Margot
Smith Article
TASTE OF SMITH
Written by Tanya Burns
- June 1998
"This is my 2nd album and like the first one, it was produced by Steve Kilbey from The Church" explains Margot Smith about her new album, Taste. The Kilbey influence spreads further.
Most of the songs I've co-written with Kilbey, Steve is great. He's been very supportive. Every time I fall, he puts his hand out and picks me up again. He is also a brilliant, brilliant man - a genius actually."
Apart from helping to do almost half of everything for the album, Margot revealed Kilbey also had plans to play live with her. "Yeah, we are going to tour America later in the year and Kilbey's going to come across (he lives in Sweden) to play in the band."
Wont that mean you'll have 3 guitarists? "Yeah it will be a 5 piece. We've just got 2 at the moment but when Kilbey comes in, he'll be playing guitars as well, so it should be quite different to be record. It's a lot heavier when we play live."
Although Steve Kilbey was influential, Margot played her part as well.
"I've always been there at the mix and the mastering as well. I find all that stuff very natural. I know quite a lot about all of those things and I can play quite a few instruments but I can't play well enough or I wouldn't play on stage say guitar or anything even though I can write on a guitar I'm not good enough to do that. By the same token, I
wouldn't engineer somebody else's record, but I can get involved with that myself when somebody else is there to help me out like Tim Powles who is brilliant. When we record, it's entirely straight to tape so everything including lyrical melody are like made up sort of 'on the spot' so basically its like listening to a live band".
When pressed for a favourite track from the album, Margot chose to sit on the fence somewhat.
"I don't really have one, it changes, its always the newest song you've got I think you favour because it's the one you haven't played that much so you're just learning about the song yourself. The main comparison we're getting with this album is more like Garbage and first one was really compared to Kate Bush, so its kind of funny to hear people's reaction to it."
As far as the gig front goes, Margot and band have been working steadily over the past 6 months rebuilding up a profile before the Taste release.
"We've been on tour down in Melbourne quite a bit, recently with the Whitlams and we played quite a bit with Ed Kuepper as well. This tour that we're doing we are coming up with a band called Lodestar".