“We’ve been playing a few shows recently,” states guitarist-vocalist Ali McCann on the band’s current momentum. “Leading up to the album we weren’t playing a hell of a lot, just spending all that time mixing, mastering, that sort of thing. It’s been good to get back into it. We’ve played a few shows recently that have all been pretty fun. We’ve got a couple before the end of the year. It’s good; we all work, Al’s got twins, so it’s a real juggling act trying to rehearse and play shows. We don’t want to play too much. But it’s a good thing,” Ali states.
With the recent well-received release of She Beats coming something like five years since the previous LP, it looks like fans won’t have to wait as long for album number three. “We’ve been working on some new stuff when we’ve been jamming for shows. We played with The Cult, so we were jamming the set, but then we’ve also been writing some new stuff. We’ll keep chugging along; we’re keen to record another album and not have as much of a break between She Beats and the next one. It’s always the case with the second album, where you spend way more time over-thinking it. We put a lot of pressure on ourselves to make a record that we’re really happy with. So with the next one, we’re thinking we’ll just smash it out and not be so precious – just see what happens.”
Throughout any given Beaches live performance, the audience is privy to more than a few magic moments, when everything clicks with the wall of guitar sound, galvanised huge psych-rock grooves. It’s a force that sometimes is outside of the band’s control. “It’s really weird playing onstage – it always depends on the sound. You can think it’s a bad show, but then after you get really good feedback. When you think you’ve nailed it, it can turn out that the sound wasn’t so good out the front. But it’s a good feeling when you know the songs have locked in. It’s the same with jamming – when someone has a guitar part or bassline and we just build a song around it. I love playing live, but I really love jamming and writing songs in the way we always have, just letting it evolve. When it locks into place, that’s the part I really love. It’s a really good feeling. But I am liking playing live more and more. We have played a few shows, so I’ve overcome the nerves. It’s much better when you’re relaxed and everything falls into place.”
When it comes to authoring tracks, the process is very much a joint effort. “No one person calls the shots, it’s pretty collaborative. We’re open to trying ideas from whoever, whenever. I feel lucky to be in a band like that, where it is so collaborative most of the time.”
In between albums, Beaches fulfilled a couple of extensive tours of the US. Now the band are aiming for more global action in 2014. “America’s awesome; there are so many places to play. We’ve got friends over there now. We’d like to go back, but we’ve been trying to plan at some time a UK/European tour, and Japan as well. They’re the two main places that we’re thinking about at the moment. Maybe Japan will be the sooner one – She Beats was released there a couple of months ago. Plus we played at the [Gasometer] recently with a really great Japanese band, Kikagaku Moyo. So we’ve been in contact with those guys and would like to play some shows with them.
” America’s a place I’d love to go back to. I spent a while living there when I was younger. There’s so much music over there, and people have been into us. I mean, we play shows where there have been a couple of hundred people, then we’ve played shows where there’s been ten punters – it depends on what night of the week you play. But it’s a great place to tour. With Europe, we’ve been contacted by people in Portugal and Spain and places like that, so it would be great to head over rather than keep writing back ‘we’ll be there soon!’. So to put it into place would be pretty wild.”
This year’s Meredith Music Festival will see Beaches return to the Supernatural Amphitheatre since the fabled, rain-drenched 2008 incarnation. “Oh shit, yeah that was full on that year. We were really excited. I had tonsillitis and was jabbed with a needle so I couldn’t even speak because I was so medicated and the pain I was in. Then it was pissing down with rain the whole time. We stuck it out and it was heaps of fun. It was really early days for us; we hadn’t played a stage like that before. So it will be a lot easier this year. We’re playing on the Sunday; The UV Race are playing on the Sunday, so it will be heaps of fun with those guys. It’s such a great festival.
“Then we’re also excited about playing Melbourne Music Week, playing with Terrible Truths and New War for the Polyester 30th birthday. It should be a fun show, and there’s so much good stuff going on that week.”
BY LACHLAN KANONIUK
