(((O))) : Interview: Matt Harvey from We Lost The Sea

Gilbert Potts catches up with guitarist Matt Harvey from Sydney band We Lost The Sea about their new album Departure Songs, broken pedal boards, death, hope, telling stories without words, and more.

(((o))): what’s the most beautiful sound you’ve ever heard?

Matt: Oh, fuck… Um… can we come back to that one? That’s a cool question, it’ll come to me, let’s talk about something else first (laughs). I’m really shit when people ask what’s your favourite band, I don’t know, it makes me anxious (laughs).

(((o))): I love when artists take my warm-up question so seriously!

Matt: The obvious shit is to say something like the sound of a waterfall or something epic… I don’t know, something to do with water, I’m a diver I’ve travelled a bit, I’ve been to some epic kind of places, but it’ll come to me, we’ll come back to that one (laughs).

(((o)): OK an easier one – what’s the reception of the album Departure Songs been like?

Matt: Yeah, it’s been really good actually. We’re still selling records every week, digital and physical copies are still selling well, they’ve sort of plateaued a bit, but everybody’s been loving it, getting some great reviews and all that kind of stuff, so actually really happy with how it’s all turned out. I think some of the dudes were a bit nervous or anxious about it, but I think all those worries have… we’re already talking about writing the next album. It’s only been out for two months, and we’re like, alright, so what’s next? (laughs)

(((o))): What’s the background behind the record?

Matt: The story behind it is, as you know, we wrote this record off the back of (singer) Chris Torpy committing suicide, and it wasn’t directly related because of that, it was a new album for We Lost The Sea without a singer. And the journey began from when we lost Chris to now. And we were kind of finding our feet as an instrumental band whilst sort of in denial for a while, and we started writing some songs because we just wanted to write songs, and I was still sort of new in the band, I mean, I’d only been in the band a couple of years so I hadn’t written anything with them.

So I was really keen to write, and we were writing with Chris, and then he’s gone, he passed away, and then we were sort of left in this hole for a while. And then out of that we decided to keep playing and write music and see what happens, and then we ended up with Departure Songs about 18 months, 2 years, 3 years almost later actually.

(((o))): It’s less common for an instrumental band to have a theme or concept album – was the theme a conscious thing, or a continuation of what you were doing when you had lyrics?

Matt: It happened sort of unintentionally. We were writing a song that became ‘Challenger Part 1’, but we were finding it hard because previous We Lost The Sea stuff is all themed on something, and it’s all come from… well it didn’t all come from Chris, it was like a band decision to put themes and stories with the songs and the albums and then the lyrics would come of that and vice versa, and stuff like that. It would sort of influence the feel and inadvertently, subconsciously when you’re sort of thinking about something as a theme, as a creative person, sort of, you know, it guides your hand sometimes without you even knowing it.

It was actually Mark that came in with an idea that part of the ‘Challenger’ stuff because one of the riffs was the sort of launch riff that we had, that was one of the first ones we had, and just the way it was sort of coming together, and he found a clip on YouTube that he showed us on his phone of the speech and the launch and a couple of different clips and the Reagan thing, so it all just kind of made sense, it all just clicked.

We played the demo that we had at the time over the top of some of these YouTube clips and it kind of all just, it was quite intense actually, and it just made sense. And we just thought we need stories to tell, we need the theme to ground these songs, to give them gravity, to give them direction, and to make them make sense to us.

So, that’s where it came from and we thought well now that we’ve got one, which was the ‘Challenger’ one, we needed something for everything else. The Lawrence Oates story we had for a while and then ‘A Gallant Gentleman’ sort of started to sound like a song, and then we started to put it against the Laurence Oates Antarctica thing and it really made sense and it came together quite quickly.

I actually had the David Shaw story – because I’m a diver I knew it already, and we were looking for stories that were you know, as the themes are about people dying, but for valiant causes and all that kind of stuff, like a heroic death I guess, and that David Shaw story fitted that straight away and I already knew about that, so we had those three relatively quickly, and then the rest sort of all, all the loose ends sort of tied up and we rounded it out to an album eventually.

And then we expanded on the stories and we decided to put them in the artwork and then I decided to do artwork for every part of the story and spent millions of hours doing that (laughs). Then we had the full package, so it sort of all grew and grew and snowballed. One thing influenced, inspired and mused another idea and we just kind of rolled with it really.

