THE BATS RECORDING 'FREE ALL THE MONSTERS' AT THE SEACLIFF ASYLUM IN 2010
/ PHOTOGRAPHER UNKNOWN
In 1982, Robert Scott was at a loose end following the demise of The Clean. He was living in Christchurch as the band had relocated there earlier that year. Teaching his flatmate Kaye Woodward (Minisnaps) the rudiments of guitar led to an informal group of friends getting together to play music. Those friends included Paul Kean (Toy Love, Playthings, Minisnaps) and Malcolm Grant (Builders, The World, Six Impossible Things), and the loose group were soon playing covers at parties before Robert turned on the songwriting machine.
The early Bats years were frantic ones with prolific songwriting and recording that soon saw the records coming: By Night, Music For the Fireside, ‘Made Up in Blue’, Daddy's Highway and many, many more. Touring too — up and down New Zealand and away to Europe. Children came along, and while their priorities changed, they kept on being a band with international reach.
THE BATS AT THE GRIFFITH OBSERVATORY, LOS ANGELES
While The Bats' lineup remained constant, their set-up changed in the mid-1980s. Robert Scott decided to move back to Dunedin, and as the band wanted to continue, new ways of working together were developed. Robert would demo new songs and send them to the others in Christchurch to modify and practice. He would then travel north to finish off the songs with the band in the practice room before they departed on tour or to a recording studio. Had they remained a Christchurch band with a songwriting singer-guitarist who lived in Dunedin, or were they a Dunedin band with most of its members living in Christchurch? They were both.
It’s 2010, and Robert has over an album's worth of songs ready to go. The band get to work to find somewhere in the country and out of the way to record for an extended period. Kaye comes up with a self-contained backpackers facility along the coast north of Dunedin, between Karitane and Waikouaiti. It turns out to be the remnants of a Victorian gothic monstrosity; the notorious Seacliff Asylum. Perhaps the hospital's most famous ex-patient was Janet Frame, whose early books recounted her own horrific experiences at the hospital. Being built on unstable land and then extensively fire-damaged, it soon fell into disrepair and was demolished.
THE BATS RECORDING 'FREE ALL THE MONSTERS' AT THE SEACLIFF ASYLUM IN 2010
All that remains are the old horse stables with their blacksmith forge intact. The band hired the whole place so they could live in, self-cater and spread out for recording. On their arrival, they found the spooky outbuildings littered with artificial dead bodies and splattered with fake blood due to the area being recently used as a film set for a horror movie.
The cover design is built around Paul Kean's photos of the old stone stables, and it’s environs. You get a closer look at all of this in Paul Kean's directed video for ‘It's Not the Same’.
It's December 2010 and Dale Cotton (High Dependency Unit, Mink, Cloudboy, Dimmer, Beastwars, Sublimals, Die! Die! Die!, The Verlaines, Bachelorette) arrives with his portable recording gear, good ideas and the ability to get the sounds the band wanted. Collectively, they took their time with the placement of mics and amps to maximise the quality of the sounds they could capture. Playing live, most of the album was tracked over several days, with the band concentrating on getting good versions recorded. Alan Starrett joined them with his violin and dulcimer for some added musical flourishes.
Despite Seacliffe’s frightful history, the band were collectively conscious of the general good vibes present around the recording, and you can hear that state of mind in the finished recording. It is a recording that highlights the band's tight collective playing and shimmering sound; the guitars are subtly kraut-like and Robert's singing has never been finer, more relaxed, controlled and tuneful. Free All the Monsters is an album of great sounds performed and recorded in a relaxed and expert manner.
Free All the Monsters was recorded in December 2010, mixed in Dunedin from February to June 2011 and released in November 2011.
The band had great enthusiasm for making videos at this stage of their career. All six from this album are worthy efforts worth viewing, but ‘Simpletons’ (directed by Marc Swadel) is the most poignant, lamenting the earthquake-wrecked city of Christchurch. Two devastating earthquakes hit Christchurch just months on either side of the recording of Free All the Monsters, the first on September 4, 2010, and the second, with 185 fatalities, hit on February 22, 2011.
Other videos:
‘In the Subway’ (Directed by Paul Kean)
‘On the Bank’ (Directed by Olivia McClymont)
‘Spacejunk’ (Directed by John Morrison)
