Frenzal Rhomb – Forever Malcolm Young (Vinyl, LP, Album, Limited Edition)

2006. Kogarah, New South Wales, Australia. A converted factory in a sea of mechanics, cabinet makers and a sex shop, which would all probably soon be knocked for apartments. That's where we recorded Forever Malcolm Young.

Before that we spent long weekends and a couple of public holidays in Alexandria and Adelaide rehearsal rooms writing the thing (some of us had weirdly got proper jobs the year before). We'd spend ours in artificial light, breathing in artificial air, playing the dumbest riffs we could think up and then back in the hotel room coming up with weird rhyming couplets (“always gnocchi not linguine, never Hitler you're Mussolini” or “Second verse different from the first, hey redneck get in my f***en hearse”).

Then when we had enough dumb riffs and weird rhymes (some would say too many), we went to Kogarah. Reunited with the man who made our Live At The Wirelesses sound good (including sneaking us in to redo the vocals one time) and rescued the not-completely-s**t songs on SYM, Phil McKellar.

We had one rule – let's do it as live as possible. Drums, bass and guitar, all at once, then the guitar double and stupid fingertapping, then the vocals. We wanted it to sound as close to how we sounded live as possible. Which, in hindsight, may not have been the smartest of ideas.

We even had the DVD of Some Kind Of Monster playing on repeat in the loungeroom to keep us on track.

We mixed Forever Malcolm Young in Balmain, while Bryan Brown yelled down a phoneline in the office next door (seriously), Jay & Lindsay making the odd production suggestion while sleeping off breakfast radio hangovers.

In the end we got a record which has the rawness of a live album, and the tracklisting of a band who probably needed someone to tell them to stop already, there's enough songs. Oh well. At least we've got Jazz Freedom's unearthly scream on undoubtedly the best song on the album, Please Go Over There. And Bruz was there too.

RIP Malcolm Young, RIP Johnny Ramone, RIP Graham Henry (is he dead yet?), and cheers to Phil McKellar, at least you've got those sweet Silverchair royalties.

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