(((o))): But with lyrics you can tell the stories with those words. How did that change when it came to songs without words?

Matt: Yeah, so Crimea was all about the Crimean War, and the lyrics weren’t directly, you know, some was taken from poetry about the war and stuff like that, but then in that creative space when you go laterally you kind of find this room where you can be fictitious about things but still tie it into an actual non-fiction theme, a theme in reality.

And I think a lot of The Quietest Place On Earth was more about more enigmatic stuff than direct kind of things. Like, I’m not even 100 percent sure all the sort of meanings behind all the songs on The Quietest Place besides the song ‘A Quiet Place’ being about the Joseph Kittinger jump back in the late ‘50s, but ‘Barkhan Charge’ is about something mythical. The We Lost The Sea sound is that big kind of rolling beast of a sound that we try and contain and hone in a certain way and I think the Departure Songs stuff was sounding different to all the rest of the We Lost The Sea stuff, but one of the things that the guys and I was totally keen on as well, was keeping that storytelling.

I think it’s a nice sort of a thing that we have as a band, cause we’re all interested in novels and films and all that kind of extra stuff that creatives all… that we all love as well. And I think it’s very cinematic and filmic in a way so once we started putting those big themes together it was almost like soundtracks to stories. So it just kind of really made sense. I didn’t even think about a concept album without any lyrics, I mean now that you mention it, there’s probably a bunch of instrumental stuff out there that I don’t know of that is some sort of concept album, but yeah now that you mention it I can’t really think off the top of my head.

I think that’s why I wanted to, or we wanted to, I wanted to do the artwork and then we wanted to put the stories in, so we still sort of had lyrics in a way so that there was some context to this music. The feedback that we got from that and the artwork and stuff combined with the music and people coming from the art side from my creative social networks and bouncing across to Bandcamp and going ‘I’ve never heard of this type of music before but this is amazing,’ ‘I came here because of the art,’ and the stories like, one of my friends said, ‘I was reading one of these stories and listening to the music and I started to cry,’ and I was like, everybody cries when they listen to this fucking album, it’s a tragic album! (laughs).

I think with the stories it really hit home, we’ve done the same, like when I was researching everything, it was just really kind of tragic in a way, but also a celebration of all those things, and I think that’s the most important thing we want to come out with. Even though sometimes I even listen to ‘Challenger’ and I still tear up a bit. It’s such that heroic kind of feeling, it’s not like a, I hope it doesn’t leave people feeling depressed, I’m hoping it sort of makes them understand that type of place and the path out of it, and I think that’s a big theme, based off coming right back full circle to Torpy because we’re now a band that everyone associates with suicide awareness and having dealt with all that grief and publically being out there as people who play tribute shows and have had someone close to us that’s done it and all that sort of thing.

We get people writing to us all the time, opening up. Like, we had a guy in a really dark place the other week and he wrote this really long message and I wrote back straight away with these kind of words, and I think that’s now inadvertently kind of part of our M.O. I guess in a way. We’re that band that people can talk to about this shit, which is fantastic. We didn’t ask for it, but nobody does. We don’t stand for anything super political, you know we kind of don’t want to get involved in that sort of thing directly as a band, not like Godspeed, they’re known for their really out-spoken left-wingness and that’s got them into trouble even though they don’t have any lyrics at all (laughs). As a band they get smoke-bombed and banned from places and stuff because of their thoughts and their values.

But I think ours is a much more kind of endearing one. So yeah, all of that tied up thematically, kind of it just sort of all I guess in a way fell into place that way, and once everything started to make sense we just rolled with it and we ended up where we were and everything ties in nicely I think.

It was never really the intention to begin with, but I don’t think a lot of creative projects; well I mean some, you might hit your goals but I think a lot of the flags move and the feelings move, and the songs were written over eighteen months to two years, so things change and people change, and we emotionally were mending so we were feeling better as the years went by. And being so, the songs that were written closer to the time were probably really raw and the ones later on had a bit more perspective, but still has the same theme throughout the whole thing. I think that’s, like I said before, it’s sort of, once you think about it, it subconsciously guides your hand, no matter if you’re intentionally doing it or whatever. So yeah.

(((o))): The subject of making sacrifices for the greater good, like scientists who inject themselves with illnesses to test cures, people who sacrifice careers for change and so on, is quite fascinating.

