that in?<\/strong>
\nSure! I\u2019ll probably get banned from streaming again but that\u2019s what we were looking for anyway *laughs*<\/p>\n

It’s hard to make plans this year but have you guys chatted about upcoming things?<\/strong>
\nYeah our next thing we\u2019re looking forward to is November 27 and 28 in NSW we\u2019re doing a Southern Nights promotion where they\u2019re trying to re-open venues, it\u2019s a government initiative, so that\u2019s our first tentative gigs locked in, and that\u2019s obviously if the boys from Victoria are gonna be allowed into NSW, so we\u2019ve all got our fingers crossed about that. Obviously next year, we postponed this years tour until February March next year and that all looks like it\u2019s going to go ahead, and that\u2019s gonna be the 30th<\/sup> anniversary celebration of the \u2018All For One\u2019 album, which we\u2019re also going to re-record in its entirety, just to have this group of boys that are playing it currently put it down, it\u2019ll be a fairly painless process in that we don\u2019t have to go through different arrangements and anything like that, just thought it would be a fun project to do.<\/p>\n

As long as you put the \u2018tink\u2019 in \u2018Better\u2019 then we\u2019ll be right\u2026<\/strong>
\n*laughs* Of course there\u2019ll be a \u2018tink\u2019, Paulie actually said and I don\u2019t know how well you know the \u2018All For One\u2019 album but there\u2019s a song called \u2018The Only One\u2019 on it, and it\u2019s kinda the last song and it\u2019s just one of those songs and Paulie goes can we not do that? I go no, we can\u2019t not do it, if we\u2019re gonna redo it we have to redo it warts and fuckin\u2019 all.<\/p>\n

You know what you do now, say Paulie because you don\u2019t want it, you\u2019re singing it!<\/strong>
\n*laughs* Absolutely that would be brilliant *laughs*.<\/p>\n

Other than the new EP and now re-recording \u2018All For One\u2019 has there been any thought of new material?<\/strong>
\nYeah well we have got a new song that we\u2019ve recorded that\u2019s going to be part of the vinyl EP that comes out in December, December 6 I think that\u2019s slated for, so that will be a vinyl version of \u2018The Bitter Pill\u2019 EP that includes a new track that Paulie wrote called \u2018Throwing Shade\u2019, and I love it, after doing the songs that we all knew then for Paulie to be able to send around a song that no one had ever heard before and for us to be able to record that, that gave us a lot of hope for recording in that way because that song is killer, I want to release it now but management goes no, something something something, we\u2019ve got other plans\u2026 so we\u2019ll be holding off on that until December 6 and then people can hear a brand new Jets track.<\/p>\n

Let’s look ahead to the future as we like to do. So forgetting the rest of this year, finish this sentence for me. In 2021 The Screaming Jets will…<\/strong>
\nBecome the biggest band in Australia. Might as well have some type of fuckin\u2019 hope.<\/p>\n

Always a pleasure Dave, we\u2019re long overdue for a catch up and about forty beers, and also welcome to Sydney.<\/strong>
\nIndeed, indeed and you too, man. Cheers, Rock on!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Essential Information<\/u><\/strong><\/h2>\n

From:<\/strong>\u00a0Newcastle, Australia<\/p>\n

Band Members:<\/strong>\u00a0Dave Gleeson [vocals], Paul Woseen [bass], Scott Kingman [guitars], Jimi Hocking [guitars] and Cameron McGlinchey [drums]<\/p>\n

Website:<\/strong>\u00a0http:\/\/www.screamingjets.com.au<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Forthcoming Release:<\/strong>\u00a0\u2018Bitter Pill\u2019<\/p>\n