Wolfmother plays the Observatory July 27
Wolfmother hits The Observatory on July 27 as part of a lengthy world tour to play songs from their innovative first two albums as well as some new hard rock and psychedelic gems from their latest release, “New Crown.”
“We have to play ‘Woman’, ‘Joker’, and ‘Dimension,’ otherwise I think people will be pretty pissed off!” lead singer / guitarist, Andrew Stockdale laughed.
Those songs are all part of the Australian natives self-titled debut album which came out in 2007 with “Woman” receiving a Grammy for “Best Hard Rock Performance.
Stockdale said their latest album was written to sound good for a band to play live.
“It was all about just trying to get the energy levels to the point where you would be at 9 o’clock at night, going out to a gig with your friends, after 3 or 4 beers, or whatever.
“When you’re in that state, you need a certain type of high-energy, rough around the edges, rock-n-roll that you want to hear, at that time.”
The album came out through Bandcamp and SongCast and has been available on iTunes around the world. It’s been hitting the top 10 on the iTunes rock chart in many countries.
“It’s kind of incredible that we’ve been touring for about seven months around the world and we don’t have a record label,” Stockdale mused.
“Times have changed for music and how people buy music. Things have changed so much in the last 5 years in the music business.”
While Stockdale is trying to make sense of the changes in the music industry he can’t help but notice that more and more people are streaming music and going to You Tube to hear new music. However, checking the number of views a band has on You Tube can be misleading and mind-boggling.
“It just kind of blows me away when I look at a Jimi Hendrix song and it’s only got 50,000 views or something. In my mind he’s like a legend. Then I see some weird Eurovision Soccer theme that’s got like 20 million views. It breaks your heart.”
Following the upcoming tour dates, which will take the band to South Africa and back to Australia, they’re looking at recording another record to release early next year.
In fact, they recently recorded a few songs in Berlin at the band, Kadavars’s studio.
“They’re like a German, stoner-rock, metal rock, sort of groove rock-n-roll band. We just jammed on a few ideas and recorded a couple of songs in their studio,” Stockdale said. “And ate sausages and drank German beer.
“There’s this sausage place out in front of the studio, where they have different levels of chili that you can put on the sausage. They had all these photos of people who’d had the strongest chili.
“This one guy went in and had the strongest chili and the sound he was making whilst he was eating was so disturbing. It sounded like hiccups while he was crying but sort of groaning. It’s pretty weird. “
Joining Stockdale on tour and also on “New Crown” are Ian Peres on bass and keys and Vin Steele on drums.