Interview by Karen Murphy

“We just wanted to have a go,” says James Treacy, drummer for Fremantle band, HAND STANDS FOR ANTS on their latest Project, ‘Hand Stands for Ants Under the Microscope’. The three band members will record their second album live in the Perth Enex 100 building, writing their songs as they go, over a two week period from the 4^th of October until Sunday the 17th. “Once we get it done we’ll really enjoy the fact that we’ve worked so hard to get to this point,” says Treacy. “But we’re still not there yet; we’ve got a lot of stuff to get sorted. Sponsors have been really helpful, given us gear. Music Park and Fremantle Music Centre have looked after us in that way, Rocket IT as well. Film and Television Institute are helping us out with some gear. It’s just been contacting people non-stop. Begging, on our knees. ‘Excuse me, please, can you help us?’”

Setting themselves a daunting task, the band plans to do everything from recording the album to the final edits, midi production, arranging and mixing, in the building. “We’re writing the record while we record it and the reason we’re doing that is because it’s another thing about the live performance,” the boys say, “about how fans say bands can’t capture the live performance. I think a lot of that is, you’ve written a song and then you play it a few times live and then you go into a studio and record it and you’re not in the same mood as when you first wrote the song. Whereas if you’re writing and recording at the same time you’re in the moment, you’re there. It makes every single take a performance.”

“I’m actually a bit worried about some of the vocals, you know,” Bruno Booth [lead guitar and vocals] explains of their decision to use single track digital recording. “Looking out to see forty people looking at me, and all they can hear is me singing. It’d be an interesting thing. Of course people won’t be coming in and out [of the studio] all the time, we’ll have the doors shut most of the time. But we’ll have headphone feeds running through the store so that people can listen and then look through, and we’ll just be inside so we could be saying absolutely anything, turn the blue mike on, abuse people for five minutes and they’d be like, ‘oh, aren’t they nice?’ Not that we would do that. I mean I don’t mind, I don’t mind people watching, I don’t have a problem with it.”

Trying to make the most of this opportunity, the band is also hoping to experiment with new sounds on the record, by making it more theatrical and eccentric. “There’s going to be a lot more sporadic things,” Treacy says, “someone going, ‘oh, I’ve got a line for this bit.’ You know, someone just writes one riff and someone else will go, ‘oh, I’ve got a line for that.’”

You can listen to the band live in the Enex 100 building during shop trading hours in the city, and if you’re lucky, you can also catch some of their special guest artists. “Lately we’ve been trying to work towards the idea of a musical community,” Treacy explains. “Like, we work with Fremantle Records, which is largely community based, and we’ve played with a lot of these people, had a jam and it’s been fun, and we’ve been, ‘shit, wouldn’t it be fun to have them record with us?’ So we started asking people, to see if they want to come and it’s been surprising, the ton of support. We’ve got Jake Webb from Sugarpuss, May from Mother Griffin, Tomás Ford, Lyndon Blue: he’s not confirmed yet, but he said he’d do it. He’ll probably just rock up one day, wearing some cool pants.”

The band is hoping to score six feature artists all up, inviting three in each week for solo performances and then all six on Friday the 15^th for a final rap up. After that it looks at finishing the record and finalising the editing process. “I’m quite excited about working with other people as well,” Bruno adds. “We get our same three opinions passed around a lot for two weeks straight. Fourteen days, that’s a lot. It’ll be nice to hear other people’s voices and opinions. It is good only having three members though, majority rules. Two Hand Stands for Ants members out rule the other. Feature artists count for half a member, so it’ll be like one and a half against two.” Treacy decides to add, “I think we’re gonna have to set up a stool in the corner with a dunce hat just in case. Make a little time out stool, so when you’re sleepy you can go relax somewhere and have a nap.”

As they left, the boys had just one last thing to say. “It’s not like we’re better than anybody else. We just have a different idea and we want to pursue it. What’s the point in just playing gigs when you can do things like this?”

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