Track By Track: Skyscraper Stan Unravels Golden Boy Vol. l & ll

Kiwi native, now Aussie resident Skyscraper Stan Woodhouse is on his way back to New Zealand to perform 4 show during August.

Stan released his new album, Golden Boy Vol l & ll just a few weeks ago.

The 13th Floor’s Marty Duda spoke to Skyscraper Stan recently and went through the album track by track.

Listen in here:

Or, read a transcription of the interview here:

M: So the album is called ‘Golden Boy Vol. l and ll’, so before we get into the nuts and bolts of the record, maybe you could just give me an overview about how the album came about and why it’s called that.

S: The album came about because it was high time that I wrote another one. The split between the two volumes came about artificially at first, it was a collection of songs I’d been writing over a period of time when I’d been pondering my place in the universe based on my heritage and my gender and everything that has contributed to making me who I am. All songwriters seem to be self centred individuals I’m no different, so it split one half, the beginning half of the record is basically me exploring general themes using other characters and in the second half I bring myself in and I assess the lessons that I may or may not have learnt from the first half.

M: I noticed that the first five songs are quite character driven, they’re very almost cinematic in the way that you tell the stories, is that what you had in mind there?

S: Yeah, I wanted the first half to be sort of cinematic. There were some slightly more derivative songs in the second half, sort of one that’s a bit more 50’s balladeering and I wanted them to be references to my references I guess.

M: That makes sense. Where did you record the record?

S: We recorded the record with our long time producer, this guy Richard Stolz who works out of a little studio in Balaclava, which is in the Southern suburbs of Melbourne. Melbourne’s one of those funny places where suburbs that sound dodgy are actually quite nice.

M: Balaclava definitely sounds dodgy

S: It’s actually quite affluent and nice, and Sunshine is the suburb that has a bad rap at the moment

M: Really? Who do you have playing on the record along with yourself?

S: The players on the record are Oskar Herbig, my cousin on guitar, who’s been playing with me for a long time

M: Yes he has

S: Yup and he’s my trusty offsider. We feature him quite heavily on one track, in particular ‘Tarcutta Shade’, he takes a huge solo at the end which I’m sure we will talk about when we get time

M: I imagine we will

S: And then Martin Schilov on bass, he was on the last album as well, he’s been playing with us for a while and Christopher Windley’s on the drums, and we’ve got some session guys coming in, Bruce Haynes who’s one of Paul Kelly’s go to musos who’s on the keys and we’ve got this brilliant art musician, Garrett Skinner playing cello in the closing track for the album. My partner  and her good friend sing the backing vocals. Some of it’s a bit of a family affair.

M: Well let’s get down to the actual songs. We’ll just start right off with the first one, which is called ‘Dole Queues and Dunhill Blues’, what can you tell me about that?

S: We kicked the album off with a really driving number. I thought it would be cool to pull people in straight away, and that’s one of the narrative driven songs that has little to nothing to do with my own life. It tells a tale of a person turned monster by circumstance.

M: And bottom shelf whisky apparently.

S: Yeah, it’s bottom shelf bourbon, it’s even worse. I’m not a bourbon guy.

M: And something about pissing in the wind as well, so what kind of story are you telling here?

S: It’s a story about a man who is isolated from his children and from the world in general. Somewhat drug addicted and basically he’ll fall in with a fast crowd, he goes off and he robs a petrol station and that kind of gives him a taste for it and he continues on in a terrible bane and somewhat remorseness when it comes time to his trial. It’s a strange thing to want to write a song about but it happens so I’m not going to hide it.

M: Track two is ‘Raphael‘. Who is Raphael?

S: Raphael is actually the guy’s real name. I’m not particularly flattering of Raphael in that song. It came about from witnessing the behaviour of an internet troll basically. So it’s a song about the dangers of the internet comment thread and people of vicious conservative mindset refusing to change and being caught up in the waves when the tide comes in.

M: Well, why would they change their mind, they’re obviously right?

S: Exactly

M: Is this something that you encounter often online yourself?

S: Yeah, it’s something that I’ve s een a fair bit. I live in a small town and there is a Facebook page that’s sort of like a notice board for the town and the behaviour of humans when they are allowed to attack someone else from a distance is quite shocking. Part of me wonders whether that’s just what we naturally gravitate towards if we know that we can get away with something. I don’t like to think that humans are inherently evil, but some of the behaviour I see on the internet makes me wonder.

M: Well, I’d like to think that I don’t do that I don’t know what the deal is with some people. Different I guess.

S: It’s fascinating seeing people who…they will interact with someone, their sole intention is to aggravate that person and get a rise out of them. Not for any political reason, just purely to be malicious.