Matt: I guess on a bigger thing we didn’t touch on, something that’s a bit more touchy at the moment, is innocent people being forced to make those sacrifices and out of those atrocities in a way come these advancements as well, and that’s a really kind of hardcore thing to think about, but if you’re pragmatic about it just for a second, we’ve got a lot of the personal human elements in the record and I think the bigger picture is to be pragmatic about those things that sometimes things like these need to happen, and I think that’s why that speech at the end with Reagan, and he says that, I’m not a personal fan of the guy, but the things that he said in there were just so poetically correct for that whole thing, and that things like this need to happen for us to do the things that we do, and we wouldn’t be humans if we sat on our arse. So, you know, it’s celebrating those people who decide to do something, and also I guess those around the world that are forced into it and lose their lives or their families in the process for something great or tragic or unforeseen, and I think that sums all that up as well.

(((o))): So getting back to the connection the album has with Chris’s death, if the album is about heroic death, how does that sit with taking your own life? Does it make his death seem heroic and is that OK?

Matt: I hope the people don’t take the album as anything like that, I mean, people can translate it as they would, I guess we kind of left on a song level, the ‘Swan Song’ is about Chris directly, and I guess it’s more like, you know, fuck that guy, if he was here we’d punch him in the face, we all say that, like fuck him. Suicide, on the other hand of it, while you’re trying to be empathetic with people and totally my heart goes out to everybody and I wouldn’t want anybody to go through what we went through, but it is the way you’ve got to view it, as a non-vice versa, you’ve got to view it as a selfish act in some way or another.

I think while we miss him and we love him and it was tragic and I think we’re mending ourselves and we’ve moved on quite well and it was this good cathartic thing to do this record, I don’t agree with it (taking your life), I don’t, it’s such a hard thing to talk about, and I’ve been in really dark places as well so I can kind of relate, I’ve never attempted anything, I’ve never gone that far, I mean, I’m definitely not alone when it comes to that either, but yeah, I don’t know.

I think what the part about Chris that we were trying to get across with the record was that the grass is always greener and browner on both sides. There’s always a great area and there’s always gonna be those shit times and there’s always gonna be those things that happen after you’re gone, and I think that was the ‘Swan Song’ part, that was the moving on part for everyone including him, and I think that maybe he’s in a better place, not that I’m religious at all and I’m not saying that he’s in some sort of a spiritual world having a great time. I’m just thinking that if he’s free from those bonds that really cursed him when he was here then if he found peace with that, then that’s okay, do you know what I mean?

But I think the other half of that is that you’ve got to consider that we’re all entwined together and it’s obviously affected everybody as he left and that’s where the selfishness comes in, and I don’t agree with it, but how can you judge someone or blame someone when they’re in that one pitch black moment?

You can’t get inside their head, because I’m sure there was a lot of guilt and a lot of sadness and a lot of things that he was going through in his head and how much he’d been thinking about it and thinking beyond that point and still making that decision. So it’s a really intense thing to try and describe really. So I hope that people don’t think that the record’s a celebration of suicide, I don’t think anyone took that from it really, I think that the grass is greener on both sides kind of argument for want of a cliché term makes sense here really. There’s goods and bads to both sides like anything in life, really.

It’s really hard to talk to people about it and to be frank about it as well, because I think for me personally, like I said, I don’t agree with it, but I also can’t blame him, I think it’s selfish, but it’s also… I can kind of see both sides of the fence, but yeah that’s me, that’s my personality. I lean quite strongly one way or the other, you know, but I think it’s good to have perspective on it. You’ve got to. It’s not changing, the situation’s not going to change. So we’re left to pick up the pieces and that’s shit. So fuck that guy. But it is what it is and it’s not gonna change, and I think we’ve written one of the best records of 2015 about the guy so he should be happy now (laughs).

(((o))): Staying with themes and storytelling, you like to include historical references.

Matt: We’re always in it to do epic stuff, my previous band with D’Ugo the drummer, we were in a sort of super heavy kind of progressive metalcore kind of band, and we were heading for that Cult of Luna edge of town anyway and when the band broke up we kind of continued that theme. Perhaps not a continuation, but it’s that like attracts like. I think that’s where it came from, we’ve always been into epic kind of things like that, whether it be film of bands or live shows, we’re always trying to aim for the big guns really.

