Find the Answer: with Pete Konakov

Written by: Jimmy Wah - Sense Music Media | Thursday 16 September 2021

The past few months has been particularly tough for Sydney-siders who have been hit with a monster rogue wave of lockdowns thanks to the Delta variant of Covid-19. For many musicians, their already diminished livelihood of playing in front of limited crowds has been like being pushed to the ground with their hands cuffed behind them. Thankfully artists like Pete Konakov have used this time to prove that creativity cannot be bound, as have a tonne of great bands and musicians. The new single What Are You Waiting For? is perhaps the greatest example of what musicians can do in the face of adversity and in the words of Pete - the lead singer from WE ARE NOT ROBOTS - serve as a great source of artistic motivation. I caught up with him to hear what he had to say.

The Interview

Pete joined me on Tuesday morning for a virtual meeting from his home in Sydney. Dressed in a THRICE shirt and LA Lakers cap framed by a wall of guitars, band posters and mic stands, I sensed a positive shift before we even started talking.

What is your new song What Are You Waiting For? actually about?

Ah! The age-old question. Without going to deep into it or getting too personal - because it is a personal song - it’s just about knowing and realising when something’s over. Whether that’s a relationship, a job, a band or any other situation - it’s just about that moment of realisation where you’re like ‘Fuck. This is over. What have I been waiting for?’

It is a few years old, so it’s not about anyone currently in my life right now but I actually wrote the song probably 7 years ago and I’ve just been sitting on it for a while and now just seemed like a good time to finish it off and put it out.

So have the other guys in the band known about this song for a while or is it something new to them too?

It’s something we’ve had together for a while and we’ve played it on and off but it didn’t really fit with anything else we were doing live. It’s not a song that we wanted to play to the crowds we were playing with at the time because generally we were opening for someone and only had a half hour set where we wanted to fit in as much as we could so we went for the short, punchy sort of songs whereas this one goes for a little bit longer. When we come back though it’s definitely going to be highlighted in the set.

From what I’ve heard and read, this song has some really epic moments and sounds a bit different to a lot of your other songs. Was there any particular musical influence behind it?

Not really, no. The vocal melody is a bit different to what it originally was in the chorus. I was toying with the song and wasn’t sure what to do with it so I sent it through to my producer, Ryan, and asked “What do you think of this?” and he said “Oh my god, this is the best song of yours that you’ve ever shown me!” So he took it and reconstructed the chorus and said “Try this for a melody”. At first we were like ‘What the fuck have you done?’ but the more we listened to it we realised ‘This is the way it’s meant to sound’.

We’ve been sitting on this song for about a year - and it was me that everyone was waiting on - so this lockdown has finally given me the opportunity to finish off my guitars on it, give it back to Ryan who mixed it and now it’s ready to go.

Have you found yourself crushed by lockdown in recent months or has it been an inspiring place to be?

It’s given me no choice but to be anything other than creative. That’s pretty much the only thing stopping me from going absolutely bananas. I don’t have it as bad as some people, I’ve got my kids here half the time to keep me company but when I’m alone it’s pretty much just me with all these things in the background and… I’ve been on fire! I’ve been on a creative stretch that I probably haven’t been on since originally writing What Are You Waiting For? about 5 or 6 years ago. So it’s almost like it’s come full circle. This lockdown has almost forced me to get back into it full-throttle.

There is so much good music being written and released both in Australia and around the world that it almost seems like Covid-19 and lockdown has done the same thing to a lot of musicians, which I suppose is testament to the boundlessness of creativity and the resolution of artists. Do you see yourself releasing an album after this?

This is going to be the start of a compilation that I don’t want to quite call an album or an EP because it’s somewhere in between. There are a few tracks that we’ve been sitting on for a while now that we want to package together and put a rubber stamp on. That includes tracks that we released earlier this year like Just Lie Again, Form a Circle, I Adore and a few others that are nearly ready to go like Hoodie Melo, Paper Trail and Blisters. I think it’ll be about 8 or 9 songs in total and that’ll be like a full-stop on this era and then I have all this new stuff that I’ve been working on which I’d like to be a part of ROBOTS but who knows? I guess we’ll see.

Outside of the music that you’re making right now, if you had some advice to give to other artists, musicians or even people who are generally struggling to get motivated through lockdown, what would it be?

Fall In love with your tools gain. Pick up your guitar, pick up your bass, pick up your sticks, your keyboard or whatever and just immerse yourself in it. We’re all in the same boat but while we’re in it I mean, it’s easy for me to say don’t sit there and wallow but… we’re blessed as musicians to have this skill and while you’re given this opportunity where you have more time than you otherwise would, just make the most of it. Cos when everyone goes back to work, back to the office, back to planning gigs and tours and shit, there’s not gonna be time for this. So make the most of it! Be as creative as possible, record as much shit as you can. If you don’t have recording equipment at home… get some. It’s cheap. This is the time to work on your craft and get better at what you do. It doesn’t have to be a negative. It really doesn’t.

The Review

Listen to What Are You Waiting For? 
HERE

I could imagine walking along to this song by the beach in the summertime. It opens with a mellow sunset rock guitar riff with distorted bends that immediately become a hook, setting the scene as the drums to fade in and set the tempo for a good head-rocking beat while the bass to enter and makes it bloom. Guitars drop in the verse as the bass drives forward, making way for introspective lyrics whose ambiguity immediately force the listener to ask questions. As the guitar re-enters midway through the verse there is a sense of determination about finding the answers even if the narrative is suggesting a dead end. The chorus is timed perfectly to ignite the song and lift it to an inspiring height with soaring vocals asking a question whose answer seems apparent by its very inception, laying the foundation for a resolute statement of self-determination. The rhetoric in the lyrics seems mirrored by the clever use of musical rhetoric in the verse. This is one of the complex dynamics making What Are You Waiting For? song stand out piece of musical composition backed up by seamless musicianship.

In the second verse, the lyrical revelation is accented by vocal reverb as the song continues to build upon the narrative with the same awesome structure from the first verse. The self-deprecating angst of the post chorus vocals that soar to spine tingling new heights drop into the meanest breakdown I think I’ve ever heard these guys play because it’s perfectly filthy riff that fits appropriately into the song and gives the satisfying edge it needs before blending back into the main hook. As the music seems to be fading out to the song’s end it explodes back to life… but the fireworks are just the beginning of a build up to a another chorus which is accentuated by a drop in the drums and bass. The song fades out with the same line that opened the page which acts as a cadence that would leave any human brain with a contented grin.

The Verdict

This song will fit perfectly into any grunge or punk playlist for anyone who loved the 90s. It ticks all the boxes from awesome lyrical composition, excellent musicianship and introspective gravelly vocals that take you flying above the crowd - to seamless structure and awesome production that brings out the instrumental nuances that make it unique Being a 90s kid myself I loved it. This is their best song yet.

9/10

What Are You Waiting For? is available for download from Friday 17 September 2021

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