M: Well I’m sure that we could psychoanalyse this person and find all sorts of deficiencies in their personality, but we’ll move on to ‘Flag Of Progress’.

S: The song does psychoanalyse him a little bit

M: Oh good

S: Flag Of Progress, that’s a song about Kings Cross in Sydney and our desire to make things clean. Gentrification really, a song about gentrification. The system of trading property as if its a commodity, not a human right, a roof over your head y’know?

M: Is gentrification an issue where you are living?

S: It is, yes. I don’t pretend I not part of the problem though, I write about moving here from Melbourne like a lot of people have and we’re out in the country now so we can afford a slightly nicer place to live, but we’re forcing the rent prices up so I’m part of the gentrification.

M: I reckon I am probably as well, so there you go. Let’s hang our heads in shame and move on. The next track is called ‘Doorbell’. What are you going to tell me about that?

S: Doorbell is just a straight up anti-Australia’s immigration policy. Like Kiwis are no strangers to the pretty dodgy politics that happen over here in Australia when it comes to who is and isn’t allowed into the country. And there’s a fair bit of fear of the other happening, and of course you would’ve heard about all of the nonsense with people coming on boats and everything and the true blue Aussies getting very up in arms about it. And it’s an ugly thing and it’s a very selfish thing and I wrote a protest song about it ala Pete Seeger, and then turned it into a rock song ’cause I’ve got a band.

M: What happens when you play that in front of Australian crowds? What kind of reaction do you get?

S: Generally the people who come to my shows are relatively like-minded. Sometimes if I’m playing some regional shows in places that voted for Pauline Hansen. The only people who have taken offence to it was some people at a bowling club in Belle. But aside from that, because it’s written, it’s a tongue and cheek song so it’s written from the perspective of somebody who doesn’t want anyone else coming into their turf. So I think possibly some people just take it literally.

M: And they get all defensive. But then again, if you write a song like that you don’t want to be singing it only to the like-minded people. In order to make any kind of effect, you kind of want it to get out there among folks that it’s aimed at don’t you?

S: I suppose you do. Maybe I shouldn’t have so heavily veiled it in metaphor

M: Possibly. The next track is called ‘Tarcutta Shade’.

S: Tarcutta is a town exactly, well about as exactly as you can get, halfway between Melbourne and Sydney. It’s a big truck stop basically. I wrote that song for the woman who works in the sandwich bar there. I’d bought myself a curried egg sandwich, I’d watched her have a particularly uncomfortable interaction with a truckie and it was the middle of February in the Riverina region of New South Wales so it’s really hot and there’s roadkill everywhere and I just sort of wanted to paint that picture.

M: And of course, this is the track with the wailing guitar at the end.

S: It is the track with the wailing guitar at the end, that’s my cousin, Oskar really sort of putting his Vox AC15 through its paces, getting it to feedback. We really enjoyed playing that song live for that reason, he takes a big solo and it’s all quite atmospheric and really builds up into this great crescendo, and he’s got it down to a fine art now.

M: Does it get a little bit lengthier in concert than it is on the record?

S: We try to keep it to about the same, it depends on how we’re feeling, it depends of how the crowd feels.

M: So that wraps up the Volume One, so now we’ve flipped the record over and we get to the more personal side of things, beginning with ‘On Your Corner’.

S: On Your Corner is a song about my own interactions with my partner and others of years past, where I faced the onus on improving my mood on that person often seeking help, to get themselves out of a rut or whatever, but not necessarily being as forthcoming with that help to somebody else, which I think is something a lot of us do. I find that, at least in relationships I’ve had, there’s been a bit of a disparity in the emotional labour between myself and the person I’m with and something that I had to address.

M: You’ve got a great little line about ‘nostalgia with a side of self pity’. Musically it kind of builds up to this big chorus as well doesn’t it?

S: Yes, I like a big chorus. Nothing wrong with a big chorus, and I wanted to write a chorus for that song that started on the same chord as the verse and see if I could make sure they were differentiated enough, and I think I did it.

M: Now we have ‘Talking About The Weather (While The House Burns Down)’.

S: That’s another relationship song really, I wrote that when my partner and I were moving out to the country…well we were trying to get out of the city. I was scribbling lines for it as we were getting tired of the city and I wrote it once we’d moved to the country. We knew we had to make a change and I was umming and arring more than she was I guess. It’s a song about not going straight out of things, talking about the way the house burns down, if there’s something pressing, you should be taking care of, but you’d rather talk about the weather.

M: No time to beat around the bush?

S: Yeah.

M: And are things better? Are you glad you made the move?

S: Could not be happier. It was the right decision.

