When you’re in a band that constantly gets compared to Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple and just about every other megawatted monster of rock from the 1970s and it’s three decades removed from the 70s, either you’re doing something wrong or quite possibly doing something very, very right.
For Australian power-trio Wolfmother it’s a massive case of the latter rather than the former. The band (consisting of vocalist/guitarist Andrew Stockdale, bass player/organist Chris Ross and drummer Myles Heskett) seemingly channel the rock gods on its self-titled debut.
Stockdale’s high-pitched Robert Plant-meets-Ozzy Osbourne vocals layered on top of thundering drums and wicked organ and bass rhythms sound tailor made for an arena rock show. The band sounds so much like it’s rock n’ roll predecessors that critics continually draw comparisons.
“They’re good band references so in that respect it’s cool and not frustrating,” Ross said. “It’s actually kind of nice. It’s interesting though because all this stuff happened while we were in Australia as well. People saw that we have these sounds that are kind of like that but we also have our own sound which is influenced by years of music and grooves and riffs.”
He continued to state that while Wolfmother may sound like Zeppelin
doppelgangers, the similarities in styles are coincidence.
“We’re not a cover band. It’s not like we’re trying to imitate those bands, but there are elements of that sound that we like and that just work with the three of us when we play together,” he said. “We don’t sit down and say ‘Oh, we want to sound like that.¹²
Another thing that makes it easy to draw comparisons to a myriad of 1970s rockers are Stockdale’s lyrics, which reference white unicorns, gnomes and other subjects of mythical lore.
“It really is a very small aspect of the album,” Ross said. “As far as the white unicorn, Andrew told me he was watching this show about a fashion designer and the designer said he wanted to put a unicorn across this girl’s shoulder on her shirt. It’s a very literal translation of a unicorn on a shirt.
“The forest and the gnomes happened when we were working on this new idea
and it was sounding really interesting and Myles came in and said ‘It sounds like a forest full of gnomes.’ We laughed about that for a while and that’s what came of it.”
Ross said he welcomes the interest in Stockdale’s lyrics and the band’s retro sound.
“It’s interesting how people latch onto it. It’s something that people seem to get really excited about, so it’s cool.”
