Interview: BLOODBAGS Debut Album Release Tour

“You know, there’s about 100 words that all vaguely mean the same thing. Why do we always keep on using these ones? Let's try some of these weird ones.” Mitch Marks catches up with Andrew Tolley before Bloodbags head down south with a freshly pressed screamer of a record in their checked luggage.

BLOODBAGS

Friday July 18th - Pearl Diver, Dunedin w/ SHOTGUN WEDDING & THE VAMPS (NZ)
Saturday July 19th - Darkroom, Christchurch w/ BIN DAY & KISSER

Tickets on sale HERE via UTR

Mitch Marks: What the hell? Full length LP! From Bloodbags!

Andrew Tolley: Yeah! I think we'd always had in our mind that it [Bloodbags, by Bloodbags] was going to happen. We just had no idea when. And as with everyone of my vintage who plays music, most of your collaborators are dads, mums, so you got to work around family, other commitments. Sometimes, some people are in a lot of bands and mess things up as well [points at himself] or slow things down, because I spread myself too thin. But now it's just like chipping away at the block.

When did we start recording the tracks? Possibly close to two years ago? Because these things just take forever to do. I always think in my head that it's one weekend, bang them all out. Two weeks, mix things. Send it off to someone to master. Boom, work out the artwork. But you know how... artwork... artwork takes the longest.

And causes the most arguments, maybe?

No, actually, this is where I think I've chosen my guys. Maybe there's a bit of ‘you’re the older mentor, so you probably have a better idea about this’ but I think it's basically one of the benefits of having been in a band with these two guys for over 10 years, you know each other's foibles, strengths, weaknesses. Everyone still wants to front up and do the best job, make the right decision and be happy with the end result.

Artwork... I don't know if you've seen the album, there's a collage thing inside, which is classic Tolley, where I used all these posters, I chose all the ones I liked the graphics the most of. And so there was a little bit of back and forth, things like ‘maybe not that one, that's not a good memory for me. Please don't plaster that on the inner sleeve for eternity’. But when I do these collage things, I'm so primitive when it comes to my graphic skills, it's like, I have to cut these out again!

But actually it was easy. So some things just happened easily.

When you say ‘cut them out again’ – you're doing it physically? Cutting them, photocopying, no Photoshop.

I'm scanning the posters, or taking them off Instagram, whatever, zooming them down, printing them off, cutting them all out, putting them in front of me on the table, flipping them around, finding photos of us and trying to find, you know, the right layout. And then send it, does it seem to scan for the guys?

I suppose in every band, there's that weird chemistry of why it works, and how you bounce off one another. And if you've been around long enough, then at the very least you just like hanging out at your weekly sessions. Because it's your gang, a clubhouse kind of scenario, and it's like, ‘Is the music any good? I just want to see the guys’.

You know, ‘this is fun, but what have you been doing this week?’. Because, I don’t know whether it gets worse as you get older, but it seems to be practice seems to be less music, more talk. But that's a plus.

When I went to find the LP again on your Bandcamp today I was searching for Bloody Souls, the long-running precursor to Bloodbags. Then I remembered it's probably been Bloodbags for a couple of years. But you say it's been 10!

It's longer. I mean, I said 10 years, but I think it started end of 2012 or 2013 so that's 12 years at least. It has been a long time. And Bloody Souls was a revolving cast — on one level, it wasn't that hard to find new people who wanted to play in that band. But people moved to Australia, moved to other parts of New Zealand.

So that's a good segue to the dates you’re playing to support the album...

I haven't been down to the South Island for forever. Actually, I think it might have even been in the 2000s that I was last there.

Christchurch has always had really cool bands, and they don't need any other part of the country to tell them what's what, who to know or what you should be doing. Christchurch has always just been distinctly its own thing.

And you’re playing at Pearl Diver in Dunedin...

I knew that John Baker had taken Guitar Wolf down there, and I think he took a number of bands that he brought over recently, like Schizophrenics and the Aussie guys, C.O.F.F.I.N, I think they went through there. So it sounded new and interesting. I'm looking forward to it.

Did you hook up the bands that you're playing with?

In Christchurch, when I talked to a person to book a gig at Darkroom they were in the band Bin Day, so ‘do you want to play?... and then who else should we get?’ And she gave me this long list. I came across this band called Kisser, who've got a guy I know that had a two piece in Auckland called Blame Thrower. So there's connections, even if it's been years down the track.

In Dunedin, all the guys in the band know someone who moved down there and he gave me another long list, so I go off and listen to heaps of Bandcamp recordings.

You're going to have the album for sale on vinyl at the shows as well. Are you doing other formats? Tell us about the merch.

I'm not doing a CD. But, if you just want a digital download, you can get it on Bandcamp. That’s been up for a while.

The album cover is kind of an homage to the Scientists. So if you know the first Scientists cover, it has just one colour, and the text is right at the top, and that's kind of what we’re doing but the style of the font is way more in the Cramps vein. Matt got a friend to do us a logo. And then we've got logo t-shirts the same colour as the album, and red on white. Maybe later on we’ll do some on black.

And then, I have never, really, put my lyrics out there on an insert sheet. And the others have kind of been busting my guts. ‘We should take photos of your scrappy pieces of A5, and we'll just stick that on...’ and I'm just like, keep it cryptic. People never understand or hear what I sing anyway. Why do I need to tell them?

But for some reason, I was doing this insert with the poster collage on one side. What do you stick on the other? You can put writing... okay, I'll do my lyrics. I kind of got over myself a little bit – maybe there's a good phrase in there, and people might dig that. I like that classic, you know, get a record from the record shop, you're really interested or intrigued or excited about it, and you take it home, got your headphones on ‘cos you don't want to annoy everyone else in the flat, and you're blasting it into your ears and looking at the album... it's just that extra piece of the ritual, if you've got it to look at. Bits to read. So it's a full immersive process.

I like that you justified a vulnerable moment by being all well, you know, I kind of had to do it. It's fine – it's time!

Yeah, I think it's vulnerable. It's a front, of course. Most of the time my band mates go, what is this one called? I’m like, we've been playing it for two years. And you're asking me now?

I do pour over, like – is that a good word, does that have a good rhythm? Does it look good on the page, you know, just the usual writing cliches. You just have things that look nice to you. You know, there’s about 100 words that all vaguely mean the same thing. Why do we always keep on using these ones? Let's try some of these weird ones. What can I rhyme that with? Well, that's not going to work. I just won't.

I'd written this list of words that you shouldn't use when describing your band, like swampy, grinding, metallic, swinging, growl, gravel. And then I was trying to think of alternatives, but you used them all in your song titles. All crawling, clanging, primitive...

It’s often how can you say things in a different way, and we sell ourselves short by just relying on standard issue, kind of... ‘how are you? I'm fine’. Well, you're not fine. Most of the time people are like, ‘just tell me, just unleash all the pain and hurt that's swelling up inside your tortured body!’

Okay, I'm not fine. Give me more.

A good note to end on? Good luck on tour, and congratulations on releasing the album – it IS fast!

It's fast!