The wait is now over, however, as they have just released their stunning sophomore effort Fever Belle, out now on Shock Records. Creating the album itself took time, and the dreaded ‘personal issues’ also reared their ugly head during production, causing further delays. But they got there in the end, and singer and multi-instrumentalist Trent Grenell joined us from Sydney recently to tell us all about it.
“Yeah, really good,” he responds, when asked how he feels now the album is finally out there in the world. “It’s taken a long time in between albums, this one, so it’s really good to finally have it out. We started recording at the very start of last year, so it’s been a big process.
“Part of that was my fault really,” he admits. “Halfway through tracking I kind of had a bit of heartbreak, and couldn’t continue. So I ran away overseas for a while, and by the time I felt better, the producer of the record Berkfinger (from Philadelphia Grand Jury) was living in Berlin. So I went straight Berlin to finish the record. So life very much got in the way!” he laughs.
It was a case of having some of the themes of love and loss that they were exploring in the album in a metaphorical sense, actually manifesting themselves in real life. And Trent was on the wrong end of it. But ultimately he feels that such real life experiences changed the record for the better.
“The album was always going to be a two-sided coin about the joys of love and the despair of losing it,” he explains, “so when the actual loss stuff that I had previously imagined in these songs became true, it was really hard to finish the record at that time, in the middle of it. So I felt I needed to kind of re-group and come at it from a different angle at a later date.
“I think it worked, I think some of the lyrics changed after that, and became a lot more real and considered, so yeah we’re very happy with it.”
The album has only been out for a couple of weeks, but already the band have been receiving some very consistent and positive feedback from critics and fans alike.
“So far everyone’s been really positive about it,” he informs us. “It’s been called a real ‘nostalgic’ album quite a bit – people seem to be responding to the blend of elements a lot, so all the write-ups have been really nice.”
So does this mean you’ve been feeling nostalgic, or at least listening to nostalgic music, leading up to and during the creation of the album?
“Yeah, I always do!” he replies without hesitation, but with a touch of tongue-in-cheek irony. “It’s always the best – nostalgia’s my favourite thing, I don’t know why. Even all the loud music I listen to, like, one of my biggest influences is Broken Social Scene, who are unfortunately no more, they have this knack of blending loud, beautiful melodic music that always sounds like pain and celebration at the same time. That’s something I’ve always strived for, to varying degrees of success. But yeah, it’s my favourite thing, you can listen to it when you’re feeling joyous and feeling miserable!”
BY ROD WHITFIELD
