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Smoking Gun is the debut studio album by Australian musician Angus Stone, released in March 2009 under the name Lady of the Sunshine. It peaked at number 45 in Australia.
Background and release
The album was recorded over six weeks during 2008 with Finn (Govinda Doyle) – who also provided drums and bass guitar – in a converted old water tank on Finn's property in North Queensland. Stone said the album came out of "growing an appetite for wanting to rock out". Stone explained that he had played in rock bands while in high school, covering material by Rage Against the Machine and Red Hot Chili Peppers – these influences are loosely present on Smoking Gun. To accompany the album Stone wrote "Every emotion in my head has its own voice and this record is what came of them .... I wanted these songs to have their own style. I enjoyed watching how the songs took on their own ride, most from the simplest of ideas". The album reached the top 50 on the ARIA Albums Chart. One of his tracks, "Big Jet Plane", from Smoking Gun was later re-recorded by Angus & Julia Stone and released by the duo as a single in May 2010.
^ Lady of the Sunshine; Stone, Angus (2009). "Smoking Gun [sound recording] / Lady of the Sunshine". EMI Music. Retrieved 11 December 2012. Letter from Angus Stone: 'I wanted to introduce you to Lady of the Sunshine, some songs i have been working on... the record Smoking Gun. I've been skipping off in between tours for about a year now to shake my head of these songs. Every emotion in my head has its own voice and this record is what came of them. Last year the old man gave me his old telecaster which gave me the chance to move into a heavier sound. I tripped off up to North QLD to record with Finn (Govinda Doyle) who played drums & bass on the record. We laid down the tracks in about 6 weeks throughout 2008, recording in an old water tank Finn had fixed up. Finn's wife would cook supper for us & her new born baby whilst we worked till the young hours of dawn. I guess the idea of this album was that there would be no idea of how it would come together as a whole. I wanted these songs to have their own style. I enjoyed watching how the songs took on their own ride, most from the simplest of ideas. I wanted to work on the artwork as we did the music. A friend Caroline & I worked on different ideas, she then would take our conversation onto the canvas and create the picture for each song. So ... Lady of the Sunshine peace' .... Angus Stone.
