Expecting Company?, the new EP by Henry Wagons, is an unexpected delicacy.
Seven songs that bring you surf guitar, country, and a marvellous mix of vocals from a staggering cast. Henry has an amazing depth in his vocal delivery, but add Alison Mosshart (Dead Weather/The Kills), Sophia Brous, Jenn Grant, Patience Hodgson (The Grates), Gossling and the distinguished Robert Forster and you have some astonishing musical moments.
It’s early one Sydney morning, and Wagons is thinking about a breakfast to “soak up the evils of last night” (as he puts it), while having a chat about the EP and his current tour with the Unwelcome Company crew.
“Well I am not hugely prolific and that is part of the thing that kicked this thing off,” Wagons says of the collaborative EP. “I found myself having an unusual little spurt of inspiration.”
“When I got home from our last tour I was thinking of taking a couple of months off and relaxing. In the end that all changed due to a combination of factors. I stopped moving and I braced myself for that feeling you get when you slow down and I got ill. I let this flu wash over me,” he says.
“I was feeling disgusting enough to be reminded about a song I talked about writing with Alison Mosshart,” recalls Wagons about the first song of the new record, ‘Unwelcome Company’.
“It reminded me of this incredibly sick story that Alison had told me about her house where all the rats from under her house were forced up when the new subway station was being built in East London,” said Wagons.
“It led to this biblical wave of pestilence where the rats all were poisoned and then they died in the corners of the room which led to a maggot infestation and then a mess of blow flies and all of this taking place in what was usually an orderly and hygienic home. For Alison it became a sort of Satan’s den for a few weeks,” Henry chuckles.“A duet is like a musical where two characters unfold before the listener and it becomes a whole lot more voyeuristic…”
The metaphor that illustrates the unwanted company in reality, whether it is in your body or within your home, is something that we can all connect with. After that song was exorcised, Wagons had some more ideas based around other voices and duets as he continued down his journey through influenza.
“That was written and became the snowball for the rest of the album. That was always going to be a duet. I liked writing in that space and all the songs came together relatively quickly and in a different way than the band songs come together,” explains Wagons. “These were me pottering around in my home studio and having an egomaniacal control freak mad scientist session in my house.”
Adding to the crazed sense of experimentation was Wagons insistence that “the songs generally had multiple voices. I was getting into the difference between a normal song and a duet. It is an incredible interesting dynamic to write a duet. It sort of changes the relationship between the audience and the listener.”
Wagons describes a typical song as “very much a monologue, usually some guy feeling angsty in some way, getting on his soap box and telling it how he thinks it is.”
Whereas the duet, “is more like a musical where two characters unfold before the listener and it becomes a whole lot more voyeuristic and the complexities of that relationship were very exciting to me when I was writing.”
Even though Henry and Wagons (don’t get confused, Wagons is his band in case you missed it) had plans to record an album this upcoming Australian summer (and still do); but the Unwelcome Company project had a momentum of its own that he could not let go of.
Wagons states he is as proud of this work as any other record he has released, and so he should be.
From the old time country duet with Jenn Grant (“Give Things A Chance To Mend”) to the duet with Robert Forster (“I Still Can’t Find Her”), Wagons found a way to tap into a special creative space.
The latter’s inspiration in fact came from Wagons’ aunty who gave him “a briefcase full of crap and expecting me to make some sort of sense of it.”
“It was a whole bunch of stuff from generations past: pictures of my Dad, photos of people I did not know, some dusty old key rings, some receipts and boarding passes and crappy old ribbons and I thought ‘what the hell is this’?” he recalls.“I was feeling disgusting enough to be reminded about a song I talked about writing with Alison Mosshart.”
“Is there actually someone in here that I was striving to find, some source of inspiration back in my family history that is this person I have been waiting to meet. I went on this anxious lyrical trip through the briefcase and I wanted Robert Forster to tell me to pull my head in,” Wagons laughed.
Each song takes us on a journey and the power of two voices increases the depth of the lyrics whether they are light hearted or not. Recording with these fairly busy musicians however, would seem to make it impossible to take this EP on the road, but Henry Wagons and (some of) his Unwelcome Company are currently hitting venues in Australia, taking the songs to the people.
“The people that I have chosen on the EP are generally very busy and dynamic individuals. We are getting special guests where possible to join me on the tour but we are going to take more or less our own travelling medicine show on the road with us.”
The band will be complemented by the rhythm section from Wagons, a great new guitarist called Long John Guscott, “who is very surf guitar inspired,” says Henry, “ and The Nymphs will be adding their vocal talents to these duets and singing their hearts out.”
“Part of the record was me creating a big atmosphere so the show will be part surf rock, part Elvis Presley in Vegas and whatever else we can throw together,” says Wagons of his show.
These rich shows are not to be missed, and as Henry mentioned his love of country and entertaining came from the music that filtered into his consciousness at home with his parents.
The music of Marty Robbins from his Dad, and the great 70s sounds of Tom Jones, Elvis and Rod Stewart that his Mum loved.
His epiphany as an 18 year old came when his drummer gave him Cash’s American Recordings and the realisation came to him that he had to give this music a go instead of trying to sound like someone else.
“Here I was playing a bit of guitar trying to sound like Stephen Malkmus (of Pavement and frontman of The Jicks) and I realised that hearing Cash it made me think ‘I want to have a go at this’. I figured my inherited lower register had to be good for something and there was a way forward for a hairy guy with big balls writing music and singing,” Wagons explains with another hearty chuckle.
Henry Wagons has found a place for all of the above attributes in the Australian musical landscape and beyond. Jump on board and take a ride with Henry Wagons and his company of friends.
Expecting Company? is out now through Spunk, read the Tone Deaf review here. Henry Wagons and band are currently on tour around Australia. Check here for full dates and details.
