It’s been a big year for Wolfmother, with numerous festival dates in the States and plans to go over to Europe in support of their new album Victorious. We had the chance to catch up with frontman Andrew Stockdale at this year’s Rock’N Derby Festival. The singer spoke freely about what inspired lyrical content on the new release, as well as his love of touring and just why Moleskine notebooks are significant to him. Check out our interview with Andrew Stockdale of Wolfmother below:

Where did you draw lyrical inspiration from for Victorious and is there one topic you find yourself going back to as a writer?

There’s this one song called ‘Gypsy Caravan’ and it’s kind of about escapism. “Why don’t you take me to the Gypsy Caravan.” Maybe escapism is a theme in a lot of the Wolfmother songs, so I guess that’s a theme I keep returning to. I guess I like visualizing things, most people are visual so if you can see something that makes you feel good then it seems to give the songs a bit more of a presence.

Being a visual person, did you draw inspiration from art, film or literature while writing?

With ‘Love That You Give’ – when you faced with difficult times in life it’s easy to backlash with hatred. I was just thinking, “What if you come back from a different place?” You can spend a lot of time talking about what you don’t like, it’s easy to get into that kind of thing and everyone does it. It’s not like a film or literature or anything but more like a philosophical stand point. Like in Paris, with the shooting we played there recently and the song has more meaning to those people there because they could quite easily get caught up in a cycle of retaliation and revenge. Songs like that, it felt good to sing it to that crowd, it meant a lot more to them, it was real.

Starting out, how difficult was it for an Australian band to break into the States?

It depends who you talk to. [Laughs] I was so pumped up and so driven and ambitious that I would put up with anything. I wanted it to happen so from my perspective, I just loved it, too much so. [Laughs] If it’s the right thing for you then it isn’t difficult, for me it didn’t feel difficult. It’s a mindset, whether it’s difficult, to some people it might be a horrible way to live, sleeping on a bus, in a different city every day. I love it -- to a certain point. I stayed in New York for two or three days after three months of touring and it was nice to stay in one place that afternoon, then the morning and the night and then the next morning – that felt like an absolute luxury. Is it difficult? Depends, for me the glass is always half full, every step – there’s 50 people then 200, we sold this and did that – everything, for me was pretty damn exciting.

What does the rest of the year have in store for Wolfmother?

We have a couple months off and then we have a European festival run in August and then we go back to Europe. We recently played Europe but more people are going nuts for it so we are doing a second run. [Laughs]

What is one non-electronic item you must have on tour with you?

I have one of those Moleskine books. I always write down usernames and passwords for everything. I write down ideas for things and the way I see things going on, on the road. It’s inconsistent, it’s just like observations from town to town in certain situations and I think, “Oh this is happening, this is changing.” You know what, six months ago, I actually threw all of them out, I had so many. I threw a lot of stuff out, these photos I took when I was 18. I just thought what’s the point in all this art, probably the best things I’ve done are recorded and they’re out there, so why do I need everything else. You don’t really need to see me trying to work out how to write ‘Woman’ because you’ve got the best version out there.

Thanks to Andrew Stockdale of Wolfmother for the interview. Purchase ‘Victorious’ via iTunes here.

Check Out Wolfmother's Video for 'Victorious'

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