THEREIN Does Good Job With PINK FLOYD Medley

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It’s always nice to see bands paying tribute to other bands, especially the ones that defined the Rock genre. That is the case with Australian band Therein who recently put out a mini album comprised of Pink Floyd songs which are arranged in a single-track medley. The release that is available via Bandcamp is titled Pink Floyd Sessions and includes songs “Shine On You Crazy Diamond,” “Time,” “Great Gig in the Sky,” “Money,” “Dogs,” and “Is There Anybody Out There?” 

Guitarist and singer Cameron Wheelan spoke for Prog Sphere about the idea behind the medley, arranging songs, recording, gear, but he also tells us about the future Therein plans.

How did you guys come up with the idea of doing this Pink Floyd medley?

Originally we had put the medley together as a live set when we opened at a screening of The Wall in Brisbane. Later we decided it might be fun to record the whole thing, and what a task that ended up being.

What was crucial when choosing songs for the medley?

Not choosing too many songs – there are far too many Pink Floyd songs to fit into a 20 – 30 minute set.

Tell me how did the whole process of arranging songs into a single piece go?

I think it went rather well. We talked about what songs we could play and how they’d fit together, and it all sort of fell into place as it went.

How did the recording process go? Were there too many takes and overdubs?

It went really well, every session we got a good chunk of it done and we were pretty happy with the sound. But it didn’t seem to matter how much we recorded, we always found another bit that needed to be done. We made a good effort to absorb as many of the extra instruments/guitar dubs across just two guitars, but there were times when it was unavoidable. Their recordings often have a lot of layers, the kind of stuff you don’t really think about in a live context. I guess it was a bigger project than we anticipated.

How long did it take you to complete the whole project from start to finish?

The drums and the main rhythm guitars were tracked in a big live room set up like a stage. It was one solid 12 hour adventure in the studio if I remember correctly. Then over the course of a year we occasionally came back to it (between recording for the album) and filled in the blanks from the first session. And as I said before, there were more blanks than we expected.

What was your vision for this project considering that these songs were written and put out some 30-40 years ago?

The vision was pretty simple. It went something along the lines of, “we like Pink Floyd, other people like Pink Floyd, we happened to have a 25 minute set of their material ready to go – so why not do something with it?” The material being from 30-40 years ago doesn’t really matter I think, it’s music!

How much of a challenge was it to take on these classic Pink Floyd tunes? Especially when it comes to arrangements and guitar sound, where David Gilmour is one of the best guitarists and composers.

It was pretty challenging. Though a lot of it is really very simple in terms of technicality, it’s very easy to overlook all the nuances in the arrangement and in the playing that make it what it is. We don’t have an actual Pink Floyd-sized budget for recording or for gear, so we made do with what we had. It was actually pretty fun trying to push our gear to emulate certain guitar tones and tweak our playing to suit the sound. We definitely learned a lot from recording this stuff, or at least I did.

Tell me about the gear you used to track the Pink Floyd Sessions?

We used genuine[1] Pink Floyd style instruments – Ibanez RG’s! Ryan even played a 7-string model. The bass was an Epiphone I believe. As for amps, we used a combination of a Kemper, Peavey Windsor, some Line 6 gear, and I think there was a Fender Twin at some point?

Apart from this recording, what is Therein up to? Are you working on any new material?

We are currently recording our new album. And let me tell you, it’s a big project. I’m very excited to put it out there; I think there’s a lot of stuff on there that people will like. The new material spans from very recent material to stuff we’ve been playing live since our inception as a group, and I think there’s a broad but balanced set of flavours. It’s got light and shade, humour and horror. You’ll be hearing songs from it in the not so distant future.

What else is in the Therein pipeline?

Music, music, lamb chops, and more music. After touring to support this new album, we have a follow up EP for the album in the works. After that we have a rather large pool of material to draw from to make our next full length, and then I guess we set our sights on touring overseas, and have some celebratory lamb chops. There’s no shortage of things to do.

Any final words?

Keep an eye out for our new album, if you read this webzine you will like what you hear. Find us on Facebook, Bandcamp, and YouTube to check out our existing stuff and keep updated on the new album’s progress.

Footnotes:

[1] may or may not be genuine

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