For Melbourne garage rockers The Double Agents, their new album, New Motion, finds them stepping out of the past.
By Ian McFarlane
On face value, the above headline might suggest an ominous past catching up with one… but the album was born of a desire to find positive expression in the face of adversity. Given that singer-songwriter-guitarist Dave Butterworth had been diagnosed with cancer in 2022, they’ve re-emerged with a modern sounding record that is direct, forward looking and ultimately rewarding.
Butterworth and his band mates, Kim Walvisch-Bukshteyn (piano, vocals), Ryan Tandy (guitar, lap steel) and Myles Gallagher (drums) originally emerged out of the Melbourne 1990s indie scene before breaking up in the late 2000s, following the release of their second album Seemed Like a Good Idea. They were a rockin’ band live, mixing their regular garage rock sound with bright pop melodies. And that continues to shine through on New Motion.
The current line-up also includes Mick Stylianou (bass, backing vocals) previously in Saint Jude, an unsung Melbourne band who issued four albums of country-tinged indie rock. Butterworth produced the album, recorded by Finn Keane at Head Gap and Julian McKenzie at Newmarket with vocal post-production by Dave Larkin (Dallas Crane) who also contributed piano. Callum Barter mixed and Mikey Young mastered the result. All up, almost a who’s who of the Melbourne indie scene.
I spoke with Dave Butterworth about his cancer diagnosis, falling in love, recording the new album, an ‘80s vibe and more besides.
Thanks for your time, Dave. How’s your health?
It’s good, I’m still a stage 4 guy. Things have been stable, over 12 months now, I’m on some intense drugs. Not getting better, not getting worse. I go for PET scans every twelve weeks. I can still get out and work part time. I’m currently touring with the Dirty Three, I work with Warren Ellis. I got asked to do a Kim Gordon tour and I’ll be working with The Saints 1973-1978 for their tour. I’m still surfing, the ocean is good for my soul. I go to the gym. I’m feeling fit. I am still full of positivity. I worked a lot on my mindset to get above where I’ve been for the last couple of years. It’s intense but I’m still doing stuff.
What then was the impetus for getting the band going again?
I got diagnosed and I didn’t think about anything else for a year. I hadn’t played guitar for about 10 years anyway. I’d been working for other bands on tour. I had very little interest in picking things up again, I was so exhausted. I had no creativity and my world had been turned upside down. I just concentrated on my treatments. Then I wanted to do one show at the end of 2022. I was certain at that point I was gonna die. It was purely just to do something with friends. We did the show in a small pub, it was rough as guts, but we had a lot of fun. We got a gig supporting Scientists, February 2023, and we were pretty good, as good as we used to be. Then we did a Mudhoney support. I was still in a negative frame of mind. I felt I had to wrap up the band’s past. We put out the Best Of comp. That was a lot of work but I felt like I wanted to leave something for my daughter. I didn’t think we were done; the band was back together to help me but in a way it helped other band members too.
Kim lost her husband, Greg, to cancer three years ago. He was in Black Pony Express. Ryan’s job is heavy and hardcore and just to have a release playing music, we all really enjoyed it. It gave us all hope, so we decided to keep going. I got a huge urge to make a new record.
How did the songs come together?
I write the songs and the others add to what I bring. I had jammed with a couple of people on the side. I had written ‘If You Don’t Mind’ but that band wasn’t really nailing it. I was the only guitarist, and I’m not that good so I missed the other guys. I thought, ‘hang on, I’ve got a band that can record this song’, my family. So, we had that one and I’d written a few others, ‘New Motion’, ‘Side Effect’. We’d actually demoed ‘Golden Rule’ in 2007, we ended up re-recording that. I put a lot of pressure on to record the album fast. I was quite manic, actually. I wanted something ready before last Xmas, ‘cos I really felt I was against the clock. Not in a bad way but I like to have a challenge, a deadline. Then we could get it mixed and out in six months’ time.
After The Double Agents had split up, I did another band in 2011, only a recording project. Myself, Ryan Tandy on guitar, Callum John Barter on drums who had come on our second European tour with us, when Myles wasn’t able to go. Mick Stylianou on bass, at that point he was in Saint Jude, and Andy Macintosh on guitar. We’d recorded ten tracks and they were really good but I never finished them. We pinched four tracks from that. I had three or four new songs, two from 2007 that we’d never recorded and four songs from the 2011 recordings. I used the base tracks, added Kim and my vocals on one then kept my original vocals from 2011. Doing the new vocals was really hard for me, so that’s where Dave Larkin came in and he did the new vocals in his studio. Essentially two recording sessions 12 years apart. Dave played piano also because Kim had nerve damage in her hand at the time. Kim was fine with that. I wanted to do something really different with this album. It’s still us but it’s a big step up in terms of production and sound.
