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THE AVALANCHES
30 illinoisentertainer . com january 2021 necessarily mean great results , and that it ’ s important to be in a state of flow , and to be in touch with your intuition when making music . I think following up “ Since I left You ,” honesty — and not to sound flippant — but I thought that since it had come flowing out of me so easily , I kind of thought , “ Well , if people think THAT ’ S good , if I try really , really hard , I could do something that ’ s ten times as good !” And I learned the hard way , of course , that that ’ s not how it works , and that “ Since I Left You ” came from a place of pure inspiration . So the journey of making “ Wildflower ” was all about getting back to that place .
IE : How did liquor become a problem ? You weren ’ t in some dark 30-days-ofnight Scandinavian country . RC : There ’ s a huge drinking culture in this country . Huge . And — just to be honest — there ’ s a lot of alcohol-related violence , and it ’ s very accepted for everybody to be a huge drinker . And that ’ s not why I drank . I drank because I wanted to numb myself , because of my own inherent personal … incomplete relationship with myself . I had extreme shyness and anxiety as a young person , and alcohol was a way for me to deal with the world and deal with life .
IE : A lot of artists drank just to get the courage to go onstage . RC : Well , yeah . I mean , for me that ’ s not the story . I ’ ve never been able to perform or write music when I ’ m drinking . When I ’ m drinking I ’ m alone , and I get very unwell , very quickly . I got sober for the first time around the age of 20 — I was very young when I started drinking , only in my teens . And I was only able to make that first Avalanches record because I ’ d almost died from drinking already , and I was so young and happy to be alive and free from this trap of addiction I ’ d been in that first album just came pouring out of me when I was 22 , 23 . And then I had a long period of sobriety , like 12 years after that . So when I ’ m well , I ’ m making music , and when I ’ m unwell — if I ’ m drinking — I can barely function . So it ’ s definitely not that old myth that being fucked up makes for great art . That simply doesn ’ t apply to me .
IE : What was your poison of choice ? And of course , every rehab teaches the same crucial lesson : You use , you die . All of us still left to tell the tale learned it . RC : I would just always end up with vodka , usually . And yeah , that was the lesson . And in fact , I was very lucky on a number of occasions NOT to die , and I think I was just so unwell , it was either you start listening to a new way of doing things and perhaps recover , or you keep going the way you were and you die . But there was still something left in me that
I ’ m really grateful for , that I fought through it and held on and I finally began to get well .
IE : And this new album , you seem to recognize music as this force , this saving grace that you want to honor in “ Music is the Light ” and “ Music Makes Me High .” RC : Very much so . Thank you — that ’ s a lovely way to put it . And we are doing that . We are . Music really unifies . And it has gotten me through so much — it ’ s been the foundation that ’ s driven my life forward , and it ’ s been the foundation of so many friendships , and definitely of my friendship with Tony . And yeah , we are honoring it . It ’ s extremely powerful . And I really love the different levels that music can work on . If you ’ re a teenager alone in your bedroom and you feel disconnected from the world , you can listen to music alone and it can be a deeply personal experience , or it can connect you to other people . Or you can get 100,000 people together in a field at Glastonbury and it ’ s a huge unifying force , or in church , music can affect you in the same way . Music affects all of our lives .
IE : And it kind of keeps you , as the song says , forever young . RC : And isn ’ t it wonderful ? And I ’ m always surprised . There ’ a always another record that I ’ ve never fucking heard of that just comes along out of nowhere , and I ’ m like , “ This was made in 1972 ?! What IS this ?” It ’ s endless . And I ’ m starting to realize that it ’ ll be like that for the rest of my life — you ’ ll never be able to read every great book , you ’ ll never be able to hear every great record in just the same way . But I think it was great growing up as a kid in Australia , because we were so geographically removed from the rest of the world that we didn ’ t have so many judgments — like the genres of what ’ s cool , what ’ s not cool . We soaked it all up . We soaked up the music from London , the United States , and music from Asia made its way here , too . And AC / DC was the soundtrack to my youth , but also ABBA was HUGE in Australia , just huge . So I like the fact that we ’ re not particularly cool . Like , “ Since I Left You ,” our first record , wasn ’ t made from sampling super-rare records — it was just records that we found in the junk store .
IE : How did you assemble your wish list of guest vocalists on “ We Will Always Love You ”? It ’ s insane ! RC : We just let the music lead the way . And like you said about honoring the music , a song would be coming to life just the same way that all of our songs do , just by sampling . We still begin all of our music that way , so we ’ ll just let the music lead the way and imagine , “ Who ’ s got the
By Tom Lanham continued on page 33