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The Brag

Issue 283 October 13 2008

Carolina Liar

It's almost unheard of these days for bands to have press junkets. Most of the time all promotional work is done in a fast and furious manner. Not like the good ol' days when, as a music journalist, you could fast become a corpulent slob living on the feasts provided by promotional jaunts for the latest, greatest (provider of delicious canapes).

But times, they're a changin' - the press junket looks like it's on its way back. Katy Perry was flown out to Australia, where hob-knobs were wined and dined, and she played a small gig ahead of returning in the not-too-distant future to claim her rightful place as a marginally-risque take on commercial pop. Perhaps it's just a sign that the Australian dollar is strong (well, it was at the time); perhaps it's that record companies are signing artists to 360 deals where they get a cut of their merch and touring. Or, perhaps, it's that they're signing fewer and fewer artists so the investment in bringing them out to far-flung reaches like Australia makes the dollars spent more worthwhile if you can secure that all-important extra spin on commercial radio.

Carolina Liar are Katy Perry's rock counterparts - they're the latest band to be whisked into Australia as their album, Coming To Terms, lands in our country. And frontman Chad Wolf is on his best behaviour - unfailingly polite and charming, he answers "Yes, sir" when asked whether or not the band did indeed form in 2007, merely a year ago. It seems you can take the boy out of the South but you can't take the South out of the boy.

Carolina Liar may have formed in the wild urban landscape of Los Angeles, but Chad himself hails from South Carolina. "My mom," he drawls (and when he drawls it like he does, you really can't spell it any other way than 'm- o-m'), "used to thump me in the back of the head if I didn't call people 'sir' - it didn't matter who it was. If I don't respond in the correct manner I go into some form of shock! I've tried to get myself to be a little bit dirtier in times but it doesn't work - I need to pick up some bad habits."

So he's from the South, lives in L.A., yet recorded his debut album with noted Swedish pop maestro Max Martin - the man behind the hits of the likes of Britney Spears, no less. "It's pretty funny," he admits. "I had a relationship that went completely sour, and Coming To Terms is about leaving this bad day job that I had, and I ended up moving into this house with a bunch of guys from Sweden. The guy who owned the house was Max Martin - I was just friends with those guys. I was doing indie music, and I'd never played anything to Martin for the longest time cos I figured he'd never be interested in it because it was never on the same level of what he'd been working on, and we all became friends."

Max Martin has a certain reputation as a pop craftsman. He's a master of defining the hook and getting to the key element of the song and really capitalising upon in, and it would seem - on the evidence of Coming To Terms - that he took the same or a similar approach when producing a band like Carolina Liar.

'This project was the first one he's produced ever all the way through - an album that's just him being a producer," Chad outlines, "and the difference was we brought him the songs; there's only three songs we co-wrote together. He thought we had good enough songs just to help us with the production and get it right, and he helped us out immensely just be straightening us up."

So - big-name producers (albeit that they're friends with) and international sojourns to showcase their debut album wares. Much pressure?

"It's pretty wild," he admits, 'That's one good thing about me being a dumb Southerner - I just go into things like 'okay, cool, let's make this thing dance!"

Chad laughs. "We just have to sit back and see how everyone else sees it. We're lucky - no matter what happens."

Who: Carolina Liar

What: Coming To Terms is out now through Warner