|
Koritni is an Australian band and they play hard rock, but that's no news for many music lovers. To fill you in with some information about Koritni we sent a couple questions to Lex Koritni who was so kind to answer them. Enjoy reading!
After the release of Game Of Fools you toured in Europe... Played quite a few shows in France... How was it to tour Europe? To play at Hellfest 2009?
Hellfest is a great festival, there's so many people that appreciate so many different genres of music, I mean there's some really heavy shit there, but there is also rockabilly, hard rock, so it's cool you can get many different flavors throughout the day. Hellfest 2009 was killer hot as well, I think it was about 35 degrees for the 3 days, so it was perfect beer drinking weather, and judging by the looks of the crowd a lot of booze was consumed.
In 2010 you released No More Bets, an album with acoustic / live versions, but also with some new stuff. Please tell us about the album! When did you come up with the idea? How was it received?
Yeah, that was more like a compilation of live radio recordings and other tracks we'd recorded, but hadn't released, we had a lot of fans asking us where they could get a copy of this song or that, but we hadn't actually released them officially. like the track (I've Had) The Time Of My Life we recorded for Classic Rock magazine for one of their samplers, but we never put it on an album. There was also some left over live tracks that we didn't put on Red Live Joint, so it was a way of letting the fans see into the Koritni vault. And it was well received, I think it's always interesting to hear a rock band do acoustic stuff.
When did you start writing Welcome To The Crossroads? How long did the recordings take?
The writing for Welcome To The Crossroads started pretty much straight after we finished tracking Game Of Fools. We wrote a lot of songs for that record, some of them were shit some were okay, but luckily we had enough great songs to fill the album. Recording from start to finish took about 6 months, it was a long 6 months I can tell you that, because I was producing and engineering, not to mention singing as well. But I'm certainly happy with the end product, you know after working on a project like that for 6 months, especially being so heavily entrenched engineering and producing, by the time you reach the finish line you really don't want to hear the songs again, I haven't actually listened to the record since signing off on the masters, maybe I'll listen to it next year! Ha ha.
You have some guests on Welcome To The Crossroads, please tell us about how you got Jeff Waters and Jeff Scott Soto involved?
I was really happy to get those guys on board! I mean, I grew up listening to their music so it was a great feeling to be collaborating with guys I listened to as a kid. How I got them was simple: I just asked. I mean what was the worst that could happen? They'd say no and that would be the end of that. Fortunately they said yes and we got some killer tracks with them!
Jeff Waters I've never actually met (although I hope to one day) I just e-mailed him the song he said, "I love the song dude, there's just 2 problems, 1 I'm on vacation at the moment, and 2 the solo on the track already kicks ass!!!" I was so happy, because I played the solos on the demo that I sent him so Jeff Waters just told me my solo kicked ass! Ha ha! But as I said "Mate, I can wait till your vacation has finished and the solo is just a demo so I'm gonna delete it." He ended up playing an awesome solo!
Once again you worked with Mark Fraser, Dean Maher and Daniel Leffler, the perfect engineers for you?
For sure! They're skilled engineer mixers and they are easy to work with, what more could you ask for! Each guy brings something a little different to the mix and I think it's a nice subtle change of flow throughout the album. I look forward to working with them again in the future, I mean when something works, why try to fix it?
Who had the idea for the artwork? You or Mark Wilkinson?
I actually had the idea for the artwork, and Mark really bought that vision to life, he's a great artist and always captures the idea and vibe perfectly.
Which song(s) would you like to do a video for?
Hmmm... I don't really know, on Welcome To The Crossroads there are several songs with some cool lyric ideas that would make for a great clip, there is just too many to choose from, I think.
Have you ever considered to ask your fans to do a video for a song? Some kind of competition?
Yeah, that's a definite possibility, I don't know what the prize would be though for a competition like that, maybe a pair of Reebok pumps and a night of drinking with the Koritni boys.
In 2008 you did a live album / DVD, can we expect more live stuff from you?
Maybe, maybe, we're talking about releasing some live stuff soon, for the last few tours we've recorded several live shows, and maybe we'll let that cat outta the bag at some stage... But you'll just have to wait and see mate.
You are playing some shows in France - and one in Belgium -, more shows on the way?
There's always more shows on the way, I mean that's what playing in a band is all about, right? Doing records and touring, that's the cycle. So yeah we're looking at touring next year a couple of times as well as maybe a new album, we've already finished a whole bunch of songs so we just gotta put them down on tape.... Well, hard drive these days.
How was it to play Nancy with Scorpions and Gamma Ray? How was it to return to Hellfest?
Nancy was great! We actually spent a few days there, because we did a master-class at a music school MAI a few days after. it was nice to relax in Nancy, it's a cool city.
Did you record some live / off stage footage? I'm not talking about pro shots, just something for YouTube or a similar platform...
No, I don't actually have a video camera, so no backstage footage, but now that you mention it I think I should buy one. It's just something I never think about, I'm not one of those guys that takes a million photos on holiday or anything like that. It's funny, I've traveled around the world I've been so many different places, yet the only really photo collection I have is in my memory. It's quite annoying for friends and family though, you know you get back from a big tour or holiday and they're like "ohhh, show me photos of where you've been", and I'm like "yeah ok", and I show them like 3 photos, one blurry picture taken inside the tour bus and a few shots of different beers I've discovered. Otherwise I just look on the internet pictures of the towns I've visited and say see there it is... and yeah it looks like that.
How important is social media for you? Blessing or curse?
I don't know, I think unit's just a part of life now. For a band it's great, it's an easy useful tool that can enable you to keep in touch with fans. But personally I think it's a curse on society. It's amusing to note that social media sites are intended to heighten and facilitate social interaction and essentially bring us closer together, yet I think it has the opposite effect. Clicking 'like' on someone's photo, or writing a witty 2 line joke on someone's page I don't think constitutes socializing. It's just like writing on a toilet door. And the fact that I've seen people write "having coffee with Julie, just ordered a cappuccino" It makes me wonder, why are you fucking writing on your iPhone on Facebook when you're with a friend at the coffee shop? Is the conversation so bad that you need to revert to playing with your phone? That is becoming 'normal' behavior these days, but I think it's just rude. If any of my friends did that I'd take their phone and stick it up their ass.
(I totally agree! - Claudia)
What do you plan for the rest of 2012? 2013?
More of the same man, more of the same. writing songs, recording them, touring. I think I'll be doing that cycle of things for a few more years at least. I also have a few side projects that I'm working on too, but you'll find out about those when the time is right.
Thanks mate... been a pleasure!
Lex
|
|
