asian milhouse opens up on new album ‘innards out’.
Josh Chan aka asian milhouse chats through their new full-length ‘innards out’ with friend and collaborator Marley Donnan-Cook and Rockton Records’ Ryan Borrett.
[From a conversation in Ryan’s backyard under soon-to-be cut Jacaranda in its brilliant final bloom on Saturday December 2, 2022]
Ryan: When you sent these songs to me a few months ago my first reaction was that I’d heard them before. I quickly remembered you’d shared some of them in a less-complete form with with me as far back as 2020, so I guess let’s start with asking; when did these songs come about?
Josh: Years ago! Some of them go as far back as 2017 when I was living at Park Rd with Marley.
Marley: Woah over two years.
Ryan: But not all of them hey, they’ve been revisited since right?
Josh: Yeah I kinda finished them off in the next house, so around one and a half years ago. But there was shit in between, I was busy!
Marley: Not twiddling thumbs out here.
Josh: I want to get into whittling wood, I think that’d be a fun pastime.
Ryan: We should do that at our new place, get the rocking chairs out on the front porch!
Josh: I want to carve out a bear; a bear eating a salmon.
Marley: How big?
Josh: They’re usually pretty big! Nonie likes to watch this live stream footage of all the bears coming out of hiberation.
Ryan: I feel like Nonie has shared this around?
Josh: It’s like the world’s most boring reality show! It is pretty vicious though…those fish can’t do anything.
Ryan: How long do you normally take to make a track from start to finish?
Josh: I try to get the bones done in a couple of days max. I don’t even really like to mix anymore.
Ryan: Do you mix as you go?
Josh: I find it pretty dangerous to mix as you go I find. Maybe a couple weeks mixing but not much more. I need to move on to something else, I get bored otherwise.
Ryan: We’ve spoken before about setting deadlines I think.
Josh: Yeah if you don’t finish a track you’ve kind of wasted your time, at least in my opinion, except for the learning that you did
Marley: The product isn’t there.
[The third track on the album, ‘All Cats Have 9 Legs’, plays]
Josh: How cracked are these changes, Will Britto wrote them!?
Marley: Classic Britto harmony
Josh: Trying to write a vocal melody to this like ‘what the fuck’ laughs
Ryan: If Will wrote these changes, what are the other collaborators dotted throughout?
Josh: One of them is Big Z, Christian Zappia, on Odyssey with a guitar solo.
Marley: He’s good for that laughs
Josh: I didn’t even really tell him what to do, I just sent it to him one day and asked ‘do you want to track something on this?’, then the next day he sent it all back and killed it, did parts and everything too. Marley is on a couple tracks too, but I think I kinda just told you what to play.
Marley: The parts were already sorted.
Josh: Yeah I tracked the bass myself but it wasn’t very tight. On the fretless I think I asked you to do?
Marley: Yeah on ‘Ah Well’.
Ryan: And there’s some live drums on Odyssey too?
Josh: Yeah that’s Kye! We did that while we were living together at Park Rd.
Marley: How many tunes are on the album?
Josh: 12. Well 11, plus a bonus track; if you know a rapper for that one…
Marley: Mmmmm spit some bars
Josh: It’s kind of waiting for it isn’t it? I just don’t know that many rappers.
Marley: We just know a couple don’t we…
Josh: Yeah but they’re too busy, or just doing their own thing. You wanna spit some bars Marley?
Marley: Don’t tempt me laughs I’ve been tempted now doing it with Dad, he’s actually pretty good off the dome!
Josh: Yeah he’s good!
Marley: ‘Teach me your ways’ laughs
Ryan: I heard rumblings that you’ve been working on some music?
Marley: Yeah chipping away.
Josh: They’re quite good
Marley: Cranking away…we’ll get there. I was thinking of questions on the way here laughs I was wondering…question burning…what’s tickling your fancy and what’s rustling your jimmies these days?
Josh: I’ve been listening to lots of city pop these days, that’s tickling my fancy. I don’t know what’s rustling my jimmies…work I guess! Nah nothing really is rustling my jimmies. I’ve been playing lots of Pokemon lately, that’s been tickling my fancy too!
Ryan: Do you have good memories of video game music?
Josh: Yeah! The best soundtrack game I think is Chrono Trigger, it’s this old Japanese RPG from the 90s, there’s so much of my sonic DNA in that sound track. It’s by this guy, a classical musician, who got really into Japanese fusion but he didn’t learn jazz or anything, so he just learnt by going to clubs and just listening, and wrote this gnarly fusion soundtrack but sometimes it goes like acid house as well! Mega Man is so good too…
Ryan: I remember maybe we spoke about Terraria before?
Josh: Yeah I used to play so many, I kinda still do. They’ve just got banging tunes. You don’t even know you’re listening to it.
Marley: Have you heard the battle music…the one with the slap bass laughs it’s so obnoxious I have to turn it down sometimes.
