Two years ago we first heard of a three-piece called Our Brother The Native, who although still in their teens, were snapped-up by FatCat Records and subsequently recorded the multi-diverse, exciting listen that was debut album Tooth and Claw (review link).

Fast-forward to 2008 and the trio are back with their second full-lengther, the stunning Make Amends, For We Are Merely Vessels - where they replaced the freak-folk and home-fi sketchiness of Tooth and Claw, to explore noise, electronics and post-rock. It led to our very own Michael Henaghan describing the record as "absolutely awe-inspiring" in his Angry Ape review (which you can read in its entirety here).

Being such huge fans of the band, we caught up with one third of the group - Josh Bertram, who provides vox / noise / guitar / keys (according to their MySpace).

Hey Josh, it's been nearly two years since we last caught up. How are you doing?

Well that is a big question haha. I am a mess at the moment, but the music is going well, so that is the most important thing.

Great to hear. So you've just released your second album, 'Make Amends, For We Are Merely Vessels' - pretty strange title where did that come from?

The title was a culmination of all these feelings we were writing about on the album, but it basically is saying please come to terms with the good and bad, positive and negative in your life, because everything happens for a reason and it is all predestined. We all need to stop worrying about the things we have no control over and worry about the things we do.

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There's been a huge departure since the first record, so much so that you sound like a completely new band. Was this intentional before recording began, to really move on in terms of direction?

Yes there was a huge change in the overall aesthetics of the band, but it wasn't a conscious decision, we just finally started writing songs and actually playing them. Tooth and Claw was conceived with acoustic instruments, a mic and a sampler, sitting in front of a computer, whereas Make Amends is made up of songs that were written in my basement and practiced for a long time before being recorded.

The turning point came when we had to start practicing for our first show in Belgium. That's when I started buying more electronics and pedals and building a set up that would try and give us a full sound live. John-Michael just bought a new electric guitar that Winter as well. So what came out of those first few actual "jam" sessions were these really pretty ambient/drone shoegaze-esque kind of songs, in fact "We Are The Living" was written right before the FatCat festival that Winter.

Another driving force I think, for our choice to change the sound, was our unhappiness with how Tooth and Claw turned out. We felt that it wasn't the best introduction for us as a band; we were so naïve and really hadn't found our voice or fully-realized what we wanted to accomplish as a band when we wrote those songs. After our first few shows, for the next two years we began writing and playing the songs live that are on Make Amends. This process gave them time to grow and mature into what you hear now. They didn't start out as aggressive as they ended up being, but that mainly stemmed from how much fun we have going nuts when we play live.

With such a shift in sound, what were the influences behind this record?

I feel the main influences we all had were always there, we just had to realize what we were good at and what we wanted the end product to be. Tooth and Claw wasn't an album that we truly thought about as a cohesive piece, so that was something we definitely wanted to improve upon.

I think all the planning and writing that came from interacting as an actual band on Make Amends, gave way to the realization that we wanted to make an album that was more cinematic/intense and made me people really feel something. Whether it be sadness, hope, or fear, etc. Basically anything that would strike a deep chord in people that would listen. This is kind of why each song is so dense and full of sound, we wanted to overwhelm the listener, make each song more of a journey, rather than a standard listen.

Also, I would say it wasn't just the beautiful bands that we adore and inspire us that influenced us on this record, but it seems more of the influence on this album came from one another and the moments of feeding off each other's excitement. And it was exhilarating to create a sound that felt bigger than just the three of us in a room.

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Like I said earlier, the debut was a little sketchy in parts. Do you feel you're finally finding your own feet now?

Oh yes, completely. We have finally found what we want to achieve in our songs and what works best for who we are as musicians. I think we are confident and comfortable with our ability to mesh styles and genres together in our own unique way.

Tooth & Claw was recorded in a pretty unique manner, with you guys sending ideas and recordings to each other through the post and the Internet. Did you take the same approach on 'Amends...'? And if not, how did it change?

Make Amends was actually written as a group and parts of the music were just added over time, as we played together more and more. Most importantly, we wanted the quality to be better on this one, so we decided it would be best if I had all the tracks on my computer to edit and mix.

Are you a perfectionist when it comes to the finished product? You hear about so many artists stressing for weeks over a simple drum sound etc.

I am a complete and total perfectionist, you can ask any one that knows me, but it mostly stems from my obsessive-compulsive personality. I spent so long editing this record to make it as good as it could sound coming from a basement with a mediocre interface with weak pre-amps.

However there are a million things now that I could go back and change, because I have learned more about recording since then, it just seems to be a never-ending process. For instance, I never knew to compress the drum tracks, and I wish did because that kind of throws off the entire volume of the song. However now, I have a Mac with Pro-Tools, and I spend less time editing because the sound quality is so good I really don't have to spend hours trying to get rid of white noise, I can just spend more time on the creativity aspect of recording.

Now the record is completed and released, are you recording any new material and what are the plans (if any yet) for album number 3?

Well we will have a digital release coming out in the next few months, of a five song EP we wrote last Summer. Then towards the end of the year we are hoping to do a split 12" vinyl release with our good friend Joe Akers, who at the moment doesn't have any recent recordings up for you to listen to. And he will kill me for this, but you can check him out and the amazing recordings he did when he was in high school at myspace.com/ohboyohboycommander.

And then album three is slowly being recorded right now, just a bunch of pieces at the moment. We are waiting until Summer to finish it as all of our lives are quite hectic at the moment with school and work. But I can tell you album three will be more of a combination of this new EP and Make Amends; basically it will be more organic and incorporate lots of ethnic instrumentation.

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Everyone is obsessed with the whole downloading-for-free thing at the moment (thanks a lot Radiohead), what is your stance on people downloading your music without paying a cent?

Well, I mean it would be nice to do what you love for a living and artists do put a lot of time and hardwork into their recordings, but I guess I am not completely against some free downloads if it helps get people your music. My hopes are that having it easily available will draw new fans and maybe make them want to purchase the actual CD down the line.

This is really a hard subject, because our goal isn't to make lots of money when we sit down to write music, we just want to make songs that we enjoy and share them with people we love. However, musicians are giving people a lot of hard-work and I think it should be expected to support these bands you like, because they wont be able to survive and keep creating music for you to listen to.

I've seen a few of the live videos you have been posting on You Tube etc. Do you enjoy performing your music in a live environment and how do things on stage differ to your recorded material?

I am pretty sure all of us in this band could play shows everyday and not get bored, we love it! We are finally quite comfortable with each other on stage and a lot of the nervousness has gone away, so all that left is this amazing feeling of playing for people and letting loose and going crazy. Usually our live shows are little more free form and open to more improvisation as to keep songs as interesting to us as they might be to the viewer.

You were part of the Semiconductor audio/visual project Brilliant Noise last year, where you donated the track They Gave Us Light (get the MP3 for free here). It worked brilliantly, is soundtrack work something you'd ever be interested in?

Oh yes, that would be wonderful, I think our music fits so well with film. It was such a treat and an honor to get to make that song for such a wonderful video and such a talented group of film-makers. We usually try and incorporate film as much as can into our live shows; I like to project my 8mm/super 8mm film collection onto the wall while we play.

On a personal note, what albums have you been loving lately?

Fuck Buttons – "Street horrrsing
Gnaw Their Tongues – "An epiphanic vomiting of Blood"
Alejandro Jodorowski – "Holy Mountain Soundtrack"