Something With Numbers
Locked in a plush Williamsburg studio, Australian band Something with Numbers is focused like never before, using their new-found environment to help inspire their ever-evolving musical output. Riffin sat down to talk with Jake Grigg (vocals), Dave McBeath (drums), Scott Chapman (bass), Lachlan Scott (guitar), and Tim Crocker (Guitar/Vocals), about Olivia Newton John cardboard cut-outs, stage dancing, and the importance of blogging.
Riffin': You are well-known for your stage dancing. Has this always been a part of your expression?
Jake Grigg: Always. It started as a nervous thing, where it went through my body and I wouldn't worry of what I was doing, it would really take away the focus from my singing and into the jumping around.
All I can remember…was walking out the door with a life-sized cardboard cutout of Olivia Newton John.
Riffin': You keep a lively blog on your website. How important do you think this is in terms of making a connection with your fans?
Jake Grigg: Very important, I do it because there a people who listen to our music and you can never take them for granted. If they come to our website to see what we are up to, I fell it is our right to tell them what is happening
Riffin': What is your most memorable story from being in the band?
Jake Grigg: We got invited to this musical conference. It was in front of all these record big wigs, we got on stage and our equipment broke. So our manager said, "Whatever you do, don't go out and talk to those people," were only just starting and didn't want us to make fools of ourselves.
As soon as our manager left, Dave and I went out to the party, started to have a couple of quiet drinks, and then all I remember after that was walking out the door with a life-sized cardboard cutout of Olivia Newton John under one arm, a bull skull under the other, and a mini boxing ring on my head.
The two security guards just looked at me and shook their heads. All I asked was, "Can I keep Olivia?" Then I wake up in the morning with Olivia in my bed, and didn't remember why.
Riffin': Can you describe your song writing process, specifically how the band works a melody around an idea or a set of lyrics.
Dave McBeath: It's changed this time. We had one, and then it changed on this record. On the last record the four of us wrote a bunch of punkish kind of songs, and then Jake came at the end and put his spin on it.
Jake Grigg: Yes, I made them good.
Lachland Scott: This time the words have been put together with the music, I feel that in the past the words had been written to the already made music, once the building blocks were already there. .
Riffin': Who divides up the lyrics?
Dave McBeath: Jake is all lyrics
Jake Grigg: Yeah, I don't let anyone mess with my lyrics
Scott Chapman: Actually, I think Gravy (Tim) did a lyric on a chorus on this record.
Tim Crocker: One line, yeah.
Jake Grigg: Yeah, it happened one time, and that's all he's going to get!