Josh: It’s kinda lit though.
Marley: It is laughs
Listen to single ‘Sighing’ from ‘innards out’
Ryan: How do you write songs these days?
Josh: The stuff I do now is a bit more song-y. But there is some stuff that is a bit more through-composed; where you never look back.
Ryan: Yeah there’s a lot of transitions, I don’t want to say beat switch, but big moments of change, like ‘oh we’re here now’.
Josh: I kind of wanted it to be a journey some of the time. I got bored with beat music a bit, so I went the opposite way, tried to write music that didn’t go back to where it came from. And it’s really hard! These songs took a lot longer than usual because of that; you have to keep writing the music. But it’s pretty rewarding when you get it.
Ryan: When did the vocals come about?
Josh: I started them on those tracks ‘Odyssey’ and ‘Sighing’ just as backing stuff. Then I realised ‘this is actually kinda fun’, so I started doing it for every track. And I’ve gotten better from when I first started! I just really enjoy it; I think singing is a really good instrument. I like the part writing. I wrote some really hard parts though!
Marley: It’s a good way to supercharge your vocal technique in some way. And just following your ear still.
[‘Ah Well’ plays]
Josh: I like how this one goes, bass on the off-beat…
Marley: The soft boog is good. It’s really good, ala Inspector Norse laughs
Josh: And the Hamster Dance laughs We got some monitors the other day and needed a track to check them with…Hamster Dance laughs
Ryan: Were all the lyrics were back then too?
Josh: I kinda just do them as a I go. A lot came from a time when I think I was just really sad, or at least channelling a time when my mental health wasn’t so good. And now when I listen to them now it’s kind of different. I was also definitely going through so much gender stuff; not feeling right in my own body, and going through a lot of that. And going through interesting relationship stuff at the same time…all melding into this confused little brain, trying to make sense of life.
Ryan: So there’s some quite serious emotional threads running through it?
Josh: I kinda think they’re all serious songs, I don’t many of them are really fun.
Ryan: But you’ve got that perspective now looking back?
Josh: I still like the songs, and want them to see the world.
Marley: What do you think the experience of touring has had on the writing process?
Josh: I just want to do goofy shit now. Touring is hard, it’s not easy. Some parts are fun, but as an overall experience it’s kind of grim, I think anyway. Just moving all the time, you miss your loved ones for months at a time. I’d rather write about fun shit now.
Ryan: Did either of you write at all on the road in the last year or so?
Josh: I wrote a bit, those things on my Instagram, bits in nature. Oh I wrote a bunch of songs for the Buckland show!
[‘Printemps’ plays]
Josh: This one I did with El. I did the melody but she did the lyrics; it’s all in French. I have a vague idea of what the song is about, I think it’s about Spring coming and missing home.
Marley: What would you say your favourite bit about collaborating is?
Josh: You get shit that you can’t do yourself.
Ryan: Or things that never even entered your imagination.
Josh: Yeah things you couldn’t do at all.
Ryan: Let’s talk about the collaboration between the two of you; the seemingly telepathic connection that emerges…
Josh: We’ve done a lot of improv together and we write a bit together.
Marley: I think we learned a lot together.
Josh: We had a band for a long time.
Marley: A lot of shared tastes as well just from hanging out a lot which helps.
Josh: I think when you’re learning an instrument, for a while there a lot of people listen to the same shit over and over for learning. A lot of people listen to fusion because it’s ‘good learning’.
Marley: It’s all there, the harmony and everything.
Josh: But I can’t really listen to much fusion anymore. But I like Japanese fusion though!
Ryan: I’ve been listening to Masayoshi Takanaka a bit again recently.
Josh: He’s got this album called ‘The Rainbow Goblins’ it’s like this famous Japanese folk tale about seven goblins who steal all the colour from the world, so he made this album with this playschool-esque narration interspersing the record, it’s so good!
Ryan: The surfboard guitar…
Josh: If you watch him play it live he’s easily way worse on that thing, and like halfway through switches it out.
Marley: Because it’s so heavy laughs
Ryan: When you write together what does that usually look like?
Josh: I don’t know hey.
Marley: It can be anything.
Josh: The process is always different.
Marley: That one ‘crabs on the menu’ laughs
Josh: I think what’s kinda good is we can do a lot, like able to play lots of styles so that helps.
[‘Bonus Track’ plays]
Josh: This one is just calling for LP!
Marley: That nylon string guitar in there is so nice.
Josh: The tones are so different. especially nylon and electric where the electric is so thin and the nylon has that chunk.
[the album ends]
Josh: Could put dinky spud on…
Ryan: Dinky spud? Do you want to connect to the speaker?
Josh: Nah i’ll just send it to you. It’s a cover of kinky love I did with Nonie.
Marley: Ohhhhhh yes.
Josh: I’ll send you ‘crabs on the menu’ too, it’s a banger!