Interview with Christopher Hollow & Ben Michael X

By Dean Wareham

I was introduced to the Sand Pebbles in 2004, via an email interview conducted by bassist Chris Hollow for their online webzine – Tarantula. Hollow asked some interesting questions and suggested a Britney Spears song I might enjoy. He sent me a copy of the Pebbles second album Ghost Transmissions, which quickly became my new favourite album that year. We have since become friends and occasional collaborators, and in 2009 our Double Feature label released a Sand Pebbles “best of” compilation in the USA.

When my wife Britta and I were in Melbourne for the Arts Festival a couple of years back, we shared the stage for a quick Saturday afternoon in-store gig at Pure Pop Records — performing mostly to a group of immovable drunks, but that is another story. The Sand Pebbles ripped into stellar versions of “Speed and Intensity,” “The Day Summer Fell” and “23 Minutes in Brussels” and we felt lucky to be there. We will be sharing the stage again in October; we are playing songs I wrote with Galaxie 500 many years ago, while the Pebbles will be debuting songs from their beautiful and cosmic fifth album – Dark Magic. I have at last been given an opportunity to conduct my own interview with Chris Hollow and guitarist Ben Michael X.

I read that your new album is spiritually aware. Who is the most spiritually aware Sand Pebble?

Ben:    I’d say Tor – a scholar of the mind and body, a psychedelic explorer.  Perhaps also Andrew; the wise sage of the band.  Any situation you find yourself in, Andrew will have a piercing insight into it.

Christopher:  Both Andrew and Wesley are sons of preacher men. Our bios could mirror the Kings of Leon if we chose to go that way.

I love songs like “Blue Eyes in Black and White” that are basically a very long instrumental with a vocal mantra appearing at the end. Whose blue eyes are referred to here?

Christopher:  Paul Newman. He’d just passed away when the song was written. He was famous for those blue eyes and they’re just as impressive in black and white films like Hud and The Left Handed Gun.

Ben:    One of my favourite cinematic moments is Paul Newman ripping the heads of parking meters in Cool Hand Luke, the cops arrive, he looks up at them with those incredible blue eyes, smiles and that stunning Lalo Schifrin acoustic guitar starts up. Paul Newman is the last of his generation.  A certain masculine glamour died with him.  Modern stars can’t compete.

The Sand Pebbles, once a two guitar band, now feature three. Did you know that Television briefly had three guitarists – Tom Verlaine, Richard Lloyd and Peter Laughner (of Pere Ubu)? But it only lasted a few weeks. Do you like having three guitars on stage?

Ben:    I’d love to hear that version of Television.

Christopher:  Sometimes three guitars gets unruly but when it works it’s amazing.

Ben:    I like when we give each other space, different sounds darting in and out, I also like how we can build to huge moments of intense multi layered noise. The listener is swamped in sound.  Live it kills. We all have very, different styles, that’s the key. 

Christopher:  In the beginning, all three guitarists played Telecasters, which looked great. And, they played them like their Telecaster heroes – Tor like Syd Barrett, Andrew like Robbie Robertson and Ben like Keith Richards.

You are in one sense, purveyors of psychedelia, but it is generally tightly constructed, and with a strong pop sense, more Satanic Majesties than Live Dead. When it comes to psychedelic music, do you prefer San Francisco or Texas?

Ben:    Texas all the way.  We love punk and all that’s come after it as much as 60’s psych.  Bands that stick to one sound or feel are old thought musicians. That time is over.

Christopher:  The 13^th Floor Elevators recently got remastered and for the very first time they sound as good as their reputation. I like that they’re trying for something transportive whilst still catering to an audience of jittery people who want to move. We always feel like that when we play a ballad. People get nervous, they want to move.

It’s been interesting to watch the Sand Pebbles progress from album to album, or sometimes just from song to song. One moment you sound like the Comsat Angels, the next minute you channel David Crosby. How do the folk-rock elements in your band coexist with the punk? Do you vote on everything?

