Splitter: Piecing Together the New Splitter Author: Ben Eldridge from NZ Musician Magazine It's a grey, overcast, wintery Auckland afternoon when I meet up with three-quarters of Splitter at a quiet little cafe in Kingsland. Amid the strains of Blue Note jazz we settle down to talk about something a little closer to home for this self-professed bunch of rockers. The last time the band spoke to NZ Musician magazine was just after their debut album, 'Stereo Happiness', had been released to overwhelming critical acclaim in early 2000. It's been a busy couple of years since then, what with a dramatic change in line up, tours with famous Kiwi pop icons and now, the imminent release of their second album. Not long after 'Stereo Happiness' came out, chief tunesmith and sole original member, guitarist/singer Andrew Thorne, found himself in need of a new 'engine room' for Splitter. Original bassist Kurt Shanks was now a permanent fixture in Stellar*, and drummer/multi-instrumentalist extraordinaire, Matt Meehan was lost to the world in November '99, the victim of drug-related misadventure. Enter bassist Aidan Phillip-Phillips. A man who enjoys the feel of a good suit, and is as well-spoken in person as he is articulate with his chosen instrument. Aidan recalls: "I was invited by Andrew to participate while Matt was still alive, but I was involved with another group at the time and past experience had confirmed that two bands at once is too much for me, along with a full time job, so unfortunately I had to decline." However their paths were to cross again somewhat more fortuitously: "I met up with Andrew on the bus on the way to work. I was at a loose end and had always enjoyed Splitter's stuff so we decided to revive the name and start afresh." Finding someone to sit in the vacated drumstool proved less difficult than expected. Wayne Bell (absent from today's interview) had had early affiliations with the group. "Wayne was a friend of Matt's. He produced three of the songs on the first album," explains Andrew. One of the more well-known faces of New Zealand drumming, Wayne is described in the Splitter biography thus: "Wayne Bell is the drummer in Splitter and, well ... he's just really, really good." Thorne and Bell knew each other from various stints playing together behind artists such as Bic Runga, Tim Finn, Dave Dobbyn, Jan Hellriegel, and Greg Flemming. "Wayne's an old friend of mine," says Andrew. "We've played in lots of bands together. I just rely on him, I think we all do, 'cause we just know where he's gonna be all the time." Aidan elaborates: "It puts me in a luxurious position as a bass player because he's really professional and totally capable with the drums. I don't even have to watch him or listen closely to what he's doing ... he's just there the whole time." Last to come into the fold was lead guitarist, Joel Tobeck. A well-known actor on both stage and screen (including Shortland Street and numerous ads), it is evident that Joel is just as serious, if not more so, about rock'n'roll. Andrew and Joel first met back in 1993 during a Hello Sailor tour, but a drunken exchange much later proved to be more significant. Joel explains: "We hooked up at the APRA awards in 2000 and talked about Prince." "Did we?" asks Andrew, his memory somewhat impaired. "He gave me a guitar magazine with Prince on it," continues Joel. "Then he rang me up a few weeks later, I guess he'd seen me on Ice TV and liked my chops, and said Splitter was looking for another guitarist." That was when Splitter were a three-piece and Andrew wanted to fill out the sound, Joel recalls. He was certainly no bedroom guitar player and his musical credits at the time included stints with Darcy Clay's band, 95bFM's and Ice TV's house bands (playing alongside Wayne in the latter), and with Debbie Harwood. The completed new Splitter line-up has been playing together since about March 2001, performing close to a dozen gigs to date. Recharged and freshly inspired with the new group Andrew began to write songs for what would become the second Splitter album 'Devil In The Detail'. "All the songs came together real quickly actually," he says of the writing process for the new record. "I write to a deadline. If we have an album we wanna put out then I sort of sit down and try and write songs." From there on in it was a group effort, with the band spending three months in the rehearsal room before entering the studio. "Andrew's pretty prolific," observes Joel. "He'll come in with two or three new numbers or ideas each practice." In