A couple of people in the band, there’s always those people in the band who are headstrong and alpha characters and then there’s the other ones who kind of go along with it. If they disagree they’ll say something, but everyone likes a good idea and when you come to practice with ‘hey man we’ve got this song and it’s gonna be about this epic fucking journey’, everyone’s like, ‘that’s cool’, or, ‘that story kinda sucks but I like the idea, what can we change the story to….’ That’s kind of the process we went with through Departure Songs specifically, but like, in anything if we wanna do a show, we’d love to do fucking Royal Albert Hall with a sixty piece orchestra and a full light show cause we’re just super pretentious and over the top, and that’s We Lost The Sea, but we just love big ideas and big things.

So that’s kind of what attracts us to these ideas, we all love cool historical stories, there’s not one guy that’s the kind of history buff or whatever, I spent a lot of time on the internet researching this stuff, It’s really difficult to find stories with people that died but where there was some kind of silver lining (laughs). Most of the stories I’d research were just all tragic, it just didn’t happen, and then Bogatyri was the last one actually that we found, the Chernobyl story, that was the last one we found, which was probably the most harrowing.

(((o))): You’ve used a few extra instruments and elements too this time – trumpet, cello, choir.

Matt: That’s something we’re all into, I think, and that goes back to the last point we were talking about, where we want to sort of do bigger things and to aim high. I joke that we’re a local band with a beer budget aiming for an international band with Champagne, with an unlimited budget, and that’s kind of our goal, but yeah we love all that kind of stuff.

I would love members like that to be permanently in the band but it’s impractical, but I also really love the fact that We Lost The Sea has that width to do those kind of things, I really saw that potential when I saw the band, and having been a bit older than the guys and having been away and thinking about it for literally six years while I was in London, and going to see some amazing shows and amazing musicians all that kind of stuff, and basically just educated myself and maturing in the process, and by the time I came back I was full of ideas and ready to go.

I know how to market things now and I know how to do things and I’ve got a bit of money behind me, and just pushing the band to do bigger things, like the choir was an idea of Mark’s He’s like ‘I think a choir would be cool’ and it was like ‘yeah, that’d be fantastic,’ how the fuck do we get a choir? I’ve never even had to deal with anything like that, so I spent two months basically Internetting and emailing everybody and it was right at the last minute that all came together and it was fucking amazing.

We ended up changing the end of ‘Gallant’ you know, ‘Gallant’ basically just ended where the guitars ended, but we just changed the whole ending to have the choir and the piano and that sort of makes the whole song. So that was the thing that we, that was something that, you know, same with when Tim came in with the cello and Ellen came in with the trumpet, I wanted trumpet on ‘Challenger’since pretty much the day that I wrote the main riff when all the guitars are crashing through and it sounds like the end of a fucking action film, and I was like, it needs trumpet there, I didn’t know how to do that anyway, but trumpeters are easier to find than choirs so she came highly recommended. And as soon as trumpet went down on the track we were in the control room and we all just went ‘fuuuuck, that sounds amazing!’ So it just really lifts, until you hear it and played by someone who can actually play well, it fucking blows you away.

So it’s good cause we’ve got that side of us and we can do those shows and we can have the big launch show with the cello and the trumpets and the choirs and all that kind of stuff and then we can play a rock show or a metal show, and I think it’s a good thing that we’ve got connections and fingers in different pies and influences and friends from different scenes from being around for long that. Because we’re a post-metal band that was really heavy, people still want to put us on metal shows, and we get emails from the prog guys and from like tech death metal bands and they don’t care that half the album’s this real sparkly post-rock and the rest of it’s this kind of cinematic kind of epicness, and they’re like, ‘yeah we love you guys!’

So it’s cool, we get all of that breadth to work within. I would hope that we could turn around and write a really like a Portishead record with you know a string section and people would go, oh yeah that makes sense We Lost The Sea, and then go back and do like everything, and just sort of drop A guitars and sludge it out for an album and people go ‘yeah that kind of makes sense!’ I don’t know if we’ve got that in us, but yeah, that’s pie in the sky ideas, that’s the type of band that we aim to be.

(((o))) You mention that range of shows – I’ve noticed a bit more of instrumental bands playing with other bands that sound different. Like sleepmakeswaves playing with Gay Paris.

