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Firstly, for readers unfamiliar with your music, how would you describe Husky's sound?
Maybe like warm sunshine on a really cold winter’s day…a thick fog over a silent sea… wolves howling in the moonlight…a dream that you can’t quite remember but stays with you all day long…or something like that. Gideon Preiss (keys) and I recorded and produced the new album in a studio we set up in my house and backyard bungalow. We labored endlessly over the details, to get the sounds and vibe and performances we wanted. We then took the record to LA to mix it with Noah Georgeson (Joanna Newsom, Devendra Banhart) and he brought it all to life so beautifully.
Please tell us a little about your recently released single - "Hundred Dollar Suit". What is the tune about? Is there a message you are trying to get accross to listeners?
It’s a song based on a poem I wrote about the perils of time and the absurdity of life. Gideon (keys), Evan (Bass) and I wrote the music together one night over a bottle of cheap scotch, but it seems to have done the job. There is no message really. I don’t see our songs as messages, just doors that we hope people will open, to lead them somewhere interesting or moving, perhaps somewhere they’ve been before or somewhere they would like to be…
What have been the major musical influences on the development of your sound?
There are so many influences, it’s difficult to name just a few. My back ground is in the classic song writers – Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Paul Simon, Joni Mitchell – and the classic bands – The Doors, the Beatles, The Beach Boys. The other guys in the band too but they also grew up on jazz and soul and even though it’s not that apparent in our sound, it’s definitely an influence. There’s a lot of incredible music around now too, in Australia and all over, and we’re constantly finding new bands to listen to. There’s a band called Little Joy from the USA I’ve really been digging lately…no one seems to know them here…
Your website bio describes you as a poet - are there any literary works (poetry, fiction etc) which have significantly influences the crafting of your lyrics? Which writers inspire you?
Leonard Cohen, who is a poet and a song writer is one of the many. I grew up loving the classic poets – Dylan Thomas, Wordsworth, Blake – and all sorts of novelists, from the Russian classics to the great American authors such as Bellow, Hemmingway, Faulkner. I suppose these all had an influence on my song writing.
How did you come together with the rest of your band?
Gideon and I are cousins. We were always bound to come together musically at some point I guess. Coming from similar backgrounds and growing up together means we are very much on the same wavelength. The others are like minded people we were lucky enough to meet along the way. There is no interesting story behind it. We are just four lucky guys who love hanging out and love playing music together. It’s a kind of chemistry that, in my experience, is really hard to find.
Your music has been likened by many reviewers to the sounds produced by outfits like Grizzly Bear, Fleet Foxes and young Sydney band Boy & Bear - do you think Husky fits into this indie-folk genre? How do you think your music compares/differs to that produced by these artists?
I don’t know if it’s a good or bad thing to be compared to those bands. I think there are similarities and I think that people who like those bands might also like ours. I also think that those three bands are very different to each other so to be compared to all three already makes the comparison very broad. I think we have a sound that is recognizably ours and we certainly try to pull our songs and sound from within us as opposed to recycling the great stuff we hear. That’s not to say that there aren’t moments or hints in our songs, of the bands we love and hear, like the ones you mentioned. But I don’t think we could sound like those bands if we tried.
What should people expect the first time they see Husky perform a live show?
Well, I think they should expect a lot and we’ll try extremely hard to live up to that expectation. We take our live show very very seriously. I would really love to see us live but, unfortunately, I’ll never get to.
What are your plans for the next 6-12 months?
We release our full length album in March 2011. So the plan is to play and tour as much as we can. We are planning to get all over Australia over the next 6 months and then might look at the possibility of playing overseas. We mixed our record in the USA and loved it there so we’d love to play some shows there in the next 12 months. But there are still many parts of Australia we haven’t been to so we’re really looking forward to getting to those places.
