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| The Church (Photo: Adam Nicholas) |
When The Church takes the stage at August Hall on July 21st (tickets here), they'll be bringing 45 years of atmospheric Australian rock to San Francisco—a city that frontman Steve Kilbey considers a spiritual sister to his native Sydney. Best known for their hypnotic 1988 hit "Under the Milky Way," The Church has crafted a catalog that spans from jangly post-punk to sprawling psychedelic soundscapes, with Kilbey's introspective lyrics and the band's signature guitar interplay combining to create their signature sound. In our recent conversation, the refreshingly candid Kilbey—who describes himself as having "a bit of a personality disorder" and being "too honest for my own good"—opened up about his complicated relationship with singles versus albums, why he's conflicted about playing hits tours, and how The Church's deep catalog offers "byways and highways and shortcuts and cul de sacs" for listeners willing to explore beyond "Starfish." Whether discussing his respect for Led Zeppelin, his memories of feeling like "the cat's pajamas" at legendary Bay Area venues like the I-Beam, or his belief that rock music can make statements other forms can't, Kilbey proves as thoughtful and unpredictable in conversation as The Church's music itself.
SFBayAreaConcerts: 45-year retrospective of songs that are still moving people. How does it feel?
Steve Kilbey: Pretty good. because I have a bit of a personality disorder, I'm too honest for my own good.
I am very conflicted about singles, and I always have been ever since I was about 16. I met a guy at a party and he said, “What are you listening to?” I told him all these songs. He went, “They're singles! What do you mean? You're listening to singles? You're not listening to albums?!” I took it on that I have to be an albums person. And I still, unswervingly, feel that from that one night at that one party when I was 16.
I've watched Becoming Led Zepplin the other night…
SFBAC: What'd you think?
Steve Kilbey: I mean, fucking hell it’s Led Zeppelin!
I think Led Zeppelin, the band are amazing. I think Robert Plant and his singing and his lyrics are stupid, which is my big problem with Led Zeppelin. The band and the music are incredible, but I don't like what he [Robert Plant] does. At some point, Jimmy Page goes, “Let me be clear—there will be no singles.”
And I'm like, “Yeah, that's me right there!” The singles are kind of like, they're sort of trinkets. They're like…
So I'm conflicted, right from the word go about this whole singles business. It started off in Australia where The Church had a lot of hits singles. The promoter in Australia said, “Hey, we've got to do this single show. It's going to do really well. It's what people want.” And then our American managers went, “Hey, let's do this in America.”
I'm still yet to be convinced that that's necessarily what we should have done. Having said all that, and now people are going, “What the fuck? You're supposed to be selling tickets, not telling people to stay away!” Having said all of that, none of our singles were ever intended to be singles. Every one of them was just an innocent album track until somebody somewhere went, “Hey, that should be a single!” And then that song became a single.
SFBAC: Looking at your different greatest hits, your singles collections, it made me think that you have such an interesting approach to your “hits.” Hindsight is finally available on digital platforms. That compilation is an entry point for a number of people
Steve Kilbey: Is it?
SFBAC: Yeah, I'd say so. It has singles, non-album tracks, and some deeper cuts which makes it interesting. What’s your relationship with a compilation like that?
Steve Kilbey: Yeah, I think on the original notes, and I got into trouble for this…I just can't go along with the showbiz thing where you go “Oh! Everything I do, this is the greatest thing, and I really wanted to do this! And oh, I can't wait to get out in America and play all my singles!”
I think even back in the day, when I wrote the liner notes for Heyday, there was one song on there, which is a very obscure song called Trance Ending. In my liner notes, I wrote, “This is my favorite track on the album. I guess that shows where my head's at.” People at the record company were really, “You can't fucking put that on there!” It ended up being allowed to stay, but yeah, still it's very hard to shake off this thing: Albums are good, singles are bad.
SFBAC: I get it.
