“Yeah, I’m excited,” he enthuses. “I’m excited because of the bands we’re playing with, that’s mainly what I’m so excited about. King of the North, and Sherriff, who we’ve been good mates with for a while. King of the North I think are from Adelaide, we had an accidental gig with them in Adelaide once, and I was really impressed. So it should be pumpin’. I like those two bands because they get the crowd pumped up, even when the crowd don’t know who they are, you don’t have to be a fan of that style of music. The only thing I worry about is that they’re going to outshine us! Hopefully everyone will be too drunk by the time we come on,” he laughs.
The band have a real DIY approach to their shows these days, both in terms of the actual booking of the shows, and the different kind of show that they like to put on compared with a lot of the other bands doing the rounds at the moment.
“We get offers here and there,” he tells us, “but we’re more inclined to pick and choose what venue we want, where we are in the lineup, what bands we want to play with, just having a bit more control. It’s just more exciting for us. I guess we’re a bit sick of playing with bands we don’t mesh that well with and the crowd gets confused. There’s all (bands like) Bellusira, Engine Three Seven, it’s a certain sound and a certain following comes with the sound. And then when we come on, we might play a couple of lighter numbers, and people do get confused. Maybe in a good way.
“The lighting guy we’ve got, he did a really good job last time,” he says, “everyone even commented on the lighting. It was all very dramatic. So that’s all very exciting.”
The launch of the EP and the end of 2012 may see a major shift in focus and direction for the band, with the realisation that the music industry is just about the toughest nut to crack on the planet, and getting even harder all the time. And that they just want to do whatever the hell they want to do musically, as opposed to being dictated to by industry trends, and record company and management desires.
“We’re starting to realise as a band that fame is not just around the corner,” he explains. “If anywhere, that there is no money in music. In fact it’s quite opposite, it costs you lots of money. And since we’ve come to that conclusion we’ve decided that we can make any music that we want to make. So early next we’re going to venture into new territory. The drummer wants to play a bit more piano. Markus the bass player was thinking about some cello. And I’ve been experimenting with different instruments, just to see what happens.
“It’s kinda nice to accept that you’re not going to be famous, and then you’re not so worried anymore. Not worried about making these dramatic changes, ‘cause at the end of the day it’s not like we have millions and millions of fans. We’re not going to hurt anyone’s feelings.”
Not only are they experimenting with different instrumentation, they are going to take a new groove based approach to their sound, to get people moving rather than worrying about impressing other musos with their blinding technical virtuosity.
“Every time I look at a crowd,” he says, “whether it be onstage or at someone else’s show, nobody’s moving. I don’t know what they’re doing, I think they’re studying how complicated the music is. They’re all just standing there with their arms crossed, judging us or something. Most of our ‘fans’ are just other bands who are forced to listen to us ‘cause they have a gig with us!” he laughs.
“I want to make music that people can feel the groove to, dance to. I don’t want it to be technically complicated. I think a lot of bands aren’t listening to the music they’re making, they’re too worried about the intricacy of things, and doing complicated stuff. But at the end of the day, the music is about the sound, and a lot of people forget that. So we’ve started to strip things back…it’s a lot easier to analyse when it’s simple music, ‘cause you’re not basing it on how complicated or how hard it is to play, you’re just basing it on the sound itself.”
BY ROD WHITFIELD
