Whitley

Artist websites
www.whitleymusic.com

Myspace

Facebook

Twitter

GO FORTH, FIND MAMMOTH

To know what this album means to me, it’s best that we look back to 1989 when it all started.

When I was five years old I watched two television documentaries that were instrumental in forming the way I think. One show was about Mammoths, and the other was about scientific experiments concerning the human mind. Both documentaries were interesting enough. In the Mammoth documentary there was a time lapse showing a dead Mammoth returning to dust. At the time it only bothered me slightly. Shortly after, the second documentary taught me how the human mind stores memory, language and personality.

A revelation occurred in my mind: ‘If the Mammoth’s brain became dust, and his life was stored in there…then what point is there to life? I won’t remember any of my friends or family when I die. I won’t remember anything that I have learned…I won’t remember anything at all. I may as well not have ever existed.’

I ran to my mother and cried uncontrollably, as if to mourn the death of myself. As a woman who cares for cancer patients and is surrounded by death for most of her life, I thought she could explain it to me. I was horrified to learn that she couldn’t explain what happened when you died. My opinion stayed much the same for 16 years or so, and for a kid, I suppose I devoted an unhealthy amount of time trying to figure out the purpose of my existence. All I could have been and all I would have been was lost in time…it’s not hard to read between the lines.

This album however, is about dealing with that knowledge that we all carry around, aware or unaware, and how to make sense of it by realizing that there is an intense interconnectedness between all matter and life, and there is no such thing as death because this is real only because we believe it is. We are becoming shadows, and we will fade into what we perceive as nothing, but there is something that we can’t comprehend in the dark because we don’t have the tools to see it. Wonder is all around. Consciousness and life are fleeting blips in the cosmos’s great existence. However, our powerful minds see it as a long drawn out process with ultimate importance because we allow ourselves to see it that way.

I couldn’t solve the puzzle of what I wanted the album to sound like. My solution was to go down to the beach for the night with a couch tied to the roof of my car. We lay about, listening to our favourite records and discovered a common link between all of the artists I liked. Everyone just played to his or her instincts, not intentionally trying anything. So I went to Colin’s house (Colin Leadbetter - engineer) to start “Go Forth, Find Mammoth”. Colin sold me my first guitar when I was about 12, and I ended up working in his family’s store...so it seemed pretty natural to work with him. Having said that, he is a remarkable engineer with a great ability to produce great sounding recordings. It also helps that we are good friends, interested in similar things...so there was never a dull moment, if it wasn’t horn sections, it was watching Star Wars. So, the deal was that I’d come up with some imaginative stuff, and Colin would make sure it sounded great.

After we worked on the record in our houses, it got to a point where we needed a little studio time and new perspective. I was told that Jim Moginie (Midnight Oil) was interested in having us over at his place, so we went up there to attack things from a different angle. Jim was great to work with...he really is a creative nest, so to speak. Jim lets you just do what you want, as long as what you’re doing has direction and purpose, and besides his immense talent as a musician – he has a good way of detecting if you know what you’re on about. Around that time, Rob Hirst (Midnight Oil) dropped by and played on a track one day. It was just happenstance that we were working on a track that needed a little drum lift at the end of the song. But the key to the record’s feel is Luke Bolton (bass) and Andy Reed (drums). I’ve played music with these guys for a long time, and they treat the Whitley stuff as if it’s their own, because to a large degree it is. Luke has a great soaring passion for music that is contagious; it really sparks the joy of playing in everyone in the band. Andy is a hidden gem in Australian drumming, with an almost invisible skill, he plays for the song. He doesn’t need to be flashy, he plays parts that sound great and he plays them with a relaxed, saturated calm.

Finally, we mixed the record with Scott Horscroft (The Panics, The Presets), which added yet another dimension again to the record. He’s a creative mixer, someone with clear ideas on how something should sound, and why it should sound that way. When the final day of mixing went down, I was happy to hear how the mixes sounded, but I couldn’t remember anything about mixing at all.

“Go Forth, Find Mammoth” is about the great things that we experience along the way. Love, loss, hope, pain, joy and loneliness are part of our shared experience, and I’m glad to be here because I unconditionally love life. To quote the great Bill Hicks ‘It’s just a ride’.

So there it is, Go Forth, Find Mammoth.
Enjoy!
Whitley