Steve Kilbey: It's very hard. So the singles always started life as album tracks, and then they became singles because somebody thought that they would be. Sometimes they were right, and sometimes they were wrong. There will still be a lot of what we now call ‘deep cuts.’ It's just that they happened to be singles too.
Also, a lot of them really weren't really actual physically singles either. That whole business had been dropped in The Church world by about the mid-nineties. And the singles were more like a focus track or a taster—a teaser or something.
So yeah, I reckon it'll be good. I reckon it'll be a really good show, And at the end of it all I'll go, “Wow, who would've thought that would've been such so much fun to do all that?”
SFBAC: You're coming off of two really strong albums too, which is interesting, timing-wise.
Steve Kilbey: Yeah, I know. It's a weird thing to do. It's like a chess game where you've suddenly stopped; you're pressing the advantage and something really important's happening. Then suddenly you start going back and fiddling around with a bone somewhere. It's kind of a weird thing to do, but that appeals to me as well. It appeals to me, the weirdness of The Church going out and doing a singles tour.
In Australia, it's like a no brainer. I know that's what people really want. And the shows are almost already all sold out here, the single show Imagine. But in America, it's almost such a middle of a road thing to do and such a strange and unusual thing for us to do that it's almost taken on some kind of, it's almost like a weird thing that we've suddenly gone so straight.
SFBAC: That's true. Speaking of not going straight, El Memento Descuidado is a perfect example of putting something out there mixing things up, changing out the structures of songs that people know. It's interesting when you take a single and turn it and twist it. What made you decide to approach some of those classic songs a little differently on that album?
Steve Kilbey: Well, okay, so this record company came along and said, “Hey, we specialize in putting out these acoustic versions. Would you like to do some acoustic versions of your singles?” And I was like, “Yeah, as long as we can do some new stuff as well, and as long as we can fuck around with the singles.”
They were like, “Okay!” And so we did. And I think some of them we fucked around successfully. And I think other ones like "[Under The] Milky Way" is a disaster on that record; that's a terrible version of "Milky Way". But "Unguarded Moment" turned into something rich and strange where the normal version of it is sort of like, ah…
Look, my desire is always to be left of center.
SFBAC: I get it.
Steve Kilbey: Yeah, I know you get it.
SFBAC: Are there songs that you have coming up for this tour that you think you're going to take in a little different direction that than people are used to expecting? Or how are you going to put some of that stamp on?
Steve Kilbey: No, no. We're going to play the singles as they were intended to be heard. No, we're not reinterpreting any of the singles or doing anything different with them.
I don’t know why, I think that I'm not a big fan of that, and I've never seen it very successfully done; someone is always disappointed. When you go and see David Bowie and he’s dreamed up some new way of doing Ziggy Stardust…
SFBAC: Dylan does that sometimes.
Steve Kilbey: Dylan, oh, Dylan's the worst! When he did that reggae album…
So things like that have really put me off and made me feel like if people want hear fucking "Unguarded Moment" live and they want to hear fucking "Under the Milky Way" live, we are going to try and do it like the studio version, but with more oomph. With a bit more live oomph, but not totally remodel it.
SFBAC: That makes sense.
Steve Kilbey: Yeah. So the songs we're doing, you will hopefully recognize; it won't be like three quarters way through the song you go, “Oh, he is doing like a Rolling Stone!”
Yeah. I don’t know why people do that, quite frankly. Every now and then someone does take some old song and gives it a thorough reworking and you go, “Wow.” But very rarely.
Mainly, I don't think the audience really want that. I think they want to hear it the way they…in Australia they want to hear 'em the way they remember them.
SFBAC: When you're billing a tour as singles-based event, then obviously you're right, people come in with a certain expectations.
But speaking of singles, you were talking about how sometimes you have a different approach to a song and you don't know if it's going to be a single or not. "Realm of Minor Angels": That's the type of song that unfolds over time—it’s hypnotic and exciting, but you don't know if you'd call it a single at first. So are there songs where you thought, “People are going to get it,” versus songs that take a little momentum?
