How Twine Made One Of Our Favorite Albums Of The Year

photogrpahy by Josh Sabini.

For the past two months I have been deeply infatuated with Twine, a band from Adelaide, one of Australia’s smallest cities, who make chaotic noise rock wrapped around lyrics with country sensibilities. Twine creates something unique, exciting and beautifully sorrowful within the juxtaposition of the two emotion fueled genres. 

I saw them live for the first time in October at the now defunct Melbourne DIY venue, D’Shut, with no idea what to expect other than the Instagram caption the venue posted with the flyer that read, ‘The only band I’ve ever watched that made noisy rock look sexy’. ‘Sexy’ seemed like an interesting description of a noise rock band, but seeing them play it made sense. They made the stage look like a desirable but intimidating place to be, playing with a blissful elegance. With the front of the stage inhabited by vocalist/guitarist Tom Katsaras’ erratic movements and violinist Thea Martin’s classy poise, the sexy label was accurate, and their juxtaposing vibes marrying just as well as their noise rock and country inspired sound. 

Since then I haven’t been able to stop listening to them, telling all my friends about this amazing band from Adelaide with a violinist. Twine have had a busy few months, a tour of the east coast of Australia in October, opening for their musical heroes, Unwound in November and now in December releasing their debut album. 

Twine worked with Alex Farrar, who has produced and mixed some of our favourite albums including, Wednesday’s Rat Saw God and MJ Lenderman’s Manning Fireworks, to mix their debut album, New Old Horse, which is out now via Kitty Records. I spoke to Tom Katsaras about the band, song writing, the Adelaide music scene, the new album and more to coincide with the amazing release. 

I wanted to start by talking about Adelaide. Whenever I talk to people about Adelaide, the fact that there is a good music scene in the city seems to come up. Whether that be talking about the current day scene or in the 90s. I was talking to a guy who owns a bookstore in Melbourne, he told me that he was in an emo-hardcore band in the 90s in Adelaide and the scene at the time was heavily inspired by everything Dischord was doing. Now there are bands in Adelaide like you guys and War Room who are also making incredible music. What do you think it is about the city that has created that scene?

Adelaide has always been pretty good, and has gotten really strong in the last few years. It is isolated from the East Coast and I think because of that people do their own thing, everyone has their own sort of niche idea that they want to try out. When I was growing up there were bands like Horror My Friend, who were a great Adelaide band. The music quality is high, but being a smaller city there isn’t the same crowd you would get interstate which makes it tricky.

Yeah, do you notice a difference with the response you get from the crowd when you’re playing in Melbourne or Sydney compared to Adelaide?

Totally, we always get a much better response everywhere else [laughs].

It’s funny that there are so many good bands in the city, but the bands are where the music scene stops.

You still get a good response, but it is different. When we did that run of shows in Melbourne and Sydney, the response was great. Then we came back to Adelaide and played with Unwound, which was a really great gig, a dream gig, but even after playing people aren’t very vocal if they are enjoying things, it is a lot more silent.

Twine has never felt like an Adelaide band even though we very much are, and I think that is why so many bands from Adelaide look to tour and push out elsewhere, you sort of hit your ceiling with how much you can get in Adelaide quickly.

Could you see yourself ever moving out of Adelaide?

I’ve been back and forth with the desire to move for a while. The band is my main reason for staying in Adelaide and pursuing it with everyone while we are all here. I would definitely move at some point. I can’t stay here forever [laughs].

As you said, you just opened for Unwound at their Adelaide show, I know that they are one of your biggest inspirations. How was that experience?  

It was terrifying, I have never been more scared for a gig. When starting Twine, playing with Unwound was a total pipe dream, they hadn’t even gotten back together at that point, so it was crazy for it to actually happen. The vibe before the set was tense because everyone was just freaking out. It was very surreal. I didn’t look out; I didn’t want to see if they were watching. I was thinking ‘What if they think we are just ripping them off’ [laughs]. They were amazing, their set was great. I’ve seen a lot of music this year where I have been like ‘This is the best thing that I’ve ever seen’ but that was definitely up there with the best thing I’ve ever seen. 

In another interview I read you said that one of your dream musical collaborations would be with Warren Ellis, reading that it makes sense. I wanted to ask about the influence the Dirty Three had on the band and on bringing Thea in on violin.

They are a huge influence. My brother bought me Ocean Songs for Christmas four or five years ago. I hadn’t heard of them but I got obsessed with them and the violin. I can’t play violin myself, but when we had written “Same Old Problems” the idea had come up to try it out with some violin. I didn’t know Thea at the time but just knew they played violin; we reached out to them, and it worked really well. From that point we asked them to join the band properly. We were really into experimenting with the noisier feedback driven stuff with the violin, then it melded from there and is in unison now.

Having Thea in the band is a really nice touch, they’re able to add so much with the violin, it feels so rare for an instrument to add that much to a band’s sound, I couldn’t really imagine the songs without them.

