Touring is one of Jeff Martin’s favourite things to do in Australia, and in adopting the country as his home, it makes things a lot a lot easier for The Tea Party frontman when it comes to major events like the upcoming R.E.M. tribute, The Ones We Love: Celebrating R.E.M. (1982 – 1992).
Without the success of The Tea Party, Martin wouldn’t have been invited to be a part of this unique series of events, set to honour the sound of one of the greatest bands of all time. “We’ve been trying to get my schedule together – I have a studio here in Byron Bay and have been doing a lot of production work as well as touring with The Tea Party – so it was really about finding the opportunity, the time, to give a project like this my full dedication,” he says.
“The only other tribute I’ve done would have been the Led Zeppelin tribute I did across Australia. For fans of my music, whether The Tea Party or my solo stuff, me being part of a Led Zeppelin tribute wouldn’t be so far-fetched. But with R.E.M., a lot of people wouldn’t think that was part of my music vernacular, but truth be told, when I was young, around 13 years old, my drummer Jeff Burrows introduced me to early R.E.M. music.”
There’s nobody who doesn’t know an R.E.M. song, their repertoire being a staple in not only rock music but pop as well, so there’s something about the band’s output and their legacy that speaks to musicians like Martin. “For the most part it was the guitar work that caught my ear,” he says. “Peter Buck, his style of playing, especially with the Rickenbacker 12-string, was something that at a young age I’d not heard.
“Then I found by listening to him what his influences were, and that went back to Roger McGuinn in the ‘60s, so subsequently, many years later, one of the most successful singles The Tea Party has had to date, ‘Heaven Coming Down’, that song is driven by a 12-string Rickenbacker, a beautiful arpeggiated line through the song. Probably, if I hadn’t listened to R.E.M. when I was very young, that song wouldn’t have come about,” Martin says.
Without a doubt, R.E.M. have really impacted Martin’s career in music. “Especially with my guitar playing,” he says. The people performing alongside Martin on this tribute tour, musicians such as Even’s Ashley Naylor, Crow’s Peter Fenton, and The Church’s Steve Kilbey, are equally as inspired by R.E.M. and Martin says he looks forward to playing with them all in a mutual appreciation of this music. “The rehearsals will start and you always look forward to the unknown. The talent that has been put together to make this show happen is staggering, it’s undeniable,” he says.
“I look forward to the first rehearsal day – like I say, the unknown is so powerful in the room but then you hope for the best and I believe the chemistry that’s going to occur between all of us is going to be something quite memorable.”
Knowing R.E.M.’s history, knowing their impact on music history, there’s only one way for Martin to describe what it is that brings people together in a mutual love for their sound. “If I could distil it down to just one word it would be timelessness. A song like ‘Everybody Hurts’, you pretty much have to be a soulless human being to not have that song affect you. That’s the thing I appreciate the most, no matter what artist I’m listening to or exploring,” he says.
“When you capture that moment where the composition is timeless, that’s when artistry goes beyond the technical, and goes beyond the genre, and goes beyond the style. It’s just beyond and it has a place it can never be taken down from.”
