Bob Moses’ Jimmy on first Australian headline dates
Red-hot off their 2018 release of sophomore album ‘Battle Lines’, Bob Moses will cap off a gruelling year of touring with their first Australian headline shows. We chat to Jimmy Vallance of Bob Moses about Brooklyn’s underground scene, the influence of travel on their music and the inspiration behind their bold live show.
How have you been able to stay so focused and busy after such a big two years?
The trick is to not stop. As soon as you stop, you start to lose sight of being in the moment and start to panic. You use the high and momentum from the shows to continue doing more. You take that into the studio with you and it becomes this constant, ever flowing thing. It’s good to take breaks, but it’s good to not take them for too long. Otherwise, you lose that trajectory.
You’ve not only not stopped, but you’ve amplified every element of yourselves. You’re taking a full band live now, and tour dates are continuing to expand.
How has that felt?
It’s been awesome. We’ve always wanted to be in a band. We’re originally punk-rock kids and ended up doing electronic music. At the time, playing in warehouses in Brooklyn was more punk-rock than what was going on with rock and roll music.
We felt that electronic music was making more of a statement, not only sonically, but politically in how it was expanding. It was a great avenue to go down, and now we’re in this place where we can do it how we want to. We’ve always loved being a band. Our music has always had band elements in it. It has live sounding drums mixed with electronic.
Is having that freedom a product of going overseas and seeing musical diversity?
Yeah. We’re fortunate in that we can do a classic DJ set. We have a classic club show where Tom still sings and plays guitar in a booth, and we have the full live band thing. We can go from playing a festival like Coachella, or Laneway and then go to Brazil and play in a nightclub. It keeps things fresh and inspired. We’re always listening to new music to get inspired and taking [the inspiration] to the studio. We couldn’t ask for a better way to do it.
Do you find the concept that you travel year-round fascinating? How does it inspire and make your live set better?
When I was a kid, everything seemed so far away. Australia, 24 hours on a flight, I would think, ‘what?’ Now, I’ve done it almost 10 times collectively there and back and it feels like nothing. You realise that the world isn’t all that big. Going places is so important. You can read about places on the news, but when you actually go there, a lot of the information passed around isn’t the full picture.
We have the tendency to take a bit of information and turn it into a lot. Travelling is really inspiring to meet people. The world is small, but it’s a diverse place. We’ve been everywhere from China, to Lebanon, Australia and we’re from Canada and live in the States. We see a lot of different cultures and how music affects people. That’s what we wrote our last record about and it’s very inspiring for us.
‘Battle Lines’ lyricism is really pertinent in addressing how conversations with others have made an impact on you as a duo. The album in its entirety is reminiscent of a heavy, dramatic film soundtrack.
Do you ever think about your art that way as you create?
All the time. Someone once said, “music is the soundtrack of our lives”. Tom and I have always thought about that in the back [of our minds]. A lot of the times, I put on music when I go walking, when I go on the subway, on an airplane. It ends up being the soundtrack to what happens in between life.
Also, if you’re at a nightclub or going out, music is played everywhere. The stuff we tend to gravitate towards has that. For example, Radiohead, James Blake, have very film score-ish attributes to it. When we produce music, we love that lush sounding, emotional sound. We pair that with our song-writing and it gives us the blend you mention.
You can see the parallels between you and those musicians live as well in your performance style.
I noticed Tom (lead vocals) isn’t completely stagnant in performing and plays an instrument, but doesn’t use it to hide in any way.
Can you talk about those sorts of stylistic choices?
Growing up and seeing bands having the front man was very appealing to us. It makes it very intimate. It’s like, ‘I’m singing these songs. I mean the words that I’m saying’. It’s connecting with people. If you hide behind something, it becomes tougher to get that primal connection.
When we perform, it’s our primal instinct on stage. It’s cathartic and almost like therapy. You’re singing songs that mean something to you and seeing how much they mean to other people. It’s an amazing thing. It reduces the friction between connecting and not connecting.
It’s almost like anonymity detracts from the heart and gravity of the record.
Yeah, because you’re vulnerable. When you’re up there, you’re standing without anything to hide behind, you’re exposing yourself. I think people are very attracted to that.
Does watching and analysing other bands performing fascinate you?
I do it all the time. I own an amazing DVD of The Prodigy playing live in Brixton in 1997. They just burn the place down it’s so good. The energy is out of control. Athletes like to watch athletes play sport, and we like to watch people in bands play music because it’s what we love to do.
Before I started playing music, I loved watching people play music. Usually you have this ‘aha’ moment where you’re like, ‘I want to do that for the rest of my life’. Something has to be pretty spectacular to make that happen to you. For me, Nine Inch Nails and Nirvana and the music of the 90’s made me go, ‘holy shit, that’s incredible. I want to do that’.
How are big stages and smaller stages different for you, because the size obviously separates the two, but how do you separate them?
They’re both fun for different reasons. We like the big shows in the sense that they’re a little more impersonal. For me, it’s scarier to play to 2000 than 20,000 people. You feel very [watched]. When a crowd is so big, that [fear] doesn’t exist. It feels like a dream and doesn’t feel real.
The thing that’s cool with smaller stages is that we go to the punk-rock thing and we go back to the four of us interacting on stage. If we’re having a good time together, that becomes infectious. With the larger crowd, you want to keep everyone engaged, and if you spend too much time focusing on yourselves on stage, you can lose that.
They’re both different and keep us on our toes… It’s knowing you’re being watched and people are attentive [in small crowds]. It’s a different feeling to being up on a high stage across a sea of people. That’s more isolating. I love looking at the front row in the smaller shows because you feed off the crowd because they’re right there.
Lastly, what can people expect from this new live band and set in Australia?
It’s great to be able to come and play the first headlining shows in Australia. I think people will be stoked, because we’ve had a year now to get our troughs really honed. We feel good about the set we’ve built.
We’re probably going to play a cover when we come down. I think people will dig it. It’s a high energy show. A lot of people say our music has a lot more energy live than it does on records because of the bass… A lot of our music relies on the low-end and when you’re in a big venue, you get hit by that and it’s more energetic than it feels on record.
Is the bigger live sound, and straying from the record part of the eclecticism you guys are attracted to?
It’s basically a constant self-editing process. When you’re making the record, testing the songs out and playing them live, some songs may sound great on the record and be hits, but live, they don’t come together how you want them to.
We try to weed those ones out and put other ones in. You’re going to play the favourites always, but some live don’t fit. We’ve been afraid to replace those with moments that sound great live. It’s a mix of ‘shut up and play the hits’ and also, us just having a lot of fun. We’re really excited. We haven’t had any band headline shows… that’s so exciting for us. We’re excited to come to do that for the first time, and bring all the band and play some new songs.
Bob Moses are headed to Australia to deliver their first headline shows at the end of November.
Tour dates:
Sydney – Metro Theatre
Thursday 28 Nov ’19
Melbourne – 170 Russell
Friday 29 Nov ’19
Tickets here: https://www.secretsounds.com/tours/bob-moses-tickets-2019/