Christopher:  Tor and I pushed the folk elements on Dark Magic and Tanner was a willing accomplice, too. It’s a major influence on the band that we’ve never explored much before. It was one of the ways this album could be different from what came before. But, of course, it’s hard to play anything in 2011 and not have a post-punk element. If you do, you’re in danger of slavishly trying to recreate something that’s already been done. So, any punk influence on overtly folky songs was welcomed.

Ben:    We don’t vote on everything but we will when it comes to a dispute.  How songs got chosen for the album was more involved than the American electoral system.  Bribes, dinners, pressure groups, fund raisers. We have another five or six songs that will come out in some other form in the future.  The Adlai Stevensons of the album. Good men who didn’t make it.

The album is Dark Magic. Is one of you a warlock? Andrew Tanner looks like he could be, given the right outfit.

Christopher:  Ha! Tanner is Dorian Gray, definitely warlock material. I haven’t seen him die, put it that way.

The lyrics for the title track are clever. Who wrote those?

Ben:    They started as an email line by line session between me, Andrew and Chris. One of us would write a line, someone else would do the next. Kinda like a game the great romantic poets might have played back in the day, but online during working hours.  We then got a mysterious New York friend involved (cough, cough). Chris brought it all together. My favourite line? Moves like honey down a spiral stair.

When Galaxie 500 started out we were just learning to play our instruments, but within 12 months we managed to come up with something interesting. When did the Sand Pebbles learn to play well?

Christopher:  I always thought we found our sound pretty early and it came through our limitations. Ben could only play guitar in open G tuning. Bass-wise I took my inspiration from Ray Manzarek’s left hand. Driving and repetitious.

Ben:    I’ve only just weakened and started learning scales. Punk rock, man! 

What’s the one thing on Dark Magic that you’ve never done before?

Ben:    Multiple acoustic guitars.  “Long, Long, Ago” was all of us around one mic.  Subtle and droney.

You’re an Australian band. What’s the most Australian thing about your music?

Ben:    Even at its most gentle it’s tough.  As Germaine Greer said, we have a particularly brutal type of machismo over here. It also has a sense of black humour.  An example is the Greek chorus in “River Sparkle”. They’re telling their friend not to have an affair, warning of disaster. But, by the end of the song they’re wondering if this femme fatale has a friend for them.  They want in. Very Australian. It happened naturally like that in the studio.  We pissed ourselves laughing – which is also very Australian. Its lyrics are influenced by your book, Dean [Black Postcards]. You wrote so evocatively about being tempted.

If I was to play Lou Reed a song from Dark Magic, which would it be?

Christopher:  Part of me would want to play him something I didn’t write, so if he spewed demonic invective I wouldn’t feel so bad. But, that’s no way to live. Having said that, probably “Spring Time [Who Hasn’t Lost Their Head?] That was a real five way team effort, so we could all take either the credit or blame. And, I’m sure Lou would love it.

What’s one album that informed the recording of Dark Magic?

Christopher:  Bert Jansch and Danny Thompson were my biggest influence on this album so I’d say Bert Jansch’s Birthday Blues or Pentangle’s Reflection.

Ben:    For me, it was Gabor Szabo’s album Jazz Raga. Stunning album.

Greville in-store : August 27, 2011

Pics by Carbie Warbie

A great afternoon outing at Greville Records, Prahran, on Saturday. Low and intimate. The store sold out of copies of the album, which was a wonderful result. Thankyou to Warwick, Steve and Julian Wu [Melbourne’s musical Zelig. We look forward to reading his book one day].

The Day Summer Fell [Ghost Transmissions]

Because I Could [Dark Magic]

Dark Magic [Dark Magic]

River Sparkle [Dark Magic]

Spring Time [Who Hasn’t Lost Their Head?] [Dark Magic]

Wild Season [Ceduna]

Thanks to Carbie Warbie for filming/posting “Wild Season”. http://www.vimeo.com/28240671

And pics:
http://www.tonedeaf.com.au/photos/galleries/86690/sand-pebbles.htm