Photo courtesy of The Double Agents
It’s a seamless album, the songs flow well, you can’t tell it’s from two different sessions. In terms of the band’s beginnings, you came out of that ‘90s Melbourne scene... do you think you’re out of time? Do you wonder If you’re relevant now?
As long as we think so, that’s the main thing. In the past I used to think none of what we did was any good. I’m not one of those guys who go, ‘I’ve made a great record’. I was never proud of them, but this one, with the passing of time and what you learn about production, I’m happy. Working with Dave on the production side, especially with the vocals and his encouragement to do different things and keep your ears open, was great. When you’re younger, you’re often closed minded about what you think is cool. As you get older you think, ‘I really like punk rock and garage rock and country music, but hang on, I like Hall & Oates too and The Cars’. Why can’t I make a big sounding rock record, a modern record?
When we finished recording, I went into a manic pace to get it mixed and wrapped up. I was really obsessed; it totally took me over. So, I handed it over to Callum; he’d drummed on four tracks but he’s also gone on to be a recording engineer in LA. Instead of mixing it myself I had someone else with a different perspective on things. He knows what the band is about, he’s played with us, and he knows how to mix a record. That’s what I wanted. It was his mix with my notes. To go from total control freak to ‘here ya go, this is what I’ve done, show me what you can do’ was great.
To my ears you’ve successfully combined that garage rock sound with accessible pop melodies. You’ve always been a rockin’ band from back in the day but you can tell you’ve always embraced a broad range of sounds. I can hear elements in this recording, like a Celibate Rifles feel on ‘If Ya Don’t Mind’ or a Neil Young and Crazy Horse feel, I like that and it’s some of the influences I can hear.
Someone else said the Celibate Rifles thing the other day and I thought, ‘we don’t sound like them but it’s so obvious I love that band’. I think they’re the greatest Aussie band ever. This album has got a million influences, like everyone’s record should. I like records that offer more than one thing. Different songs can work cohesively together. We never really fitted in, in the past. We always had lots of different elements.
No one else ever played Mink Deville songs live, either (they did a killer version of ‘Venus of Avenue D’).
That’s true. He’s a classic example of a guy who really rocks but he’s got swing and soul and slower songs. Now I think, if you haven’t moved on as a record maker in that time, then there’s something wrong with you.
With the songs, were there any that reflected your state of mind in terms of your health?
Um, of the newer songs... I didn’t want it to be an album about having cancer. Some are influenced by what I went through. ‘If You Don’t Mind’, it’s like a footy turn of phrase but I don’t necessarily know what the song’s about. It was the first new one that I wrote. At that time, I kept getting bad news after bad news. Then ‘New Motion’ is about finding a way to get through things. ‘Side Effect’, which you would think was about being ruled by bad outcomes, I wanted to switch it around and make it about falling in love. Which did happen at the same time I was diagnosed. So, it’s not about medical terms, I made it into a positive song, not a complaining song. It works well as a record about a wide range of emotions.
‘Picture in My Hand’, I wanted to write a song for a woman to sing. Kim doesn’t write songs but I still felt she had something to say. I told her I’d started writing this song and asked could I finish it. She said ‘yes’. It was about her husband Greg, so it was important for me to write that song for her. I think it’s a great song. And Larko pushed her to do her vocals in a different way.
‘Claw Hand’ is a kooky, hooky little instrumental. How did that come about?
Yeah, I’ve always liked doing instrumentals. That one features Andy at the end. It’s a different sound for us, a good way to finish the record. It can get a bit gloomy in the middle, not overly, but it’s a nice lift to the end. A snappy instrumental is always handy for that.
Lastly, I think the cover art is really good. It’s got an ‘80s indie feel about it, to me. Totally different from the sound of the music. Sort of retro but futurist as well.
Good. I love ‘80s rock. Not all ‘80s music is cheesy synth pop. With the cover we tried out a few ideas of our own and then my partner said, ‘you need to try another artist’. I found George Gillies and we went through a process; I sent him the music but I didn’t give him any direction. He sent back four or five ideas, and we went with that one. Again, I just wanted something different.
New Motion is available now through Yeah Nah Records (vinyl, streaming and download). The Double Agents will be launching it on Saturday 13th July at The Curtin (Carlton).
END NOTE: Dave Butterworth also talked about his involvement with Mudhoney and The Saints 1973-1978:
I was the guy who put Mark Arm forward for The Saints gig. Mark and I are friends and after the last Mudhoney tour he stayed with me for a week and we went surfing. We were surfing at Lorne and we were talking about music and he was just raving about the first three Saints albums. A few days later I was talking to the promoter (Feel Presents) and he was saying that Ed’s doing this Saints thing and wants a band to do just the old stuff, ‘but we can’t think of anyone to sing’. I said I’d been talking to someone who’d be perfect for the job, do you want me to ask him? He said ‘who?’ and when I told him he said, ‘Ed loves Mark, he really liked what he did on the MC50 thing’. So that’s how that all came about.