Northeast Party House
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Northeast Party House

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“We enjoy going to Brisbane mainly because it’s not as cold as Melbourne,” Ansell laughs. “We played The Zoo, which we’ve played before, on a tour with Ball Park Music and Jungle Giants and it was funny that our set and Ball Park’s were so close together, it was déjà vu.”

Bigsound was essentially the first gig of the band’s Stand Tall Tour where they’re launching their latest single of the same name. Single launch tours are a strange thing, it seems that bands need to invent an excuse to tour, as though playing the music they love to a growing audience that enjoys it isn’t enough. Marketing creeps in to everything in its own way. “That’s true,” he says, laughing in agreement. “We went through names for the tour and I think they were all a little bit rude so we just went with Stand Tall. I probably can’t say what they were. A lot of nudity was involved.”

In the middle of the Stand Tall tour, Northeast Party House will be supporting UK guitar/synth/pop turn Americana band Mystery Jets on the Melbourne leg of their tour. “We’re not too sure how we landed that one,” he says honestly of the support slot. “I’ve been a big fan of Mystery Jets since I saw them at Falls Festival. It’s awesome to play with them, I think. Hopefully they’re nice guys.”

With a haphazard sonic approach, Northeast Party House are somewhat of a collision of influences. Half of the band are heavily influenced by LCD Soundsystem and the Rapture, I guess they create a real atmosphere on their albums and live,” he says. “But it’s crazy because me and our drummer Mal (Besley) listen to hard rock so we all come with these different elements that inspire us musically. When it comes to writing that’s when it becomes a bit difficult. Together as a band we’re inspired by good bass lines and beats and things people can dance to.”

As a band fights their way to a path that resembles a financially sustainable career and find their feet artistically, it seems inevitable that line-ups will go through a change and it seems that in that reshuffle, drummers are the first to go. “Our drummer left and then we got Malcolm who recorded our first EP,” he explains. “That was a quick transition ‘cause he’d listened to those songs endlessly for weeks. We’re now a five-piece without a bass player. We’ve got a friend playing bass on this tour.

“Things can get a little stagnant after a while,” he says musing on the reasons behind these changes. “Sometimes the music isn’t going in the direction you’d hope for, there hasn’t been any massive feuds or bad exits with us but it is a bit like a relationship in a way, things get old and you need a fresh start. As a five-piece we’re all on the same page when it comes to writing and stuff like interviews. We’re all happy with where we’re heading musically and that we want to make this a fulltime focus.”

Doomsdayers have been declaring the death of the album for years now but, as with the novel at the birth of film, it doesn’t look like a reality just yet. Ansell and co. are working on an album they hope to have out in early ’13. “We’ve got this house in Toorak that we sneak into for a few days every couple of weeks; it’s become a little home for our writing sessions,” he says. “We’re writing for an album for an early release next year. It’s a tough process when you have tours and day jobs, finding that time to all be in the same place at once is tough. But having said that we get into smaller groups and get structures down and then bring it to the band as a whole. That seems to work best. We finish the tour and then play Peats Ridge, that will be the last gig of the year. The writing will get a lot more serious between now and then because we really want to get an album out as soon as we can.”

BY KRISS WEISS