Liam Andrews has an unfussy way with words. He’s not one for superfluous metaphors and flowery adjectives.
“It’s not often that we do things that are non-essential,” he says plainly, pauses, stares at his espresso. “Our music’s kind of bare,” he starts off again, “kind of naked.”
If today’s quietly affable encounter at Brunswick haunt A Minor Place is to be taken as an example, most things about the My Disco frontman and bassist would seem to have something of an unembellished quality. He is open but direct; he laughs but doesn’t attempt to crack jokes; he has a manageable haircut.
“My lyrics are just kind of a pivotal phrase from a narrative I have in my head,” offers the 26-year-old. “I never write them down. I’m not telling a story.”
It’s a sensibility that permeates the Melbourne trio’s patois. Over six years, two albums — the tearing frequencies of 2006’s Cancer and the arcane, hard-edged minimalism of 2008’s Paradise — and countless ear-shattering live assaults, Andrews, older brother and guitarist Ben and drumer Rohan Rebeiro have crafted a sound that takes rock, post-punk and hardcore to some of its more visceral and minimalist ends.
“Writing music like that just leaves you in this flux,” continues Andrews, off on a rare tangent. “Everything kind of remains open for the live setting. Having those breaks where there is just dead silence sitting back to back against extremely loud music, I find that dynamic is a pretty amazing thing to watch and to hear and to be playing.”
“By making music that’s so bare, any slight change — adding an instrument or a sound or anything — becomes so much more effective and decisive. Things like subtle speed and tempo changes become really noticeable and important.”
The trio’s razor-sharp, skeletal aesthetic hasn’t gone unnoticed. Since playing their first show at tiny, now defunct Collingwood venue Good Morning Captain in 2003, My Disco have garnered one of the most enviable live reputations in the country. They’ve support slots for the likes of Battles, Mogwai, Deerhoof and Death From Above 1979 among several others, not to mention pulling off five US tours; the most recent of which saw them play an abrasive set of showcases at SXSW this March.
“With some of the songs, we might sit on the same bass line, the same drum beat and the same wall of guitar noise for 10 or 12 minutes,” he laughs. “It’s never a planned thing. It’s just when it feels right, like ‘This is it, this is exactly what we’re doing right here and now’.”
“When you’re at that point, there’s nothing else like it. It’s kind of like we’re all so inside it that, for us, it might seem like it has only gone for a minute. I’d like to hope that there are a lot of people that might watch it and feel that way too, like they’re inside that time and place with us.”
In many ways, My Disco’s penchant for economy comes as little of a surprise. Having spent their early lives in the UK, the Andrews brothers moved to Australia with their family in the early 90s, settling on Melbourne’s outer eastern fringe. From there, the younger Andrews would take the hour-long train ride to the city on the weekends, where he soon found himself ensconced in Melbourne’s then thriving hardcore punk scene.
“There was a lot going on in the local punk scene around that time in the late 90s,” he recalls excitedly. “There were all these all-ages shows just held in studio spaces like Thunderfield in Richmond and Troy Balance in South Melbourne. I didn’t have any friends who were into that stuff, so I just turn up and hang out every weekend. I’d go to Missing Link and then go to shows.”
Suffice to say, it wasn’t long before Andrews began entertaining the idea of a band of his own. “I was seeing these bands that weren’t all that much older than me, so it was just like ‘Oh, I can do this!’. I had a bass, you know, it was a possibility. Ben was also seeing shows — he’s four years older, so he was going to the over age shows — and Rohan was coming to shows too.”
“I think being involved in that scene kind of really opened our minds to the possibilities of music a bit more, this idea that music could be all these different things,” he continues. “A lot of the people who I met back then and am close friends with now, they’re all so broad in what they do and what they listen to. I’ve never worked out what it is, but there’s a common sensibility with a lot of people who were into that kind of music.”
