How did you start capturing your ideas, when you first began writing?
I went and lived in Texas for six months after I’d finished university, and it was over there [that] I started listening to music for the first time, really properly. I mean, I’d always listened to it, but I was wondering what it was about the production of certain records that I really liked. I was listening to a lot of older, folk stuff, wondering how they made a John Fahey record sound so beautiful. Things like Will Oldham, Smog… just thinking that I really wanted to make a record that sounded as ‘close’ as those records do.

When recording with producer Tony Dupe, how strongly did you want to capture the sense of space within your songs, as well as where they were being played?
For the first record that was very important. I was really being quite traditionalist about the whole thing, and wanted it to be as unaffected as we could make it. So all the sounds on there were completely unprocessed and organic sounds, which Tony is really good at. And we hardly did any overdubs, we recorded the songs very live. I mean, when most people record guitars and vocals they would split them, and they would record the guitar first and then overdub the vocals, which we resisted almost entirely on the first record. Tony also resisted letting me do any more than about two takes. So yeah, when I listened to them the first time they sounded so imperfect to me, I was sort of freaked out - but he’d make me wait a few days, and see what I thought after that. And I ended accepting those takes and using them.

Under The Town has a lot more instrumentation on it. Do you feel like you’ve learnt a lot about recording music since On Night?
It’s certainly an upward curve all the time. I’m not a very technical person at all; I mean, when I was doing my own demos I only ever had a one-track recorder – I never had a four-track which I wish I did have! It’s interesting, because me and Tony just worked next to each other the whole time, and you do really get to know every note that’s happening. I was surprised how much I really enjoyed that process.

When you’re writing a song, do you go with your instincts?
Yeah, absolutely. People can tell when they’re writing a song how it makes them feel, or how their skin might feel at the time - it helps to have a small sensory reaction. Every time I do a tour I come back and write a list of things that I want to do on the next tour to make it easier; next time I want to make sure that I bring a few textas! Bring textas and some gaffa tape, because you need gaffa tape every time you go to an airport – you have to tape your guitar case up. I did it religiously. For some reason when I went overseas earlier this year, I arrived at Dublin airport - and somehow between Singapore, Frankfurt and Dublin I’d forgotten to tape my guitar up, and the neck snapped clear off the body! It was one of the saddest moments of my touring career. I’d had that guitar since I was 16. So now I have a little travel thing that I carry on my back, it’s in a soft case and it fits in the little overhead locker on the plane. I take it on board with me and guard it with my body – it’s good!

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