ANATHEMA // The Origin Of This Species

Anathema’s creative chameleon Vincent Cavanagh is going through something of a personal evolution.

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As the British shoegaze rockers prepare to begin their Australian tour this evening in support of their 11th album The Optimist, Cavanagh’s rate of ambition, his insatiable interest in furthering his abilities as a performer and indeed, Anathema’s catalyst of genius as a collective hive mind, mean these shows are bound to be as breathtaking and as awe-inspiring as their reputation precedes them.

“I’d do more if I could at this point,” he says, “I’d probably quite happily palm a lot of my guitar duties off if we got an additional guitarist live. I’d be just as happy doing my keyboards and that.” Cavanagh has been expanding his craftsmanship within Anathema’s new album to include his interests in multimedia technology, an interest that will be witnessed by Australian audiences at their shows, but could also mean a change in direction for his musical creation. “I’ve basically been a guitarist my whole life, the guy at the front of the stage my whole life,” he muses. “This is, I dunno, away from the spotlight – that’s partly it as well. I’ve set up at the back. I’m not massively into the concept anyway of these big rock star frontmen standing at the front taking all the attention when really it should be about what’s happening within the music and all the members on stage.”

As important as it is to recognise the efforts of Anathema as a band, it’s difficult to avoid discussing how much Cavanagh does as an entity apart from the band. When he does, he’s talking about the same thing: he’s involved in production, behind the stage, and in front of it. He’s always working in favour of his band to give the best performances possible. “For the last few years I’ve been creating and recording and engineering and producing all of our music before we get into the studio, so all the construction of the songs is done.

It’s always important to remember that you shouldn’t rely too much on technology, on the big bells and whistles, that you are playing live, and if you’ve got anything about you, you’ll want to give that every single night, and people want to see that.
[VINCENT]

“I’ve been fascinated by Ableton for a long time but for a while, it was looking at the way it was set up, it wasn’t even like learning a new language, it was like looking at a new alphabet, like Chinese or something. I’ve been using Logic Prop for years and your brain gets tricked into thinking that this is the way it should be – Logic is sort of… well, it’s actually logical.”

Cavanagh has a beautifully poetic, almost musical lilt to his voice describing the technological processes of his favourite program. “You see a timeline, everything runs horizontal. You can see the minutes and seconds. With Ableton it’s a totally different concept, especially with a live performance because you don’t have to have a timeline. You can have anything triggered off in different orders, you’re seeing things vertically in a series of scenes rather than tracks. Now that I’m into it, I think it’s a really exciting for of performance as well as recording. I’m scratching the surface now and I’m loving it.”

It’s as if Cavanagh is an octopus, each tentacle grabbing at different creative elements. He’s not dropping anything, but he is juggling a lot, wanting to incorporate different elements into his music, to learn, to evolve. It’s incredible one individual can have that much artistic ambition, and serve it to an equally hungry group of individuals. “We were lucky from a musical point of view because we were essentially born into the band,” says Cavanagh. “We are two families who’ve known each other all our lives, we didn’t have to advertise for anybody, so that was unique.

“Another strange coincidence about that is when I was 11 years old, my parents had a split decision to make – send me to this school or that school. The decision to send me to school A introduced me on the first day, to [drummer] John Douglas. I was sat alphabetically next to him in the class – that’s the reason we’re having this conversation, because that’s how I met John, that meeting was the beginnings of a friendship that started the band.

“It’s always important to remember that you shouldn’t rely too much on technology, on the big bells and whistles, that you are playing live, and if you’ve got anything about you, you’ll want to give that every single night, and people want to see that. That’s part of the show, seeing people passionately getting into it – we are that kind of band, we’re the band that likes to get a crowd going, to create energy in the room. We’re not going to step back completely but it’s just finding that happy sort of balance.”

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Anathema Remaining Tour Dates

Friday 8 December – Metro Theatre, NSW

Saturday 9 December – The Gov, Adelaide SA

Sunday 10 December – Rosemount Hotel, Perth WA

Remaining tickets available here.