Hard and Heavy: COED Interviews Pendulum

A heavy-hitting blend of rock, drum & bass and electronica, Australian band Pendulum is guaranteed to knock your socks off. With their deep sinking hooks and head-banging melodies, this unique blend of DJ and band has been drawing crowds from around the world. They were recently nominated by URB.com for Artist of the Year. And we had a chance to catch up with them during their US tour, for a bit of a chat…

Check out COED’s interview with Pendulum after the break!

COED: First of all, you use a lot of different kinds of music in your music. A lot of bands tried to do this in the 90’s and early 2000’s. But you don’t suck. How? Was it a conscious decision?

Pendulum: I think, in the beginning, it was a conscious decision. We knew what we didn’t want to be, to begin with. And that was pretty much the epitome of the 90’s producers trying to fuse electronic and rock stuff together – but only having a DAT machine on stage and the guitars not really plugged in.

COED: What do you think made those earlier attempts fail?

Pendulum: Well, in a lot of the cases that we know about they did not know enough about one of the types of music to make it work. In a lot of cases it’s probably a DJ coming out of their bedroom studios and being good dance producers, but not knowing anything at all about guitars and rock.

COED: How did DJing have an influence on your music as a band?

Pendulum: Well, I think that’s one of the primary influences behind the project because when that particular project started, I think the Djing and electronic influences did influence us at first.

COED: Do you have particular bands you look to for inspiration?

Pendulum: Yeah, like Zeppelin, Led Zeppelin, stuff like that…

COED: And if someone has a certain phrase in their song, do you look at that as being a good hook, kind of like a sample, that you could put into your music? Like taking bits and pieces from other music, and incorporating it to create your own – do you do it that way?

Pendulum: That’s pretty much exactly how the beginning conversations happened. That’s exactly how it happened to a scary degree. Were you like listening into us or something?

COED: Haha..If so, I have no recollection of it…What are some of the bands that are on your iPod right now?

Pendulum: I lost my iPod, and I want it now, because I can’t remember…

COED: Oh man, that sucks.

Pendulum: I’m really upset about it because I had a lot of good music on there… Some of the stuff we’re listening to is stuff like Strapping Young Lad, In flames, Meshuggah.

COED: Right on. Good metal bands, all of them. How has advances in technology changed things since you’ve been making music?

Pendulum: For one, I don’t think we’d be able to put our live show together at all. There’s a few very specific bits that have helped us a lot.

COED: Is that in terms of instruments or production or just across the board change?

Pendulum: Across the board, but mostly on the production side.

COED: Do you think it’s become easier to make good music or less easy to make good music the longer you do it?

Pendulum: Both of them. Sometimes you can be focusing so much on the technology and all the tips and all the different ideas that you can forget about what a good riff is. But we don’t forget because we like the riffs.

COED: It seems like you’re touring constantly, how has touring changed how you feel about getting up on stage every time – does it make it more or less exciting everywhere you go?

Pendulum: Well, it’s great. We get to see so many different places, and festivals are a big thing for us. We like going to festivals. We’re not necessarily the band everyone comes to see, but we come away from ever festival like we’d done a good thing – like a challenge.

COED: Are fans different depending where you are in the world?

Pendulum: We thought that was going to be case, especially like differences between places, like the UK where we’re really big and Japan, where we were relatively unknown. But we went out to Japan, and we had them bouncing off the walls and starting mosh pits. So I guess the reception has been pretty similar all over the world, and hopefully in The States as well.

COED: Do different songs of yours get a different reception in different places?

Pendulum: Not really. In general, I think the larger part of any audience is reacting to the catches and the melodies and stuff. But there’s a big chunk of them who just like the whole cause of the thing to be getting thrown around by the music, kind of being destroyed by it, and I think that’s why the live show is so good – you’ve got to experience it to believe it.