Dempsey laughs early on in the conversation when asked whether he is exhausted from nearly two decades of interviews and ostensibly talking about himself, his motivations, and his emotions. “It doesn’t seem to warrant complaining that people want to talk to you because you make music,” Dempsey says genuinely. “It seems like something you should be grateful for. When people hear music and they really relate to it, it becomes a part of their inner world. I think for young people it really, really becomes a part of their inner world that gets to a point where they define themselves by the music they’re in to.”
With nearly six years having passed since their last album, SFK have had enough of a break for people to start slotting this album into the ‘comeback’ or ‘reformation’ file. The time frame required for that is almost impossible to establish but people love to jump on that bandwagon – it adds a sense of drama and mystique to a band. “Frankly [the break] was always the plan,” he says. “After making our last record and touring for a couple of years the decision was made that I would go and make a solo record and that after that we would make another Something For Kate record. I guess none of us knew it would be five or six years but it didn’t change anything. We see each other as often as we always have, we live near each other, so it’s not like we were out of touch and had to organise to reconvene – we’re actually friends.”
The desire to step out from the comfort of a solidly successful band is something singers have done throughout the ages. Other band members do it as well but, you know, it’s the singer. Dempsey is delightfully open about his motivations. “I think I needed to prove to myself that I could write and record and play everything on an entire record,” he says. “I just wanted to experience that, to feel what it was like to follow my own instincts and basically, to be completely self-indulgent and do everything my way. Also, the three of us just needed a break and not roll straight into album number six because it might not have been as good as we now feel about this one.”
Leave Your Soul To Science is grittier than might be expected. Dempsey’s voice has evolved in his time as a solo troubadour but while many other bands begin to mellow with time, SFK have returned with a fairly explosive album. Previous SFK albums have been meticulously orchestrated with a complex range of layers but LYSTS encapsulates the purity of rock. “The organic approach was there all along from the early inception stages,” he says. “We were definitely conscious of not wanting to layer everything until you have this dense wall of sound. That was how we were feeling about our last records, that there was too much information and we needed to stop that. We wanted to do something that had space and that didn’t feel so put together. The instinct was there all along that less was more. We followed that right through into the studio and, you know, we booked eight weeks to record it and we finished in less than a month.”
Dempsey feels that although Leave Your Soul To Science is a blunt departure from his solo album, that period of song writing has influenced the choices he and the band have made this time around. “I made a solo record that was quieter and more acoustic based and then I toured that for two years. Now it was really fun to pick up an electric guitar and to play with Clint [Hyndman] and Steph [Ashworth] and to make some noise again. I guess that’s why this record is a bit louder. I definitely am always trying to push my voice in new directions and also, having done solo gigs for a couple of years where it’s just me and my acoustic guitar with nothing to hide behind, you really have to become a better singer. You have to hold people for a two-hour show with just your voice and a guitar so I really feel that my vocal chords have had a real work-out and as a result I feel more confident and motivated to use my voice in different. I’ve been doing this for so long and more importantly, people have been listening to me for so long and I have one of those voices that people either really like or don’t like but I guess I want to sing differently and see what I can do differently. I’m really enjoying my falsetto these days.”
BY KRISSI WEISS
