I
n2013angusandjuliastone
were on the brink of dissolving their
creative relationship until a call from
ultra-producer Rick Rubin convinced
them to give it one last try. The result was
2014’s self-titled album, which was both a
creativeandcommercialtriumph,becom-
ingtheirbiggestsellingalbumtodate.
More importantly, it was a personal wa-
tershed for the pair, who discovered, almost
adecadeintotheirmusicalpartnership,a
brandnewwayofworking–mostsignif-
icantlyinthattheystartedwritingsongs
together. For their new album,Snow,the
duo decided to put their new methodolo-
gytothetestbydecampingtoAngus’stu-
dioBelafontéinthewildsoutsideofByron
Baywithabsolutelynothingprepared.The
album would be built from scratch, pre-
dominantly by the pair alone.
The result distils the Stones’ musi-
calchemistrydowntoitsessence:sim-
plesongs,oftenonlyacoupleofrecur-
ring chords, with the movement coming
fromthelayeringofriffsandtheirinter-
twined vocals. “We’ve never been huge fans
ofbridges,”Juliaexplains.“Weliketwoor
fourchordsongs:ifit’snotbroke,don’tfix
it, you know?”
The album also taught them that limita-
tions can be creatively liberating.
“Abigpartofthisrecordwasjustwork-
ingthingsoutwithwhatwehad,”says
Angus. “Like, we didn’t have a drummer
for the first part of the recording, and I
bought this old organ with four drum beats
on it – one’s samba, one’s rock & roll and
so on – but all of them became songs. And
it was so shitty, but it was so sick. That
organ became like a phantom member of
the band.”
“We have this attitude that if it sounds
good, it is good,” Julia adds. “And when
you do something and it’s not through the
quote-unquote right microphone you just
go, ‘Oh, this is working, and maybe there is
a buzz in it but it doesn’t matter because it’s
a good vibe.’”
The album was made over the space of
18 months with several breaks along the
way. “Most of it was just sitting down, hav-
ing some beers and playing,” Angus shrugs.
“It’s that real sort of zoned-out haze where
you just put your head down and start play-
ing a note and someone will sit down and
start, and it ends up in this epic jam. Andfreaking out, and all I could think about
was the hard drives, because the studio’s
on the bottom of the hill. So I wrapped the
backup hard drives in plastic and I had this
garbage bag over me.. .”
“She looked like a ghost,” Angus smirks.
“... And Angus is so calm, he’s like, ‘It’s
all good. Everything’s going to be fi ne.’ But
it scared the shit out of me. I thought the
apocalypse was coming.”
Given that the songs had been created
via the process of recording, would it even
have been possible to re-record the album
if the waters had claimed it?
“No,” Julia says. “If the record got lost,
the record would be lost.”
Angus is even more emphatic. “If we’d
lost the record, I’d fucking go get a job,” he
declares. “I’d learn how to fucking operate
an excavator and dig holes.”a lot of those songs became the songs on
the record.”
So given the cruisey process, how did
they know that the album was done?
“Did we have a deadline?” Julia asks.
“Oh, we booked in a date for mixing. We
sort of made a deadline for ourselves.”
And they had to, since this freedom was
in danger of extending indefi nitely.
“There was defi nitely like a vortex we
were falling in,” Angus explains. “We were
getting super lazy.”
“Yeah,” Julia nods. “We would do an hour
of work for six hours of hanging out.”
That’s not to suggest that there wasn’t
drama.
“We got fl ooded in one day,” says Julia.
“Angus and I couldn’t leave the proper-
ty, the streets were all closed because they
were all underwater. And I was totally16 | Rolling Stone | RollingStoneAus.com October, 2017R&R
HOT ALBUM
Angus&JuliaStonearedoin’itfor themselves on album four
BY ANDREW P. STREETSibling Harmony
STONE FREE
‘Snow’ is Angus &
Julia Stone’s
fourth album.