December the band headed into RNZ's Helen Young Studios for a weekend to lay down the rhythm tracks with Andre Upston recording, Bell allowing himself the choice of three drum kits per song. The band recorded live, all together in the same room, though Tobeck and Thorne used D.I.'d guide guitar sounds that they would later replace. Once the tracks were transferred onto a Pro Tools system by Neil Baldock of Revolver Studios, Joel and Andrew moved into the smaller Studio 203 with ex-Delta guitarist and freelance engineer Andrew Buckton, who had recently done The D4's album, '6Twenty'. Guitar mania ensued. Andrew's eyes light up as he recalls the state of the studio at the time: "We had an old Vox, an old Marshall stack, an old Fender Bassman. All these 'b**ch' amps everywhere, all these great old pedals and stuff. Joel and I practically spent four days each playing guitar gods!" Not ones to lose sight of their objective, they cite the presence of engineer Buckton as being instrumental in maintaining an overall cohesion and balance. "His input was always important as well," remembers Joel. The entire recording process seems to have retained a very 'no nonsense' ethos about it which is immediately evident upon listening to the completed album. The songs sounding well-realised but not overly glossy. "We did all the guitars and vocals in eight or nine days. Basically the whole thing was recorded and mixed in 12 to 14 days," says Thorne. The 13 tracks on 'Devil In The Detail' run the gamut of '70s rock'n'roll with stompers like the album's opener Go You Good Thing and I Don't Rate Your Man making way for the Tom Petty inspired 12-string folk rock of Good to Go, before bringing out the album's beautiful trump card in the form of the gorgeous Call It A Day. Other tracks have good stories surrounding their origins which the boys readily divulge. "The riff for You're Right To Rock was written while Andrew was in the toilet," says Tobeck with a grin. Andrew picks up the story: "We were in the studio and I went out for a wee and these guys started that. (They) yelled out the chords, I made up some lyrics on the drive home and that was another song." The song in question being described later as "a tip of the hat to all the rock influences that we love and adore." The album has some lovely, lilting ballads on it as well, proving that the lads know pinning the punters to the wall with power chord glory needs to be given at least a little bit of context. The lazy, aqua-hued Doubtless Bay is another album highlight with good anecdote lurking somewhere in the wings. Andrew remembers being on tour with Dave Dobbyn when the song first came into being. "Dave was in the car and we saw a big sign, 'Doubtless Bay - left' or something, and Dave said, 'That's a great title for a song!' I immediately thought, 'Yeah, I'll race you to it!' So I won. Basically that whole song was written around the title." The album, released on August 8th, is out on Thorne's own label, Double Happy Music and distributed through Zomba Music (NZ). The first album was released on indie Marital Music, but with this one, Splitter decided they were at a point where they could go it alone. The recently launched video for You're Right To Rock was directed by Leon Sefton and produced by Jill Graham, who also worked on their last video Probably Feel Alright. According to Andrew the video "...explores our psychological idiosyncrasies" as opposed to the last one which successfully "made lawn bowls cool". When I ask the boys if there is a Splitter credo as such, they merely shrug and mutter that they've never really thought about it. However I get a different reaction when I ask what constitutes rock'n'roll for them. "Great fun playing big solos, and guitars and posing. I pose all the time and I'm living out a boyhood dream which, let's face it, millions of us have," declares Joel. Andrew continues: "The intent is serious when it comes to writing a song, but from there on it's just anybody's. We're not 'serious' young men anymore. We wanna have a good time and write pop songs." Splitter, a 'thinking person's rock'n'roll band' with no delusions of grandeur it seems. Humble, but without being annoyingly self-deprecating, and quietly confident in their abilities, both individually and as a group. So will the group be incorporating the services of a turntablist in the foreseeable future? "F*ck that!" says Thorne. "Were just like, y'know, old c***s! We like guitars, songs, more guitars and um ... " "Poncing around!" finishes Joel. Amen to that.