Steve Kilbey: I'm glad you mentioned that song. That's one of my favorite Church songs ever.
When we did it, I said to the whole band, “I cannot tell you how much I love this song.”
SFBAC: It's a special one.
Steve Kilbey: Yeah, it really was. And a guy told me last week, who'd broken up with his wife, he said, “I put this song on and I listened to it 15 times in a row, and I just cry and I cry and I cry.” And I go, “That's fucking amazing.”
So yeah, that one, we’ll definitely be doing that one. And I love that song; but it's strange with The Church, there's been very much a thing where we play a lot of our early stuff, and then in America we play a lot of the later stuff. There’s this huge middle period, we seem to hardly touch.
Well, I hope to rectify that a bit on this tour and play some of the things from albums After Everything Now This and Forget Yourself and Uninvited like The Clouds.
SFBAC: "Sealine"? That would be great.
Steve Kilbey: Wouldn't that be good? That'd be great. Yeah. And one of my favorite Church albums, which I think is up there, is Untitled #23. I'd really like to do a couple of those, like "Pangaea" or "Dead Man's Hand".
SFBAC: Yep, that would be fantastic. Those are singles. They feel like they fit into the whole ouvre of what you have; an evolution of the sound.
Steve Kilbey: Great. Well, and then I think the other thing with the singles show is: Mix it up! Don't do 'em chronologically. Mix 'em all up and try and make it so someone who's never heard, the band won't know which period they're coming from.
SFBAC: That's cool.
Steve Kilbey: Yeah. So look, I know I sort of disparaged the idea a bit, but talking to you, because you are the second journalist I've talked to about this, based on the things you're saying, maybe this can be a really good idea.
And, it's not chiseled in stone. In Australia, it's chiseled in stone. Like the promoter's gone, “Hey, you guys are going to play the singles, and you're going to play the singles, right?”
In America, if we fucking feel like playing something that wasn't a single, it might be the exception. That breaks the rule.
SFBAC: Especially in the Bay Area.
Steve Kilbey: In the Bay Area, you can do whatever you like!
SFBAC: Yeah. Well that's one of the things I was going to ask you. Great American Music Hall, Slims, so many venues, so many places you've played in the Bay. Do you have a favorite place or two that you just love?
Steve Kilbey: I used to love the I-Beam.
It might be before your time, is it? That's where I met Donette Thayer one night. And she was in a band called, oh Jesus, how could I forget what was the band was called?! They were a big band at the time, and they had this album out called Lolita Nation. [The band was Game Theory.] I can't believe it, I must be losing my mind!
Anyway, yeah, the I-Beam—I used to feel really, I felt like I was at the hippest in the world. In 1986 when I walked on stage at the I-Beam, I thought I was the cat's pajamas.
SFBAC: That's awesome.
Steve Kilbey: And the Warfield’s a great theater. Of course, all those other gigs you mentioned Slims and the Fillmore—playing there’s like…Imagine being a kid growing up in Australia in Canberra, and you see these posters, these psychedelic posters. Tonight, Cream! Country, Joe and the Fish! And then you actually get to go there and play there. It's more than just…I don't know, it's like suddenly part of something much bigger than yourself.
San Francisco's always had a good connection with The Church. Although our popularity has ebbed and flowed and waxed and waned, playing in San Francisco, certainly I can feel like a lot of these people here are my people. There's a tradition here of psychedelia and smoking weed and musical wig outs. And after all, Sydney and San Francisco are Sister Cities. Did you know that?
SFBAC: I did not know that.
Steve Kilbey: Yeah, so playing in San Francisco is a special kind of reconnection.
SFBAC: So regarding different versions of different songs. "Grind" is an example of a track where the acoustic version is just absolutely haunting. And yet on Gold Afternoon Fix, you went with the full plugged in version. What makes you decide when a song needs to be a full band version or when something needs to be more stripped down?