Matt: Some shows it works like that, some shows you can’t. And I think for some bands the size of sleepmakeswaves and Gay Paris who are slowly getting bigger now, they’re Triple J audience bands now and the great thing about sleepmakeswaves being as big they are now, it’s almost from an inside point of view – it’s not a fluke, they’ve worked really fucking hard and they write a good record. But it doesn’t feel right that they’re all over Triple J, but it’s awesome that it is, but it’s good because it’s sort of, things must be progressing in front of our eyes and it’s just like, hang on, you’ve been nominated for a second ARIA? Like how the fuck does an instrumental band from Sydney who plays this sparkly kind of And So I Watch You From Afar kind of worship band stuff, and you go, that’s great because people come up to us and go, ‘oh you sound like sleepmakeswaves’ but, different (laughs).

I’m like, you’re a Triple J guy that went to a Karnivool show, watched Karnivool, saw sleepmakeswaves and went, ‘what the fuck is this different stuff?’ and it’s fantastic and that’s how Sydney audiences, that’s how Australian audiences need to work. You need to get into that crowd to then trickle down, to get them into our scene because it’s such a divide and a closed door I think. It used to be, it’s getting much better now with the Internet and stuff like that and things like Double J I guess.

You know, Triple J gave us a lot of support, mostly through Lachlan Whatt, but also you know it’s been on a couple of daytime playlists, ‘Gallant’ has been, and that’s all that we can kind of ask for, and Mike Solo [Bird’s Robe Records] does his best getting our stuff out there like he does for all the bands. But I think slowly changing, but yeah I mean good, like we’ve played post-rock shows where there’s six instrumental post-rock bands and it’s fucking boring (laughs). You want to change it up.

But it’s good that bands can chop and change and it’s good that sleepmakeswaves can play with rock bands and Solkyri can play with The Red Paintings and you know we can play with Gay Paris and then I don’t know, a death metal band plays with us somewhere, mostly likely in Canberra, because that’s where they all come from apparently (laughs). So yeah, it’s a good thing, it’s a good sign of what’s happening with the Australian underground scene at the moment. It’s good.

(((o))): How does having three guitars work?

Matt: Sometimes with great difficulty I think (laughs). It was difficult for me because I was coming into a band I hadn’t written with yet or even played with yet and it was good that I had a year of playing older stuff to get the vibe of the players and how they play, and then I sort of felt comfortable. And it was also new for me to write that kind of stuff. My previous stuff was much heavier and harder and more riffs and lower tunings and all that kind of stuff, and I used to play around with the sparkly stuff on the side, but it really made me become a better songwriter and a better musician and learning how to shut up, I think is key with three guitars, learning when not to play.

I’m always wanting to play and I think ego’s come into a bit, and I think Mark and I are kind of a bit more headstrong than the other guys and maybe, not force our ideas through, but… maybe force our ideas through (laughs). We do lead parts, they’re just standout bits, so each one will have their turn and it will be put there not just because someone wants to do a solo or play over the top of everybody else, but because it actually means something for that part of the song and I think that’s, that it’s all about songwriting when it comes to We Lost The Sea. It’s all about layers, so you know, if it’s there, it’s there for a reason, and if it’s not, it’s not there for a reason, and it takes a lot of time to come to those decisions.

We also try and get more, you know, it’s hard in a three guitar band to not just sound like you’re a three guitar band, I think that’s a big challenge. What we’ve tried to do on the new album, is to get more keyboards in there and have a bit more variety of stuff and the bass player sat down and really worked on some simple and subtle but necessary basslines that really lifted everything and we give everybody their space and that’s the trick with what we try and do.

(((o))): It was only after I saw you play ‘Challenger’ that I realised you were using call and respond with the guitars and I like that it’s not obvious because it’s the sound that counts.

Matt: Totally, it’s 100 percent textural, that’s the only way to describe it really, and it’s good fun and a challenge to try and do that stuff. It’s totally about layering.

(((o))): At that show I didn’t expect to see you on the floor with the crowd standing around, one holding a phone torch while you pulled your pedal board apart to get it working…

Matt: So I didn’t have any of my overdrive pedals and basically no effects at all, I think I had reverb or something, but so yeah, it sort of fell on its ass. It doesn’t happen all the time but it’s just one of those things you’ve just got to run with and we were having a pretty shit day as well, so these things always happen after everything else has been shit, so you’re just at the edge, and I was just kind of standing there, and I’m usually kind of animated and face the crowd and stuff, and I was just like, I can’t fucking wait for this to be over (laughs). But everyone else was like, ‘it’s cool man, we played alright, yeah, the slide solo in ‘Challenger’ sounded like cats dying, but that’s okay, you kind of got away with it’ (laughs).

