INTERVIEW: PETER MAYES from PNAU

Matt Bladin December 6, 2012 Comments Off

Peter Mayes from PNAU took time out to speak with Matt Bladin from THE RIPE . Here’s what went down.

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Matt Bladin: Hey Peter, thanks for taking the time to talk to us. What have you been up to lately?

Peter Mayes: Hey! I’ve just been in Australia for three weeks now. Most of this year has been dedicated to the new Empire Of The Sun record, which is not entirely done but very close. It’s going incredible. Most of the other parts (of this year) were spent finishing the Elton vs Pnau album.

I also moved from London to LA, which is not just like packing a suitcase haha. It was just a nightmare!

MB: Yeah 2012 has been absolutely crazy for you guys. Amongst all the exciting things that have been going on over the last 12 months, what has been the highlight?

PM: The highlight, haha how can I lie… going number 1 in the UK charts. Going number one with Elton was amazing, and he was very excited about it which is even more the reason for us to be excited about it. Every artist wants a ‘number 1′ I guess. Even if they say they don’t. We hadn’t really had any kind of (comparable) success like that, apart from a bit of underground success. To have that album debut at number 1 was amazing. It was crazy because we’d both moved away from home, lived there for 4 or 5 years then moved to America and then all of a sudden we have a bit of success there.

MB: Yeah I can imagine how gratifying it would feel after making music there for so many years.

PM: Yeah exactly, I mean we work like 16 to 18 hours a day every day of the week, so guess we’re not great boyfriends and not great relationship people – but we really believe in what we do and we work our asses off. So to finally have some kind of regognition is just… it does count!

It certainly didn’t change our attitude towards work, you know I mean? I think some people set that as a sort of milestone, then theyre like “oh its number one, that’s great. I’ll just retire now”. But really if anything it’s made us work harder because it’s an amazing thing. There’s so much more to do. There are still plenty more records to be made.

MB: Yeah exactly, I guess working with Elton John and the fact that he’s getting so excited about it too could only be encouraging. What was the most daunting thing about approaching these songs, and such a huge catalogue, that are already loved and cherished by so many?

PM: Well I guess the most daunting thing is that your working… or tinkering with a genius’s work. It’s so loved, and it’s not to be taken lightly. Also that the catalogue is so vast. I mean he was making two or three records and year – and like, who does that now?

So just the sheer volume of work, and sheer volume of great work. I think he’s released like over 600 songs. The guy never stopped. There were a couple of times in he’s life where he stopped briefly for a little bit, but really he’s still going. I think he did like 100 shows this year? He’s more of a work-aholic then we are!

MB: When taking on a catalogue that big, obviously with so many hits, did you have any preconceived biases or favourites you had avoid, or maybe embrace?

PM: We all have our favourites haha… but guess there are favourite songs we listen to as fans, and then there are favourites songs we’d listen to and go “we can do something with this.” But the general concept – and it’s not like we sat this down and mapped this out on paper or anything – was to ‘avoid the hits.’ I just don’t see the point of doing a re-release of ‘ Rocket Man ,’ no one saw the point of that. So the greatest task was to find a gem, that people didn’t know! So tried to really dig as deep as we possibly could.

We listened to his music, absorbed it every day for like 6 months before we really got properly started. Obviously then there were months and months of just sorting out files, because they’re just like tapes that have been transferred. Especially with a reel of tape right, you’ve got like 5 or 6 songs on there, there was a lot of that house keeping sort of stuff. It was just a big project… and that’s something we knew when we were first given it. It was like, “ oh my god, what if we fuck this up, ” haha you know?

Elton has been so great to us. He’s given us so much in so many ways looking out for us, and obviously with his company and that, it has just been an incredible thing. So really, for us it felt like, “ what do you give someone that has every thing ?” You give them a great record.

The ultimate thing for us was to make some thing that made him happy, and that was our usual aim – if Elton likes it, that’s all that really matters. And luckily other people have as well – haha.

We didn’t really play it through until it was almost done, when we had like 6 or 7 tracks and we played it through he was really excited, dancing around the room and all that, so we couldn’t have asked for a better reaction.

MB: Yeah the album is really such a kaleidoscope of elements, hidden gems, and those things people might not be familiar with from his back catalogue. One big thing people have said about the record is the distinct absence of a lot of piano? What was the rationale behind this, and how much of your own productions did you throw into the mix?

