RUSSIAN WINTERS

The Battle Begins

A staple of the local indie rock scene, Russian Winters have just released their long-awaited debut album Last Battles, and they launch it this Saturday, October 8, at the Rosemount Hotel with Emperors, Sugarpuss and Mezzanine. Frontman Kris Dimitroff chats to MATTHEW HOGAN.

When asking Russian Winters’ frontman Kris Dimitroff about a brief history of his band, the former Team Jedi skinsman seems to have confused his band with a fictionalised version of The Beatles.
“Well we started off as a skiffle group in Liverpool but evolved into an R&B covers act when we met this guy called Paul at a fete,” begins Dimitroff. “Oh hang on – that’s the plot of Backbeat.”
All jokes aside, the band released their debut EP Give Up The Ghost in 2008 and they promised their full-length debut would quickly follow. “I was hoping no one would notice that,” exclaims Dimitroff. “At the time we probably tried to build a buzz by saying an album was coming but it took way longer than we thought. No band troubles per se but changing line-ups, lack of funds and we didn’t want to record an album of sub-par songs.”
The wait has paid off as they penned some top-tiered tunes and took them into Blackbird Studio to Perth’s premier pop producer Dave Parkin.
“Parko’s a talented guy no doubt,” says Dimitroff. “He can work the compression on a snare mic and order a pizza at the same time! The recording officially took 10 days but four of those were spent listening to his boring stories about the cool bands he’s worked with! The recording sessions weren’t without some background dramas but Parko was the glue holding it all together and giving us the confidence to rearrange the songs and try different stuff (like doing drums in his junkyard and recording vocals through an iPhone). Personally I prefer the songs we did in that second session and I wish we had pushed the envelope a little earlier but overall we’re extremely pleased with how everything sounds.”
It sounds as though Parkin was road-testing some rather unusual ideas of recording/punishment, as he sent Dimitroff to the studio’s toilet to record vocals. “Frankly I think the acoustics in the dunny were not great and it was just for his twisted amusement,” concedes the frontman. “He also made me do vocal takes like three times in a row. Three times! When Rob [Stephen]’s bass was slightly out of tune, he stopped the track and made him tune it in front of everyone. Bastard. Then, after we’d finally recorded something, he’d make us sit there and listen to it back again with our ears pinned to the speakers. It was hell, but it got results.”
The band even imomortalised the producer on their album cover which features an illustration of a buff man boxing a skeleton. “We thought the ‘man versus skeleton’ was appropriate because we all felt like beating the crap out of Dave ‘Bonsey’ Parkin after the recording ordeal,” claims Dimitroff.
Russian Winters celebrated the release of their album on September 23 by playing at Parklife two days later. They won their spot after taking out a Triple Unearthed competition. “It was totally unexpected,” says Dimitroff. “We thought it was for doof bands only. We loved watching nouveau-bogans shiver in the rain ‘cause they were wearing nothing. We played on a pirate ship stage that looked like a bad prop from an off-Broadway production of The Goonies. Death From Above 1979 were great; we saw 30 kids jump the fence and generally cruised around until our drink tickets ran out.”