Yeah, Thea plays very forwardly, they’ll play a lead melody but will then interchange to doing a call and response thing. The dynamics of it are great.

Yeah, watching you guys live you could see that the band has such a nice dynamic too. Seeing you and Thea up front you could see your energies bounce off each other.

Sick, thank you. That was a fun gig. It was so late too.

Yeah, holy shit it was like midnight by the time you guys went on [laughs].

I remember being like ‘What the fuck how am I supposed to play’ [laughs].

How long have you guys been performing live for as Twine?

Three years. Our first gig was in October three years ago.

How are you feeling playing live now, do you feel like you’re in a good place?

Yeah, we’re definitely feeling really tight. These songs have been kicking around for ages, it has taken ages to get the album done. Then it took a while to get it rolling to get it out. We’ve been playing these songs for so long they’re all pretty down to memory. We are feeling very natural, everyone’s honed in on each other in a way. 

I wanted to ask about your song writing process. I love the vulnerability within your lyrics. Where do you start when it comes to writing a song?

I always struggled to sit down and write anything, “Sleeping Dogs” was the first song that I sat down and wrote in a single session. I would always write stuff down in the notes app and end up with this ninety per cent bad, ten per cent good collection of phrases. Then I read something about how David Berman’s whole thing with song writing was to collate everything you write and pick out the good bits. Going from that I found more trust in doing this notes thing. I get an idea or have a core line and pick the bits out around it. I used to spend so much time picking, swapping and being over the top with it, whereas these days I am a lot better at trusting and sticking with whatever comes to mind first.

David Berman is a great person to take advice on songwriting from.

Yeah, a lot of those songwriters like him, Will Oldham and Jason Molina influence me a lot. There is a lot of stuff that is overt homages which I like, I like having very direct references to a song, in a song. When I hear a song and there is a line from another song, it is a cool little easter egg.

Yeah, I agree. It is really cool, especially when you notice it as a listener. I know that Kim Gordon sometimes writes lines from books and in her lyrics.

I’ve written songs where there is a line that is almost too good and then I realise later on that it was from something else [laughs]. If it fits so well it’s like a miss to change it for the sake of it, everything has been borrowed and been done, you may as well embrace it. 

What are some songs that you’ve referenced in your songs?

“Between States” is an almost word for word riff on “Just be Simple” the Songs: Ohia track. “In High Tide Loose Change” has got the lyrics ‘Forever, for always, for certain’ which is a Townes Van Zandt song. There are quite a lot of stolen lines [laughs]. It always comes up naturally when I’m writing something, I’m never like ‘Time to rip this off’.

That’s really cool. Songs: Ohia was some of the first alt-country stuff I remember listening to when I was around seventeen. It’s amazing. 

Yeah, it’s the best. That whole run of Songs: Ohia albums are amazing. Magnolia Electric Co. is the gateway country album for me, my friend Eamon showed me that seven years ago. “Farewell Transmission” is such an amazing song.

It is so amazing.

Then from there you go further into Smog, Silver Jews and then go further into Townes and Blaze Foley. It is the total country gateway drug. It still holds up; it never gets old. 

For sure. New Old Horse was mixed by Alex Farrar who has mixed MJ Lenderman and Wednesday’s music. They both are leading the charge for this current era of Alt-Country both with their own unique takes on the genre. How was it working with Alex on the album?

It was great. He reached out to us just before we were going to start on the album and said that if we have anything to work on, he’d love to do it. It was a perfect fit. We are big fans of Wednesday and MJ; Twin Plagues and Boat Songs are both incredible sounding records. He’s very easy to trust, he knows the vibe and what he is doing. It was a dream collaboration.

That would’ve been very affirming having him reach out.

Yeah, it was really random too. I followed him on Instagram after going through the liner notes on one of the records. It was awesome.

Do you want to talk about the new album, New Old Horse? What have you got to say about it?

I am just keen to get it out [laughs]. We’ve been sitting on it for so long. I’ve gone through so many phases of hating it and then liking it again. I am proud of it. It took so much longer than I expected.

How long have you guys been working on it for?

All the songs on it have been the songs that have been written for Twine as the band has started and kept going. It was probably two years of writing, and it is the first project that I’ve ever had, so it was very much a slow process in trying to figure out how to write songs, what to do and not to do. We started recording, August of last year. “My God” was supposed to be the first single, which it was but we put it out very prematurely [laughs]. The album was supposed to come out soon after, but it didn’t happen like that.

I’m glad it’s almost out, I can’t wait to hear it. What’s next for Twine?

Hopefully another album, we’ve started writing but it has been pretty busy touring and getting a new drummer. I am keen to get the album out and focus on smashing out some new songs. I don’t think it’ll take as long the second time around, we now know how to do it now, so I want to get working on some more stuff.