Interview: Repairs

REPAIRS

Emerging from a long summer of boredom and growing into one of the most interesting new additions to the Melbourne underground music scene, Repairs is the collective fruit of friends Jon Koop, Alex Lee, Ben Hepworth and Andrew Brocchi. With one cassette to their name, and a 7” forthcoming, I had the chance to speak with Jon and Alex via e-mail.


Why did Repairs form, as a band?

Jon Koop: Boredom. A long summer with nothing better to do and no one fun to hang out with.

Alex Lee: Previously we'd been working on some other projects together, but we were struggling to produce anything we actually liked. We went through several transformations as a group, regarding sound and overall style and Repairs just happened to be one of those transformations.

How has your sound evolved, in your mind, since the first cassette? Do you approach composition any differently now, compared to when you first started?

JK: Looking back, the cassette feels quite cohesive as whole to me, but that sound has been hard to replicate, mainly because of the way the songs were written and recorded. We recorded the songs as we wrote them, using a faulty reel-to-reel and a cheap microphone, overdubbing each track, guessing levels every time. Since then, the instruments we were using have all been replaced, so our sound has been changed by that as well.

AL: In terms of composition I'd say that we all had a lot more time back when we were recording the cassette and were able to work together in a more communal fashion when writing and recording each track on a song. These days our compositions would usually come from a live jam.

How are your lyrics shaped? (according to how they sound, vocally and musically; or more literately, according to theme or narrative?)

JK: My lyrics tend to be vague and fragmentary. I never really want them to be the primary focus, I prefer them to sit in the mix with all the other instrumentation, so hopefully they are complementary. Thematically, I try not to go beyond what I know or what I've experienced. I've realised that I write about place a fair bit too, about my surroundings and my relation to them.

Are you supporters of analogue formats (cassette, vinyl); or have your previous cassette and forthcoming 7" simply just been grabbed opportunities rather than planned?

JK: I think there's something very fetishistic about cassette and vinyl, but in a nice way - they are actually nice objects to have these days, especially when compared to a stack of CDs.

AL: I'd agree with Jon; analogue formats definitely have more charm. I'd think all of us would prefer to release our music on vinyl or cassette as opposed to a CD. I don't think the cassette and 7" simply represent "grabbed opportunities" as we don't take advantage of all our opportunities anyway.

As someone who hasn't seen you live, I have to ask... Is the live show an important aspect of your work, or is it just an extension of your recorded output?

JK: Since we recorded our tape, Repairs has virtually been nothing but a live band. The band really has a split personality in that sense, so if people haven't seen us live before it might not be what you expect. We don't really rehearse very much, so shows can be quite varied from one to the next.

AL: Yeah, our shows can vary quite a lot. I tend to think of our recorded output to be quite separate from our live shows too.

JK: However, whether it's live or recorded, it's still the same people writing and performing together, so to me it's coming from the same place.


&c.

Photo by Ben Butcher.