Steve Kilbey: Usually it's full band version. Unless someone's saying, “Hey, make an acoustic album.” I think full band version is always the best thing.
That's why I'm a rock musician, not a folk musician. I'm not a singer-songwriter standing there alone with my acoustic guitar. I think that if I could live for another thousand years, or even another million years, give two guitars, bass drums, and I believe I would never run out of things to do with it. I think what we have so far explored with these instruments is like a puddle in a huge forest.
I think that, I really believe that rock music is capable of making statements that other forms of music can't make. Because of electric guitar, because what electric guitar can do it, it can be sweet, it can bleed, it can hemorrhage, it can sound like all the other instruments in the orchestra.
You look at Ride—when Ride first came out, you can't even tell what's going on. It's just a total blanket of sound, and it's just got this general melodic surge to it. So ideally my favorite thing is to be on stage with The Church, with the electric guitars and the drums pounding. And that's always my ideal version of a song.
SFBAC: That's awesome. And this band you have is so strong that you get to hear these songs with a different, like you said, a different type of energy in a different way. So I think that'll be really exciting for people to see on this tour.
Steve Kilbey: Hopefully.
SFBAC: Heyday is one of my favorite albums. From the first to the fourth to the fifth song, that whole suite in the beginning is just so incredible. And that's something that you get from an album experience.
I was going to ask you earlier, you talked about albums versus singles before, but obviously there's some albums that have their own narrative. They’re created where you can just pluck out singles. Is there an album that you have that delivers the most complete experience listening beginning to end?
Steve Kilbey: Priest=Aura.
SFBAC: Yes!
Steve Kilbey: I think Heyday started off with a bang, and the first four songs—wow! And then halfway through the second side it ran out of steam, unfortunately. It seemed to start off with the best song in my opinion. And then by the time you get to the three last songs on the other side, it's sort of like, “Ah…” It didn't keep it up.
But Priest=Aura, I feel like for that version of the band was definitely our high point. It all feels like an album. You don’t go, “Oh, all the good stuff was at the beginning.” Or, “There's a great track at the beginning, a great track at the end, and everything in the middle is filler.”
SFBAC: It feels like it's a story. It feels like there's a narrative.
Steve Kilbey: Yeah. And then, as I said, I think Untitled #23 did that. That’s an album not a lot of people ever seem to mention or talk about—journalists or fans or anybody. And then of course, [The] Hypnogogue and Eros Zita [and the Perfumed Guitars] I feel like they came together.
Strangely, after, we made a brand new album in Austin last year, which is coming out at the end of this year or early next year. It’s an album of unrelated songs that don't have anything to do with each other, but we'll see how that goes.
SFBAC: We could think of a few of those, like Quick Smoke at Spot’s. I remember to these fragments of pieces and thinking “Wow.” It's interesting to have some of those albums out there where it's like short stories.
Steve Kilbey: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, short stories. Yeah, a collection of short stories.
Another one that's pretty hard to track down, you might not even have heard of it, is called Back With Two Beasts. Have you ever heard of that?
SFBAC: No.
Steve Kilbey: I think you can get it on streaming, but it was only available from us. And there was a CD of when I think when we did Forget Yourself or there were all these songs left over that I took away and finished on my own. It's a really weird and wonderful kind of record. At the end, when it was all over, I was like, “why didn't we release this instead of the other one?”
But yeah, if you get into The Church, there's a lot of byways and highways and shortcuts and cul de sacs. There's a lot of stuff to explore. And El Momento Descuidado and El Momento Siguiente—all these records, and Hindsight; there's a lot of stuff to get into. The band is a lot more than just Starfish.
SFBAC: Oh sure. Of course—definitely. Steve, you have been so generous with your time.
Steve Kilbey: No worries mate.
SFBAC: Yeah, well, we'll be seeing you real soon. Thanks. And the Bay Area is looking forward for some psychedelic Church rock and roll.
Steve Kilbey: Absolutely. Keep on rocking in the free world!
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