Jay Watson is one of the hardest working musicians on the planet: in addition to his work with Pond, he is also a member of Tame Impala and has his solo outfit GUM. As such, he has contributed to some of the most celebrated music to come out of Australia in recent years. Recently, he was gracious enough to take some time out of his crazy schedule to share with me some anecdotes about touring around the world, the upcoming Pond album Tasmania, and more.
If there were a central theme to your upcoming album, what would it be?
I don’t know what a central theme would be for this record. There’s a lot that went into this album. For example, we were stuck in Jakarta, for a week after our show there, and we couldn’t leave. It was terrifying, you know? Looking back it wasn’t too bad at all, because we were in a hotel, drinking beer, swimming in the pool. But it was kind of like purgatory; they had taken our passports, and there was an American band who had been there a year before they got their passports back. So we decided we were just going to go to the gym every day and get really muscly. This is something I haven’t mentioned yet in an interview.
Musically, that is just one of the things going in there. I think another aspect that is a central theme is just this idea of the world…burning up, physically and metaphorically. And Jakarta, you know it’s really cool and lush. Not very densely populated. It seems like it might be boring to some people, but now it’s like some kind of paradise. So that was just one of the things that we were talking about while we were doing it [making the record]. I could go on and on. It’s good to mention the Indonesian thing though. My point is that it is really hard when you make any art to then kind of objectify it. You have to though, because otherwise you’ve got nothing to talk about. But I think Nick is a little better than me at articulating the lyrical things.
You work with a lot of different musicians. Do you find the way you approach songwriting with Pond is affected by whatever group of musicians is around you?
I think I do my thing. We all kind of think of ourselves as individual producers almost. You definitely pitch the ideas that you hope will resonate with the other guys in that band. I’m constantly making stuff up, but I only tend to show Nick and Joe the things that I think they will like. So I think the actual perception of the idea is rarely with the specific band, say Pond. But I think the curation of that idea is with that project in mind. The way that it’s dealt with, the way that it’s treated. You know, I’ll do an instrumental, and Nick [Allbrook] will write the melody and lyrics over the top. That’s just one example. Whereas if it’s a solo song, I just finish it on my own and never really show anyone.
What with writing music for so many different projects, do you ever find that a song originally intended for Pond ends up being better for Tame Impala or GUM? Essentially, do songs ever end up somewhere totally different from where you saw them going?
It works out the way it does, simply because that’s how it ends up. I think there are times that I thought certain songs on my other records would be good for Pond, and vice versa. Arguably for better or worse. But I think that there are hundreds and hundreds of forks in the road with music where you have to choose what to do. From as minute a thing as the attack setting on the compressor on the snare drum to whether or not your gonna have a chorus come back in, to what you’re gonna name your album. You constantly have to make decisions, and however big or small they are, they’re all set in stone once the record is out.
If you start to over-analyze it and think about it too much, it’s not good. We also try not to do too much hoarding or saving of musical ideas, we try to share it with everyone. It’s kind of like that thing where you’ve got all your shirts lined up, and you might not wear your favorite shirt because it’s a Tuesday and not Friday night, but that doesn’t make sense, you know? Saving it for what? So it’s the same with the music, we’re not too precious about what is being presented.
You’ve been sort of an integral member of this recent Australian psychedelic revolution. What do you think is contributing to the rise of the current Australian scene.
I think it is more a result of the time rather than us or the quality of what we do. I think the first Tame record came about in 2010. But that was at the point when maybe music blogs were at their peak, people actually reading them, and you would hear about people who made music in their sheds in Madagascar. It didn’t really matter where they were geographically. There’s always been great music in Australia, but there was no way for people to hear it really. Small market, less money behind it to get it out to the States, whereas now if what you do is good and you’re lucky, people will hear it all over the world.
Photos by Patsy Thayieng from Pond’s performance at First Avenue in Minnesota in 2018.
I have a lot of gripes about social media, but I think that is one of the most positive things about it. You don’t need to suck up to people to a certain extent to get them to listen. I’ve heard some mind-blowing stuff on Soundcloud from the middle of Russia or somewhere like that, which is pretty cool. I think that’s one of the best things to come out of internet globalization, just access to all this music. The thing is, if it’s good, you’ll hear about it eventually. Boutique labels have always kind of been issuing this obscure music that’s not really heard often, but the problem with that is it’s often 40 years later. Now, if it’s good, even if it’s a very small audience, it will find its way to that audience.
Say someone comes to check out Pond for the first time. What do you want that person to feel as they leave your show?
It’s an interesting question. I think all you can really aim for, and all that I care about when you break it down, is that the music feels honest and truthful. I think you don’t always play the best show, your mix isn’t always the best, there are a lot of variables that no matter how much you try to control, you can’t completely control. But I think songwriting and some honesty in songwriting, translates through anything. It’s a cliché, but that classic thing of a song is really good if you can just play it on an acoustic and it still moves you.
That feeling of truthfulness is what I would like to get from a show. Because I’ve seen plenty of shows that are amazing on different levels. It doesn’t really matter how it sounds or looks, how many people are jumping around, if you don’t believe it, their intent. So that’s kind of a big thing for me. I do it for a job, so I’m quite desensitized to the elements that blow people’s’ minds, like the volume, lights, smoke, and people running around. I’ve seen it 200 days a year now for 12 years. What really gets you is when you genuinely believe what is being performed.
With such a demanding touring schedule, do you ever have those nights where you really just don’t feel like playing? Everyone has days where they don’t want to go to work, after all.
It happens all the time. But as soon as you go on and see excited people and the adrenaline kicks in, you very, very, very rarely don’t want to be there. I think a lot of musicians would be lying if they said a half an hour before, playing all these shows a year, they might not be excited, especially if there’s anxiety involved, or any other variables, but you’d have to be pretty cold to not be feeling it at all once you get up there. Because you’re dealing with these huge amounts of people. It’s surreal, because in terms of the real world, it would be an insane feeling, if when you went down to get a coffee, ten thousand people were cheering for you. You can imagine the endorphins. So it’s hard not to get excited by the whole thing.
I’ve always been a bit of a grump on tour, especially at a certain point. But I think I’m mature enough now to know that it’s not real. It’s not real sulking. I just miss my house and my girlfriend. I’m stoked to be there. I’m very blessed, crazy blessed in job and life. There are times when everyone, no matter how lucky they are, isn’t feeling it 100%. But once you’re playing music and people are yelling at you, I think it’s always fun. It’s like having like three tequila shots at once. You might not be happy but you’ll be fired up. It works for me!
