http://mixdownmag.com.au/2012/11/09/thenewno2/CONQUERING THE FEAR
Thenewno2 is not so much a band, but an all-encompassing concept. The brainchild of Dhani Harrison, the amorphous project has so far spawned two EPs and two full-length LPs, most recently thefearofmissingout. The album features a broad palette of genres, ranging from folk and rock to electronica and rap – and features including Wu-Tang luminary RZA. Speaking upon his return home (to his excited dogs) from US festival duties, Harrison dissect the fear of missing out (FOMO, for short), recounts the formidable arsenal of guitars used on the record, and explains his impressive band managerial skills.
The whole concept of ‘the fear of missing out’ is a new one, but it definitely is something that’s tangible.
It’s one of those things everybody gets when they see someone say “oh look at me, I’m on a mountain,” or, “look at me, I’m on a boat”. We once a day get that on our Facebook from one of our friends. It’s one of those things that prevents you from being here, now. If you are ‘here’ is one side of the spectrum, the fear of missing out is the other side.
Tell us about the album’s writing process.
Well different songs came from different days when we would we identify with a kind of feeling. Like ‘I Won’t Go’ came from being in LA with so much driving and so much industry bullshit. Everyone’s always got a reason to go out, and ‘I Won’t Go’ is about everyone being so sick of it, just wanting to stay home and read a book. That just came about from living in LA. ‘The Number’, I don’t want to explain it too much, but if you imaging the FOMO you’d have with every girl you’ve ever gone out with, you know what I mean. We say these different types of FOMO, like “party FOMO”, and the list could go on. For every kind of action, there is some sort of FOMO going on somewhere. And you’re trying not to get sucked into it. I get it with music – if the band are working without me I just get terrible music FOMO.
Run us through how thenewno2 has evolved since the release of the first album.
It’s definitely grown, there’s probably been about ten new members since the last record. It’s nice. I love expanding it the whole time and bringing in different people to do different things. You see people work well together, even if it’s two people that have never met before and suddenly they’re making a record. I like being kind of like a team manager of a football team. Depending on what album you’re doing, or what festival were doing, or what show we’re doing, you kind of just pick the team that’s going out. So I can pick [violinist] Jessy Green, RZA and Regina Spektor. Regina was visiting and I asked her to do it and she was more than happy to work with us, and I’m sure she’s going to come back and do some more stuff because we just had so much fun. Then we had so much fun with the Wu-Tang guys that we brought them back on the record. Then we had Jessy on the record. Then Thorunn [Antonia, vocalist], we played with her at Coachella a few years ago, then that was a great combination so we brought her back. And Holly [Marilyn] is a friend of mine from LA, she was over at the studio one day and it just sort of happened. I like mixing it up. You never know what you’re going to write when someone else is around. It makes it more interesting.
Was it a challenge to form a cohesive package with all these disparate elements?
Well I think when we first started it all seemed different, but if you listen to the record on vinyl and with headphones and go start to finish, there is a curve and a graph and things turn up like instruments. RZA’s voice is more like an instrument. Thorunn’s voice is more like an instrument. The only thing thing that was holding me back from releasing it the way I did was the fear that people might think that it’s weird. But when the whole concept of the fear of missing out really fully settled, I thought “well that makes it even funnier”, because if you call it the fear of missing out then you’re definitely acknowledging it. No-one can say “this is just an album that’s a random collection of tracks”, it’s definitely meant to be this way. The arch works really well, in my opinion. I really enjoy having ‘thewaitaround’ going into ‘Staring Out At The Sea’. I always loved continous mix, DJ records. I always loved things that push you forward in a record and being taken to the next place.
There are a lot of eclectic guitar sounds on the record, what guitars were you using?
Myself? I used so many different ones. I’ll tell you some of them. There’s a really great Martin 12-string that appears on ‘Staring Out To Sea’. I was actually given that one by Ben Harper, which is really nice. I usually have my classic Strat that I always play. That’s been my go-to for a long time. It’s an Eric Clapton model with those Lace Sensor pickups. They’re just louder than other guitars. Loud is good. What else, a couple different custom Telecasters. There was a Les Paul Gold Top. That was an old one, it was my dad’s. Then there’s a Gibson that’s strung a bit differently, that’s the kind of thing I use in Fistful Of Mercy. A lot of them on the last record have been on other records as well.
So when will Australia see thenewno2 in the live setting?
We were supposed be there in January for Big Day Out, then I was bummed that we weren’t on Big Day Out in the end. I played Byron [Bay Bluesfest] with Fistful Of Mercy, and I would love to get back out there. A lot of my band haven’t been to Australia, but I’ve been there a lot – I love Australia. It’s one of those places where it’s so far away that when you tour, you have to make a big tour out of it.