“I’ll only do two-pieces now, I can’t be arsed with any more members,” laughs Wayne Adams – esteemed producer, member of projects like Big Lad, Death Pedals and Johnny Broke and now, apparently, a staunch duo-only musician. The reason? He and Iggor Cavalera, best known as the original drummer of Brazilian thrash legends Sepultura, have formed Petbrick, a psych-punk onslaught of industrialised noise. Meeting at Adams’ London studio, Bear Bites Horse, Astral Noize arrives in time to see the band taking some professional promo shots, and is soon asked to help out. What we didn’t yet know whilst we stood there holding a strange lighting device is that this kind of impromptu circumstance is exemplitive of the band’s journey thus far – their laid-back nature, offhand songwriting and genial origins are a key factor in their success. Indeed, it’s easy to see why Adams prefers the simpler setup of two-pieces.
When the duo first got together, they didn’t even plan on writing music. Iggor, now a London resident, was impressed enough by a Big Lad gig in Camden to email Wayne, after which the two stayed in touch. They bonded over modular synth gear, and eventually met up in the studio, where initial jamming sessions fueled by coffee unexpectedly morphed into a musical project in the making.
“We’ve tried to keep that process going,” Adams tells us. “Where there’s no preconception or anything. It’s very much like we get in the space and we just start. It might be a drum beat, it might be a synth-line, it might be a noise, whatever.”
“All those things, once we get together, they start taking shape and then at one point they become a song,” says Iggor.
This, it seems, is Petbrick’s process. As a studio-based project, the band don’t rehearse tracks, rather they write as they go, reacting to life and the world around them. And the lack of conflict, not to mention the fun the band have along the way, is integral to their creative process.
“You come to a certain age in your life when you don’t want to make music with people that you don’t really enjoy being with,” says Iggor, reflecting on roughly 35 years as a musician. “I used to do that when I was fifteen and all I wanted to do was play music. Now, I want to eliminate all the drama from music. I want to have people around me that I want to hang out with.”
His bandmate agrees: “Yes. It’s like, do I like this dude? Yes. Can this guy play drums like a motherfucker? Yes. Sweet, I’m in.”.........
Read the whole interview: Astral Noize
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