You know, we pride ourselves on being professional, but when shit like that happens you lose your shit in front of everybody and I was the one who was like, I’m holding it for everybody, I’m holding up the whole show, fuck!

(((o))): But music is not just about the notes and sounds and live music adds that closeness and connection. BeHn from Tangled Thoughts was telling me how you play and you’re the rock star and then when you finish the set you just become some sweaty guy in the crowd. What’s the line? “Rock and Roll doesn’t get anyone laid any more”?

Matt: Totally! There was a great, you know that parody music journalist website the Hard Times, takes the piss out of bands and everything in the music industry and stuff and one of them was ‘Opening Band Walks Off Stage And Through Crowd Like They Have Some Sort of Importance’ or something like that, and I’ve done that so many times as a young band, you get off stage and you’re like ‘yeah, we’re awesome’ and like BeHn said you get in the crowd, stand next to everybody and people look at you and go ‘fuck you looking at, you sweaty bastard?’ and you’re like, ‘didn’t you just…?’

People come up to us, it blows me out, and they’re like ‘thanks for the time,’ and I’m like, man, we get a kick out of this, why else would we do it, I’m not doing this because I hate doing it and I hate all those interactions with all those people, I’ve been doing it for so long and I used to do it when I was a kid, go up to those bands that I loved and get punished.

It’d only be the arrogant ones that wouldn’t give you the time of day and then you’d kind of go, well you’re an asshole, fuck you then! And I never wanted to be that guy, you get young kids coming up and you see them walk over and touch you on the shoulder and go ‘cool show man!’, and run away really embarrassed, and it’s like have a chat, I don’t care!

(((o))): When are you coming back to Melbourne to play the whole album?

Matt: (laughs) on mate, we’d love to! We were gonna organise another tour in November, but the vinyl are just delayed and delayed and delayed and they’re taking so fucking long to come back, so we thought it’s pointless to spend all that time and money to logistically manoeuvre six people around the country without our prime product with us, cause we said next time we tour we have, we just need to sell the vinyl at shows so people can get their hands on them quicker and they don’t have to pay postage. And so we can celebrate that we’ve got that flagship product back that we spent shit tons of money and time on (laughs).

(((o))): You have a show lined up for the Blue Mountains outside Sydney – any others planned?

Matt: We’re trying to do more regional shows, next February is what we’re aiming for, because we’re working on lots of things behind the scenes, one of them is a European tour with nothing confirmed yet, but that’s sort of hanging there as a dangling carrot that we need to move towards, but we’re thinking that February will be probably the next chance that we get to tour and we’re hoping that backs onto a European tour, and we spend all our money and drink all the beer and come home broke and start writing another record.

(((o)): OK so back to what’s the most beautiful sound you’ve ever heard?

Matt: I’m gonna say something, this is a cop-out, and I might email you with a better answer, but I love being in amongst, not that I’m a big kind of outdoors-y bushman kind of person, but when I do go camping or we do go diving and we stay in remote areas, that sound of silence or that sound of the night, of the world, of nature. Of sitting on a sand dune with no light pollution and looking at the stars and listening to the sound of the Earth. That’s some of my favourite moments, and so I think sounds from that, so yeah that makes sense really.

(((o)): One more – If you were an animal what would you be?

Matt: (laughs) I’d probably be a dog; we’ve got a dog here who seems to have a pretty damn good fucking life, so I’d probably come back as a dog… I’d probably be bored though unless I was some kind of hectic animal, I always have this conversation drunk at 4am around the back table of my house, we come up with some crazy… one of the questions we ask ourselves is what animal would you have with you in a zombie apocalypse, what animal would be most effective, and it’s like, ah would it be a panther or something… and what’s one weapon and one animal? You know like all the heroes in Walking Dead and comic books, they’ve got their weapon of choice and their spirit animal almost; you’ve got a samurai with his wolf and sword or whatever, and we’re going through all these options and one of my friends said, I’d have a dragon, that’s a weapon and an animal, and we went right, this conversation’s done (laughs).