Thursday, April 26, 2012

Interview with Donovan Miller, Die On Planes


Last week Die On Planes release The Deep Future landed on my lap and it immediately struck a chord with this frightened old man; what was it about? Was it art? Was it music? I caught up with drummer Donovan Miller in an attempt to get some answers.
So Mr Donovan, when did it all begin for you guys? “It started in about 2006 or 2007; I can’t remember exactly when, but we were at university and we started out just doing sound experimentation together – we weren’t particularly playing rock music or anything like that. We were just sort of jamming with guitars and amps...” Donovan goes on to explain the band moved up from New South Wales to their current location of Brisbane, Queensland. At this point in their history, he adds that “We changed the format a bit with drums and bass and guitar, like a typical rock band or something. There wasn’t much planning around it – just some mucking around and making some sounds into a proper band eventually.”
So is it art. Is it music? Enlighten me and remove my confusion and fear. “I think it’s definitely more of an art project – it’s not a band specifically – though we do often play with the three members which is me, Dave (Holmes) and Steve (Rose) but it isn’t set to just us three. Sometimes there’ll be more people or maybe just two off us, even one of us, and we kind of create music or whatever else happens as a collective, so it’s not necessarily a band, so to speak; it’s more about basic artistic creation together, I guess.”
He mentions that everything the band does is improvised; both your live performances AND the recordings? “Yeah, all of it – that’s the only ‘rule’ – we don’t actually write anything at all. It’s always in the moment and there’s no planning involved.” So with The Deep Future, did you all just plug in and let loose, recording whatever came out of the sessions? “That’s like a bunch of different things from a long period of time. That’s essentially how everything was recorded that’s on there; we kind of filtered through a whole bunch of material that we’d recorded over time, with the things that made the cut, making it through, so none of it was written; it was all improvised at the time. We’ll play a piece and if we’re happy with it then that’s a song.”
Does the band attempt to reproduce recorded songs when playing live? “No, we don’t.  I think, very rarely, we might all remember something or something similar to what we’ve recorded before. That might happen if we thought that it was really good but that’s never discussed before the show so it’s a total chance thing.” He explains that generally Die On Planes tries to stay away from attempts at reproducing previously recorded stuff “...so it’s like a fresh creation all the time. Though we’re not perfectionists about it – if it sucks then that’s kind of good as well – because it’s just about the process; we’re not really after any particular end result.”
With the live set-up, is it just bass, drums and guitar or do you incorporate any electronics? “That all depends. If it’s just Dave, Steve and I then it’s usually a drum kit and the guys will have a couple of amps each, playing straight in. We don’t really use any pedals or anything like that, it’s all just about maximising volume and having the instruments behave a bit more weirdly with everything turned up to full all the time. That’s like a standard configuration if it’s all three of us but Dave and I did a show last year, supporting Thrones, and I think we were using all circuit bent waves and stuff. It just really depends on who is available to play at the time. We’re working on a project at the moment that has three drummers, which is like a five piece band. I think we’ll do a few shows in that configuration. Should be interesting, I guess...” Hmmm. Sounds intriguing.
I noticed the band rejects ideas of an having an intellectual base or starting point for what you do; please explain. “Yeah, it’s not intellectual. It’s really about removing yourself from the process as much as possible; I don’t know if that makes any sense but we’re more inclined to let the instruments play themselves and just have a minimal amount of interaction – at least that goes for the guitar playing part of the band – I play drums most of the time so I have to play something though it’s never like I’m going to try and play something really tricky or try and put a point across. It’s more about being as base as possible, and the playing is really simple and repetitive. There’s nothing intellectual about it; it’s more about exploring what that sounds like or feels like.”
So to paraphrase an infamous shoe company; just bloody do it? “Yeah! Pretty much. You just do it and it turns out however.”
Does the band ever swap instruments? “Yeah, it does happen, though I don’t know if we’ve ever played a show like that. We’ve played shows where it’s all been guitars but I don’t know if we’ve ever played a show where Steve’s played drums...but that could happen. It’s just the standard configuration that seems to work really well, and bringing in additional people to do other roles usually works pretty well too. But we don’t do that much switching; I might jump onto guitar if there’s not that much percussion involved.”
So who influences and inspires the band? “I can only really speak for myself but sound-wise, I guess all of us like The Melvins so I think there’s some sort of unintentional Melvins sound to everything but that’s just because we’re all into that sort of music and really like it. I don’t know if there’s any specific band or artist that directly inspires us, it’s more about our personal relationships that inspire the music; we’re all good friends and we’re all pretty weird guys but there’s not that much intention so I guess there’s not that much influence to draw from.”
Well, there you have it. I’m slightly less confused and slightly less frightened (though I’m still old so that’s a bit shit) about the stuff that Die On Planes are pumping out. As I like a bit of art and a bit of  experimentation (sexual, chemical and other), I rather enjoy what they’re doing. The next step for me is to catch them in a live setting with some heavy psychedelics heaving in my bloodstream. I’d advise you do the same.

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