PM: Yeah throughout his carreer he is a piano player and piano songwriter, so one thing that’s always been at the forefront of records is the piano. Again I don’t think it was really a conscious thing, we just did it – really scrapping that from the songs.

We noticed that when you get rid of the lead instrument pretty much on every track that underneath it is this incredible rhythm section and such incredible content through out the whole spam of his career. We could essentially make it pretty much without the piano and really focus on how incredible the instruments and his voice is. That was huge, but I think it was a good thing. I think it really differentiates this album to other Elton albums. I think it makes it stand out and more interesting.

I guess you cant get rid of the piano entirely and that’s why we had track ‘ Sixty ’, which is adapted from like 5 different versions of a song ‘ Sixty Years On ’, which has some classical moments on the piano. So when we heard that we were like “ Oh my god ” and fell in love with that – “ Let’s make that the piano moment on the record .”

Then we built every thing around that. There are so many different instruments in there playing the same melody, just playing that moment, rather than having heavy piano on every track. So just having that was probably a good option; that, and not using the hits I think were two things we stuck to.

The cool thing with Elton, and why he’s so great at guiding artists, is that he’s really smart with artists, because he is one. He knows how to speak to creative people and how to encourage them, not just telling them what they’re doing right and wrong, but really giving you that good feeling.

He never tried to guide us really. He never really said “Oh I want this one to sound like this, why don’t you try this song,” or anything like that, which is amazing. It left us with a million options, with complete creative control. Which is cool because he could’ve said what ever he wanted and we would’ve done it out of respect [laughs].

MB: Has working on such big, renowned projects like ‘ Good Morning To The Night ’, following up Empire Of The Sun, and even the Cirque De Soleil stuff, changed your perceptions of how you make music?

PM: I think that having been given access to someone’s catalogue who has been so successful for so long is such a golden moment. I was born towards the late end of seventies, but I think a lot of young people now don’t really understand how big he was. He was huge! – and there’s a reason for that.

Basically, he’s a musical genius. He writes lyrics like nobody else, it’s like he’s writing a novel or film or something. Working with that… it’s just an education. If you have all that at your disposal, you’ve got one of the greatest educations that a producer/songwriter can have on how to make a great record. So if it’s right there in front of you and you can’t learn it from them, you need to maybe think about what you’re doing in the industry. You know what I mean? It was such a invaluable education that we couldn’t really get anywhere else.

I think now as computer producers, what we tend to do is we add and add and there are really no limits. You really have to impose creative limitations on your self in a good way. You have to stop and go OK this is all we need. When you break down some of the incredible records from the 70s, you also find there’s not actually that much in there. It’s all really carefully chosen and everything they did had a purpose.

MB: Let’s talk about New Year’s Eve coming up and the Harbour show. So you guys have obviously been playing heaps of shows over the last year. I’ve read some pretty crazy reports about the live show you guys did with Elton in Ibiza. When you’re doing all these shows around the world, how do you find the home crowd receives what you guys do?

PM: Yeah, I think we’ve always been well received here, not only because it’s a home crowd but because they tend to expect a good show, especially within the confines of live electronic music. A lot of people just stand up there in front of a computer screen. We try not to do the kind of “ checking your email on a laptop ” show, the crowd can’t tell what you’re doing! You see people go to a rock show, you see the guy strum out a chord on his guitar and you hear the noise, and people need that connection. They need to actually see that something’s happening.

MB: So what does a PNAU live line-up feature?

PM: Well, at the moment, with this record and our last record, we’ve basically been presenting as a totally live band. So even though we’re still an electronic music act, and still make music that way, we have 5 or 6 people on stage. And everyone is singing and we have a live drummer and two guitarists and few keyboards and backing vocalists – it’s a live band! We’re pumped to get the shows on!

MB: Peter, thanks for taking to the time to talk to us today, it’s been great, we look forward to seeing the show goes.

PM: Thanks Matt, it’s been great.

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PNAU are playing at New Year’s Eve “On The Harbour” at Cargo Bar , Sydney on 31st December . Supported by AJAX, YesYou, Elizabeth Rose, DJ Flagrant (dj/av set) SOSUEME DJs, Emoh Instead (What So Not), Kristy Lee and more.