Wolfmother: A Pocket Full Of Kryptonite

Reconciling the disparate worlds of expectation and reality is another mental skirmish that sends Stockdale’s bright eyes floorwards, and makes his normally sprightly afro go droopier than a kicked puppy. Simply put, touring the world with a rock and roll band isn’t the travelling celebration of music he imagined it would be and that confuses, angers, disgusts, and saddens him, all at once. “There’s a lot of depression around rock and roll,” he says, wincing at what strikes him as an insane combination of words. To a man so clearly thrilled to be playing the part of rock star, it’s unfathomable that some people view music simply a job, and he has nothing but disgust for the cynicism he sees in some crew members. “They have contempt for people in bands, they think we're full of shit and we'll be gone in the next six months, and they'll work with someone else,” he says. “I never really considered that kind of cynicism, I thought everyone would be like, ‘wow, we get to go here and do this’ and ‘look at this beautiful place where I am.’  Then you look at the way some of the crew carry on at these festivals..   ugh..  very aggressive, cynical... drugfucked!” He laughs dryly.

“They try to pull you down, man. They make fun of the clothes you wear, they make fun of your haircut, they make fun of your voice, they walk around going (high-pitched parody of their single) 'Wooomaaan!', they think you're a dick!” he spits indignantly, with the gusto of someone who likes nothing more than a good whinge. In all, he seems resigned to the fact that dealing with cynicism is the unfortunate flipside to living your dream, and seems aware it’s no real appraisal of his talent.  “You see interviews with Hendrix’s tour managers,” he says, adding the Voodoo Chile to a reference list that already comprises Superman. “And it’s, [adopts near-catatonic drawl] 'Hendrix would go to fuck his amplifier, and while he was fucking his amplifier I had to stand behind his amplifier and hold it up whilst he was fucking it' They hated him. And that was Hendrix.”
 
As the conversation turns back to music, the responsibility-free 'Superman'/'Peter-Pan' persona reappears, and you get another glimpse of the manic creativity at the heart of the band, and what it’ll sound like when a hopefully unbroken and road-hardened Wolfmother returns to the studio to follow-up their debut. “I was listening to this George Harrison song called 'It's All Too Much'“ he enthuses conspiratorially as though describing the last time he snorted crystal meth. “And it's a Farfisa organ that’s totally distorted and there's just like a barrage of distorted guitars feeding back - It's like a mantra. So I want to create just a totally mind-altering massive noise, with these really nice vocal melodies.” Here’s hoping we get to hear this before the cynics brow-beat him into an indie-rock Mick Hucknell, cause if there’s one band who could make utter cacophony groove harder than a thousand bouncing afros, it’s the mighty Wolfmother.