It’s been four years since Lane’s last full-length release, Blood Thinner, and he’s experienced a lot of ups and downs in the interim, trying to figure out where to go next. “I knew that I needed a lot of time on my own to work out what I wanted to talk about,” he says. “So I rented out this little bungalow and we had it for three months. The first three weeks were mostly spent just sitting, or frying eggs and other food – more and more procrastinating. I sat there on my own for ages feeling lonely and stupid, then I started looking at the topics I’d been too afraid to tackle.”
Lane’s eventual creative breakthrough was triggered by his resolution to develop the songs on his own. “When you’re in a studio, you’ve got people there working with you and I feel like I’m holding them up or keeping people waiting. The other thing is I love doing it in the middle of the night. There might be one or two people in your crew who are OK with that, but to have everyone involved up for working between midnight and 6am? I couldn’t bear the thought of even asking anyone.
“There was one guitar riff from a song, which I’d had on a loop recording for about four hours,” he adds. “I looked down and saw there was blood all over the guitar and realised I’d cut my finger right open. It was a fun moment to myself where I was like ‘Yeah, that’s rock’n’roll’. ”
Lane has just released the accompanying film clip for Frederick Steele McNeil Ferguson, in which his trademark brown locks are hacked away on camera. “The filmmakers are this Brazilian couple who are going around the world doing 80 music videos in 80 different cities,” he says. “They approached me and they said the only catch was they were only doing one sequence videos with no editing. They said they wanted to hear my idea and it was sort of a selfish thing, as I’d always wanted to challenge myself to cut my hair off. It’s probably been 20 years since my hair was short.
“So it was a good opportunity and it fits the theme, which is about how over generations people have these in-built ways of thinking and acting, being stuck with guilt for no reason. The idea of cutting off the hair is to rid yourself of that baggage and move on. That night my hair resembled Guy Pearce in The Rover, so I bought a pair of clippers and shaved it all off myself.”
Lane’s toured extensively around the world, but he still thinks our humble city stands up on a global scale. “It’s pretty hard to beat the Melbourne music scene. Spending time New York, London, LA, Nashville, Toronto – they’re all amazing scenes, though I’ve found it hard to get used to there not being as much going on every night. I haven’t found anywhere as thriving.”
For his trip home, there’s something else on Lane’s mind. “Café breakfasts in Melbourne are the best in the world. They do the avocados right, the mushrooms, poached eggs. I can’t find a good poached egg in America.”
BY BEL RYAN
