Pond is the sound of your favourite Perth musicians having the time of their life.
'Hobo Rocket' is the fifth LP from the WA five-piece, made up of Nick Allbrook, Jay Watson, Cam Avery, Joseph Ryan and Jamie Terry. It's also their most immediate, a 30-minute blast of twisted psychedelia and Sabbath savagery.
“This was supposed to be an EP,” guitarist Jay Watson — who splits his time between Pond, Tame Impala and his forthcoming solo project — explains. “And then… we don't really like EPs, so we put two more songs on it. I don't know, I just can't be bothered. I wouldn't bother with an EP. So it's really short, and it's only seven songs, and I feel bad for people who are, like, buying it.
“But I think it's kind of cool. Traditionally, 34 minutes isn't really short, at all, for an album. I've got heaps of albums on iTunes that are shorter. It's kind of cool that you can just listen to it on a car ride to your friend's place or whatever and it's over. It's half an hour of super intense sonic chaos.”
'Chaos' is the right word. Watson likes to refer to the album as 'rogue'; it's his diplomatic way of referring to the frenzied recording process. “We rushed it,” Watson says, “because we never have any time. We recorded it in, like, three days. There's a lot of stuff we could have done better or tighter. A lot of the takes are first takes. But I think that means it sounds kind of rogue and chaotic, like our live show does, just because we never rehearse properly.
“We all get a perverse kick out of doing things slightly more shittily. I mean, it's not actually 'more shittily'; it's just for the sake of being more real. Each of these takes would have been the first or second take, and someone would have whinged about it at the time. Usually Cam [Avery], because he's playing drums and he's not even really a drummer. He'd be like, 'man, I didn't do a very good job on that', and we'd say, 'fuck it, sorry, we're movin' on! Deal with it!' So we do that, and then I spend six months being really paranoid that we fucked up and we should have recorded more takes.
“I think we're just passionate about the rogueness, because that's what Pond is, you know? We could sit there on the computer for hours and make it sound way better, technically better. But that's not really the point.”
Pond's next album has already been written, and Watson promises that it's “more original” than most of their output so far; that the band are “sick of retro rockin'”. He also hopes to release his solo album (which he's already recorded) later this year. The members of Pond and Tame Impala may not look particularly industrious at first glance, but there's clearly something pushing them to create at such a prolific rate.
“I think it's just that we've got a lot of ideas,” Watson says. “I mean, we've got more ideas than we have talent, that's for sure. We've got more ambition than talent, as well, and that's why we keep making lots of records. None of them are perfect or our best thing, but I feel like it's all gearing up to a run of really amazing records one day.
“I don't think any of us think that we've done our best yet. I mean, maybe Kevin [Parker] has, but I think we have some classic songs in us. That's motivation.”
‘Hobo Rocket' is out on August 2.