M: Excellent, glad to hear it. We’ve got ‘Dancing On My Own Grave’, that’s a fantastic title, you’re gonna have to tell me more about that.

S: Dancing On My Own Grave is just a song about excess really, being attracted to all of the things that aren’t for you. So that song’s actually quite literal. It’s got plenty of soft core drug references, so it’s still radio friendly. I do say the word shit in the chorus but aside from that.

M: Is that something you think about when you’re writing the songs?

S: I didn’t actually notice how many of these songs I do swear in. There are a few songs that didn’t make the cut for the album that were even worse. I’ve been living in Australia for nearly, well it was my birthday yesterday that marks my tenth anniversary of moving to Australia, so I’ve been here ten years.

M: Happy Birthday!

S: Thank you very much

M: What number birthday is it, can I ask?

S: It’s my number thirty-one. The big 31, so I moved here on my 21st birthday.

M: So it’s ten years

S: So its ten years and swearing is a pretty prominent part of the Australian vernacular so it seeps it’s way in and I swear more than I used to, I think.

M: Well, you’ve gotta go with the flow sometimes.

S: Just trying to fit in

M: Alright fair enough. Now the next song is called Child and I’m guessing that’s the one that had the 50’s thing going on?

S: Yeah. that’s the 50’s ballad that one, and that’s a break up song based around myself being tied up in the romantic ideal of the rambling man and making mistakes because of that, which is something I did for ages, but I have a dog now.

M: The dog cured everything. If it was only that easy.

S: Pretty much.

M: When you say it’s a 50’s style ballad, what to you determines and is definitive of a 50’s style ballad? Did you listen to a lot of 50’s music?

S: I did. I often introduce that song with the admission that at the time of writing I was listening to a lot of the Grease soundtrack.

M: That’s not real 50’s music, that’s 50’s music via the 80’s you realise.

S: Yes I’m aware. Child itself is a song in 6/8 with a cyclical chord progression that feels familiar I’m it’ll feel familiar to a lot of people. It’s still a slightly narrative driven story. It’s about me leaving someone’s room basically, for good leaving. So I’m trying to paint that picture with a big cheesy chorus and I wanted to do it in the style of those cheesy numbers we all love, like ‘Put Your Head On My Shoulder’, ‘Fools Rush In’, things like that.

M: Excellent. And of course if she had a dog, you wouldn’t have left.

S: Probably not, I wouldn’t have been able to, dog would have just called me back.

M: We’ve got one more track ‘Man Misunderstood’.

S: That’s the six and a half minute track that closes the album. Six and a half minutes with no discernible chorus and the same melody throughout. I hope I’m selling that well.

M: Yeah, I’m in. It works for Neil Young all the time.

S: That’s true actually, he got away with it so why can’t I? That’s sort of a retelling of an experience of mine with poetic embellishments to create a narrative arc. It vaguely based around the idea that we all eventually become the thing we hate…a nice positive message to leave the audience and finish the album. It’s about heading up a human highway under the influence of somebody who’s convinced that you’re gonna be the next big thing.

M: And at age thirty-one are you finding that you’re turning into the thing that you hate?

S: I’m trying desperately not to. I’ve been using songwriting as a reflective mechanism, like my old man said something really interesting a while ago, the world is full of mirrors, there are a lot of us out there reflecting the world back at it, I found that with the first half of the album I’d been reflecting the world back at the people were living the lives I was writing about, not actually lives that I have led, and thought that maybe it would be important for me to hold that mirror up to myself and I feel like that helps me improve my own behaviour.

M: Fingers crossed, and speaking of songs that go on forever without any discernible whatever, have you ever listened to Bob Dylan’s song ‘The Tempest?’

S: I have yes.

M: So it’s fourteen minutes with no chorus or nothing, so you can do anything you want to now.

S: Great, well I have to try to get to fifteen.

M: Exactly. So you’re coming to New Zealand to do some touring and maybe even come up here and play a little bit is that right?

S: That is correct yes, if that invitation is still forthcoming when I land in New Zealand.

M: Well I see no reason why I would want to withdraw it, so yes you are more than welcome, unless something happens between now and then.

S: Yes, fantastic

M: And you’re gonna be bringing Oskar with you?

S: I’m gonna be bringing Oskar and the rhythm section, so Martin and Chris will be coming as well, we’ll have a four piece band.

M: Alright, I can’t wait. In the meantime we’ll let people know what this record’s all about, then we’ll see you when you get over here

S: Fantastic, I’m looking forward to it.

Skyscarper Stan and his band tour New Zealand in August including a show at Auckland’s Tuning Fork on August 10th. Click here for tickets.