Catching Up With SJD (Interview)

Taite Prize winner SJD, aka Sean Donnelly, is on the bill at this weekend’s Music At Matua festival along with Trinity Roots, Joseph & Maia and Laughton Kora. This seems a good a reason as any to give Sean a call and see what he’s been up to. As it turns out, quite a bit. He and his new band have just played their first show at the Big Day Out and they’ve been busy at Neil Finn’s Roundhead Studio, recording a new album that should be released later this year. So, listen in as The 13th Floor catches up with SJD here:

Or read a transcription of the interview here:

MD: So you’ve been working on some new music. I’m curious as to what you’re going to come up with here when you’re playing out. What kind of thing are you up to?

SJD: Sure, sure. Well so I’ve got a new band, or a new and old band, which debuted at The Big Day Out. And that was very good. We’ve done a bunch of new songs. We’ve been upstairs in what we call Studio C, at Roundhead; Neil’s got his private little studio there so we basically recorded an album’s worth of songs. Probably about more than halfway through now; a good two thirds of the way through that process. And we’ve been debuting some of them.

MD: So we’re going to hear some of the new stuff when you’re playing over the weekend?

SJD: Yeah. I find in general people don’t like it you err too much on the side of new music. But a few new things for sure.

MD:I remember reading something where you said you considered the electronic version of SJD something of an “interesting failure”. So obviously you’ve moved away from the electronic stuff.

SJD: Yeah that’s kind of how I see it at the moment. I was maybe a little harsh but certainly I didn’t see it that way when I was doing it. But I think that’s sometimes how you get the energy to move onto the next things. That you’ve failed dismally and you try to redeem yourself.

MD: So do you have to do some regrouping in order to get where you are now?

SJD: Well it sort was regrouping in the sense that I got a new group of people to help me make it. But the songs that we’re doing are songs that I guess are…some of them are up to five or six years old. So they’re things that I’ve written in the background while I’ve been doing other things. Definitely more guitar based music. And Neil gave me the opportunity to go in and use his studio. He was pretty keen to…he liked the songs I’d written. And I think he was also keen to test out his studio with a band. So it was a hopefully a sort of a win/win thing. Actually he’s playing piano on the album too.

MD: Yeah I was gonna ask you if he was taking a more active role.

SJD: Yeah he’s playing piano with the guitar and a bit of Wurlitzer and also sticking his two cents in when he felt that in the end something was falling short which was invaluable really.

MD: And I just received a copy of the new Neil Finn album Dizzy Heights and I see you’re on that and you’ve done some writing with him as well.

SJD: Oh just a little bit, just a little bit. You know it’s one of those things always got a lot of potential in the future and maybe we’ll do some collaboration. Because we enjoy working together; I enjoy working together with him anyway. But I think this album…he’d had a bunch of songs written over a period of time. I had a really minimal input into that album. But I think it’s really great, I think it’s one of the best things he’s done.

MD: So what stage are you in with your album now? I think you starting recording at the end of last year sometime.

SJD: That’s correct. Well as I say I’m about two thirds of the way through it now. I’ve got basic good versions of most of the songs. I think we’re going to go rerecord a couple in the next couple of weeks. But the last third is just me getting in there and messing with it a bit. I wasn’t sure how much I was going to do that you know. I was thinking to just leave the band performances as they are. But I think it’s…I like a little bit of cut and paste and to and fro and general disruption. Because that’s the point of difference between a studio recording  and live. I like that. And it just creates another Meta narrative that you can sort of play with or completely ignore as a listener.

MD: And when you’re thinking about that, do you think about how you’re going to recreate it live?

SJD: Yeah. But live is different; it’s totally different than studio and I like that aspect. I like the idea of pulling out different versions of things and messing with things. And for me it now, having done the Elastic Wasteland thing, I mean it’s definitely now having sort of got that sonic sculpture thing a little bit out of my system, it’s way more about the songs now. I feel like my songbook, having messed around with motoric jams and instrumentals and I guess what you call semi half songs, I’m just keen to beef up the old songbook a little bit before I shuffle off this mortal coil.

MD: Hopefully, that’s a long way away!

SJD: Yeah but you know what I mean? You’ ve got to start at some stage. So basically this time around on this album, they are all strong songs. You could play it on acoustic guitars and it they stand up. And people always said Oh that’s the definition of a good song and I would argue strongly that it’s not because there’s so many awesome things that are all about a moment in time or a certain kind of recording, a certain kind of sound, whatever. But definitely this time round I’ve tried to adhere to that particular maxim, yeah.

MD: And the songs themselves are there any unifying themes? Is there something that you’re writing about? Or are they just various songs about various things?

SJD: Generally, you know there’s a bit of miserabilism going on in there. No, if I were to be completely fair to those songs they’re pretty strong, I think most of them. Not everyone is going to agree with that. But I think they probably, on a sliding scale from wallowing misery and a sort of a hopeful redemptive kind of quality with some of them.

MD: So you’ll think you’ll have it out before the end of this year?

SJD: Oh totally. I’d want to have it out by about June.

MD: So the live show this weekend we’ll hear some of that and old favourites. Do you spend quite a bit of time mulling over what you’re going to perform live in this point of your career?

SJD: Um…No. No we just have a crack at stuff. It’s throwing spaghetti at the wall and if it sticks it’s al dente. I think that’s it. We just…you know there’ll be more time. Within our allotted rehearsal time we do what we can. And I was pretty chuffed about The Big Day Out and that went really well and that all bodes really good for Saturday too. It’s a really good band and they really enjoy playing. I think even for people who don’t know this music it’ll come across pretty well.

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