The Rumour spreads for Miles
Rmike.alexander@fairfaxmedia.co.nz MILES Calder took a year off after recording his debut album with The Rumour. In what way was the album a long labour of love?
I guess simply the length of time over which it was made, and the amount of care and thought we put into every element on it. We started pre-production on a group of around 30 tunes at the start of 2014 and picked 15 to record in The Surgery studio with Tui Award-winning engineer Lee Prebble. After nine days in the studio, we recorded vocals over the next couple months in our own studio before I flew off to New York in September 2014. I gather between the release of your 2014 Taite-nominated EP The Crossing Over, you spent a year in New York? What took you there?
My girlfriend was accepted to do a year-long masters programme at NYU, and I felt I couldn’t pass up that chance to have a spell living in the thick of that most iconic city, to write songs, meet people and work on the recordings we had. How was the experience and did it change you in any way?
I loved living in New York. I discovered a lot of new music, met and played with some great other artists and was able to do a lot of new writing. It also allowed me time to develop the songs we had recorded for the album. I guess the exposure to new music, bold people and fresh ways of doing things helped me realise the freedom we have in creating something, and the endless palette you can draw from. So I felt I could push the arrangements of our songs to their fullest extents. At what stage did you come back to Wellington and start recording Miles Calder& The Rumours?
In mid-2015, I left the US to travel in Europe, and did a first solo acoustic tour there, before coming back to Wellington and the band near the end of last year. We got to work on recording overdubs of piano, organ, strings, backing vocals and horns. Adding those extra layers was so rewarding. For some of the songs, adding the final part gave us the feeling of ‘‘wow this suddenly sounds finished’’, like a jigsaw falling into place. The inset of the album has the inscription – Songs about distance and disposition. Could you clarify?
I feel the two are often linked. I think being a New Zealander in your mid-20s, you have to deal with most of your friends suddenly taking off over oceans to London or wherever, and you lose them for a year or 10. This was definitely the case for me when I was writing the songs on the album, so a lot of the tunes deal with how our states of mind and relationships are affected by distance. Is there anyone in Wellington you didn’t invite to perform on the album?
Ha! We did get an epic lineup of guest players. We’re indebted to Lisa Tomlins, Ed Zuccollo, Dayle Jellyman, Finn Johansson, Chris Winter, Matthew Benton and Lucien Johnson for their performances on our record. To be honest, I feel really chuffed with who we got to play on it and it was a joy to record with them all.