Nine months of touring and promo can open a band’s eyes, as it certainly has for guitarist Jordan Malane. Reached on the phone from his Melbourne home, it’s clear Malane has attained some perspective with the band. Back in February, Malane insisted the band would be happy playing parties for the rest of their existence. Yet after having been exposed to bigger stages, including a set at Splendour In The Grass, Malane isn’t so sure.
“I think maybe not anymore,” he says after his old quote is put to him. “We played this Converse party a couple of months ago. It was so wild. It was a lot of fun, but Alex and I were also like, ‘I think we’ve had it with these parties.’ We’re happier playing bigger stages. We were getting so much beer thrown at our faces, everything was cutting out. It was fun and wild, but I don’t think I want to play those kinds of shows forever,” he says.
Malane and Bleeding Knees Club haven’t totally graduated into a distanced adult-leaning band, however. Still keen on playing all-ages shows as they will throughout their upcoming Australian tour, the band certainly hasn’t lost sight of where they came from. Tours with DZ Deathrays and Yacht Club DJs throughout 2012 are sure to stick out on year-end lists as being some of the more raucous parties thrown this year. Bleeding Knees Club hasn’t been kept primarily in their homeland however. When asked about highlights from 2012, Malane pauses briefly before diving into tales of two instances.
“Going to South By Southwest was pretty awesome,” he says. “I’ve always wanted to play there. We were playing every day and seeing a tonne of awesome bands. And then coming straight back from there and heading into our first headline tour was just the most fun. It might’ve been the best month of my life. Those two things really stick out for me.”
South By Southwest is unparalleled in its sheer size of both gigs and industry onlookers. Thousands of acts flock to Austin every March hoping to catch their big break. Back in February, Malane and drummer Alex Wall seemed to treat their upcoming trip with a nonchalance that didn’t exactly bode well for their trip. Instead, the band revelled in the opportunity to showcase their party-ready approach. By all accounts, Bleeding Knees Club impressed many in Austin. The festival also showed Malane how much work the band had to do in the future.
“It was cool to see how crazy it was, but also it was good to see how dedicated everyone was. It made us want to work a little bit harder,” he says.
With 2012 being the year of Nothing To Do, Malane is setting his sights on the next year. Bleeding Knees Club plan on hunkering down in the studio to write and record their highly anticipated follow up.
Malane won’t elaborate extensively on the creative direction their follow-up will take. Though he will admit that technically, the band has benefitted from their time spent on the road. And he’s eager to parlay this technical experience in the studio.
“I think we have [gotten better]. We’ve just been playing so much together that you naturally learn more as you go. We played 60 shows at the beginning of the year and we’ve also been recording a lot more. Whenever you’re in the studio, you’re always getting better,” he says.
Bleeding Knees Club will aim to build on the success of the multiple singles Nothing To Do produced with their new record. In closing out 2012, the band has chosen to tour behind Let It Go, one of the more slower and vibey tracks on the album. Sonically, Let It Go is a standout of the album, though it may not necessarily gel with the mood of the rest of Nothing To Do. So is Let It Go a sign of things to come for Bleeding Knees Club? Not quite, insists Malane.
“Everything else was pretty upbeat, so we needed something to cap off the album. It was cool to slow things down,” he says.
2012 may have taken Bleeding Knees Club around the world and introduced them to what needs to be done to survive in the music industry, but it also taught them something else; while the band featured young, attractive girls in the videos for Have Fun and Teenage Girls, there’s really only one female that the band is concerned with impressing.
“This was a song Alex and I wrote while we were mixing and recording the album. We just felt like we needed one more track to fill things out. People seemed to like it. My mum really likes it,” he laughs.
BY JOSHUA KLOKE
