Talking with Karl E. Scullin (Kes) is as natural and unrushed an experience as the course his music takes. When he asked me whether I called his mobile from Sydney, I thought he wanted to postpone our chat but instead he asked me to call him on his landline; it’s easier and cheaper that way.

As the main man behind Kes (his initials form the acronym), as well as a core member of Mum Smokes and formerly of Bird Blobs, Scullin has just released his third album Kes Band on Mistletone. Following in the vein of 2007’s The Grey Goose Wing, but with an approach more orientated to band dynamics (hence the album title), Kes Band offers a unique blend of jagged electric folk, explosive jams, sweet melodies and medieval flourishes – all wrapped up in a progressive pop framework. WB had a chat with Scullin about recording the new album, recording another album, his approach to music and his side-project Mum Smokes. The overall impression was of a musician more about process than results, and dedicated to the collaborative function of his band.

How did your approach to recording Kes Band differ from The Grey Goose Wing sessions?  

For this one we recorded everything live, with little things like vocals and recorders overdubbed – this is definitely more of a band [record], the Kes Band do gigs as a band and all the material has been rehearsed together as a band. The Grey Goose Wing was just me recording and getting people to do overdubs. There was a band with Lewis [Boyes, of the Alpha Males] and Julian [Patterson, Mum Smokes] playing drums for all the basic stuff, but the songs were coming together as we were recording them, it was more just off the cuff, whereas these Kes Band songs, we’ve played them live a lot, we know them really well, everyone’s got a little solo to do.

The Grey Goose Wing had a lot of different kinds of songs on it. This record continues in that vein, but seems more refined…

Yeah, it was a natural thing for it to get more refined. It’s definitely more accessible, and more kinda poppy. It came out of playing with the band more and knowing people musically. The Grey Goose Wing is really just a series of trying things out, lets try band stuff, lets try something sparse and instrumental, but this Kes Band record is more like a – not to compare ourselves with The Beatles! – but a Beatles record, as a bunch of pop songs all with their own personality.  

Unlike other bands, who seem to add strings and woodwinds for a tacked-on orchestral feel, the viola and recorders really seem an integral part of your sound.  How did you arrive at this sound? Do you have a classical background?  

It’s just something we experimented with. I don’t know anything about classical music, although when I’m driving I always listen to classical music… it’s more pure or something.  

So it came out of just jamming with your band?  Who brought it to the Kes sound?  

It was because I was playing with Laura Jean [bass, recorders], and Biddy [Connor, viola] plays with Laura Jean a lot too. It was a natural, friend thing, to introduce it and have a few rehearsals. It’s not like it was decided that it would be in [the record].

I’m totally open to trying stuff, I’m not really going for a ‘sound’, I’m not listening to The Velvet Underground everyday and thinking, “I really want to sound like The Velvet Underground”. I’m more like ‘if there’s people around and you can try stuff, then it’s worth doing’. I’m more into melody than trying to get the haircuts right. When I see a photo of us, to me it seems there’s a vibe, like we’re a high-school band, people who grew up in a country town, people thrown together via circumstances, like we’re not all the same. We’re all very different people who make up the band, we’re not like-minded except that we just want to be musicians. Every one’s coming from a different place, which I’m really into.  

You’ve expressed reservations about your voice before. Is this still something that concerns you?

I really enjoy singing in phases, but listening to the Kes Band album, I like ‘Dm Instrumental’ the most. My voice, it’s a bit…[pauses] some people are into it, some people aren’t…
    
Well, all interesting vocalists do their own thing. Do you cringe when you hear yourself?

[laughs] Sometimes, but not really, I’m pretty used to it. I like the fact that on the new stuff it’s getting closer to my talking voice, but as a live thing, it’s getting more hysterical, with the energy that naturally happens. But if it was to be in this more hysterical direction, the music would have to get more extreme, go all out or just not have it there at all.

The new stuff we’re working on is mostly instrumental. It could be a really beautiful, accessible album, lots of rolling through the hillsides kind of instrumental songs, put it in your car and drive and really enjoy it, a CD you can actually kinda use.   

So you’ve already started working on the new album?   

Yeah, well, this album was finished almost a year ago. We recorded it with James in January, but Architecture in Helsinki had to go on tour, so we had to wait to mix it, which was in July, and there’s always a delay in getting it out. The Grey Goose Wing only came out last year anyway. I’d like to do one a year, and this one is out now so we’ve gotta record another Kes Band one now for next year.  

Do you have a lot of material?  

Yeah, lots of material, it’s just a case of organising people to rehearse it. It might be all instrumental maybe.

What’s happening with Mum Smokes?   

We’ve got to mix an album. We put out that one album, it died off for a bit, but then we were asked to play All Tomorrow’s Parties [UK Festival, curated by The Dirty Three]. So we played more, did a recording and got an album together, which we were going to release before ATP. But the track listing was not to the guy’s [who was going to put it out] liking, some songs were stronger than others and we were just a bit ho-hum about whether it was finished or not. We ran out of time, came back from overseas, did more recording, which became two albums worth of material. Now we’re trying to mix it all together and work out whether it could be released as one or as two separate album.  

You could always do a double-album…?

[laughs] A double-album could be too much.  We could always do it over a long-weekend, just get together and mix it, but with Mum Smokes there’s a lot of hanging out and talking about Beatles’ records.  Things move pretty slowly in Mum Smokes world.

At least it’s not too rushed…

But there needs to be a balance of being overly rushed and not finishing it at all. We’ve just got to mix it. We have a deadline of 2010, which has become a joke.  

I asked Jon Michell [who has his own project with The Ancients] once about what was happening with Mum Smokes, and he said it could be a really good band…

It could be a really good band, but like some of those bands it seems we need to fall back into stuff. We just need to do a few small things and then we’ll get these really big opportunities, like ATP…Our first gig was supporting Jim White and the guy from the Avalanches, on the roof above Cookie and the Toff. This was before the first CD came out. It feels like there are lots of opportunities going around.