Q: Given your latest album, Dawn Planes, has been out for just over a year, have you started work on another?
A: I've been working on a solo project, as has Marcus [Lawson, bass, guitar and keyboards].
The band has been working together for eight years now and we felt we needed to see what we could come up with independently.
However, Lucid 3 will definitely be recording something new within the next year or so.
Q: Can the Queenstown audience expect a mixture of old and new material?
A: Yes, yes, we're doing songs from the first to the last album.
It's great to get out old songs and breathe life back into them.
Q: How prolific are you?
A: I've been writing a song a week for the last few months.
It's not always as fruitful as that but I'm experimenting with my solo material.
It's interesting to see what comes up when I'm not writing with Marcus and Derek [Metivier, drummer and producer] in mind.
Q: You have lots of nice delicate details within your songs.
That suggests a certain perfectionist streak among you.
Is that true? Are you able to bang out a song or are you somewhat "retentive" and spend lots of time honing a track?
A: That varies song to song.
Some come out perfectly formed, but others will need more refining.
I strive to have my own "voice" in the lyrical style, but don't like to overwork things to the point of sounding contrived.
Q: There is a nice sense of space and groove within many of your songs.
Can you describe your songwriting philosophies/tastes?
A: Well, it works in such a manner that I'll write the song, take it to the boys and they add their instrumental parts.
That process manufactures whatever it is that makes Lucid 3's sound.
It evolves naturally out of the creative dysfunction between the three of us.
Q: Do you attempt to bring such dynamics [space or volume] to your live performances? [e.g. some bands get a little too crammed in their live approach.] Or does being a three-piece negate any possibility of being too "busy"?
A: Usually we work with what we've got in our live shows.
There's a sense of resourcefulness.
Marcus performs bass gymnastics; I swap between keyboards and guitar.
But at the Queenstown show we will be joined by Jol Molholland, of Gasoline Cowboy, on guitar and Mark Vanilau on keyboards and vocals.
I love the excitement of sharing the songs with new people.
It helps shed light on songs we may have played for many years and also takes the pressure off a bit and gives me a chance to sit back and enjoy what everyone else is doing.
Q: How important to you is the concept of "tone"? [I note the rather nice Fender Thinline Telecaster you have.] Again, is much time spent honing such aspects, both live and in the studio? Are you "gear-heads"? Can you afford to be? Does your music provide you with enough money to spend on such luxuries as nice guitars/basses/drumkits/electronic gear?
A: Marcus has a very impressive collection of vintage guitars, amps, keyboards . . . oooohh, everything you could dream of, really.
He's very generous with it and we use as much as possible on Lucid 3 recordings.
This, combined with Derek's engineering, makes a huge part of our "tone".
Derek's microphones, compressors and his audio style are an integral part of how we sound.
And yes . . . my 1976 Thinline Telecaster defines everything I've ever looked for in a guitar.
Q: Has the easy access to studios - and Derek's studio knowledge - influenced your material over the years? And if so, in what way?
A: Marcus would agree that working with Derek has been a privilege because of what we've vicariously learned about audio engineering.
I have developed a healthy respect for good sonics.
We'd have never successfully recorded our first two albums without Derek's audio genius.
Q: What's next after the Queenstown Winterfest? Back to Auckland/back to work? Any overseas tours planned? What's next on the Lucid 3 calendar?
A: Well . . . I'm hoping that by spending two days in Queenstown we'll have a chance to talk about all that.
I'd be keen to make an instrumental album and if they read this article it may be the first they've heard of that idea.
Q: I suspect Lucid 3 is not a full-time concern for you all.
If that is the case, what else do you do to: a, make money to eat/survive? And, b, to satisfy your interests outside of music?
A: Derek is an audio engineer, he works across the board in his field - from mixing and mastering to producing artists between New Zealand and New Caledonia.
Marcus is a soundie, but has also been very busy working with Dave Dobbyn, touring in his band and recording his new record.
And I'm still working in the media, in various capacities - as a researcher for television documentaries and also in music publicity.
I love research work.
It's amazing what song material comes from it.
I love to travel and I intend to do more soon; it's just a matter of time and money.
Lucid 3 plays at the Kawarau Falls Station Pavilion at 8pm today.
