“We didn’t rehearse this album, which I think was an awesome decision in the end,” he says. “In the past we’ve spent months in pre-production. This time we didn’t do that at all. A lot of the songs were actually written in the studio. We’ve played so much together as a band, and our sound has evolved from what used to be a collection of ideas to a sound that the band has inherently now. It has a real freshness.”
The Cat Empire are known for their stage-shaking live shows, and Riebl makes it clear that Rising With The Sun was created with exactly that in mind. It’s an ode to the festival stage, the fans, and the world we live in.
“It helps having played on so many festival stages, because I can draw on that for the band,” he says. “I can imagine, ‘This is what I want to feel on stage or this is the uplift I want for this chorus,’ and write with that audience in mind. These are songs I love. Bulls, because it’s so immediate; Creature as well, because it’s really light hearted; but the song I’m most attached to emotionally is Bataclan, which is written about a venue that we played at many times. I was really cut by what happened in Paris. To write a song about that is important, because that’s so much the world we’ve lived in. I think that song’s going to perform well onstage. For me it’s a chance to really sing about what we do.”
Rising With The Sun was recorded in two blocks over the course of 2015, with production split by a European tour, which added more spice to the album’s live flavour.
“Each night is its own kind of world in itself,” Riebl says. “Whether it’s in Australia, Europe, or even India where we just played for the first time. Each night is its own community. There are differences in every country though. In Spain people go absolutely mad pretty quickly, whereas in a country like Switzerland you might need to work a little harder to get that kind of enthusiasm. Australia is great. It’s our home. A lot of the music has been written here and played to these audiences first of all. Overall though, it definitely comes down to the night, and the people in the room.”
The Cat Empire’s greatest achievement could be that their fanbase doesn’t just spreads across hemispheres, but across generations. Many of the Rising With The Sun tour dates are all ages, which is a necessity for Riebl.
“I doubt the band would still be around if our fanbase didn’t continue to become younger, and older; honestly everything at once. It’s a really nice feeling to go into a room and have people who know you from your first album, but at the same time it keeps it fresh knowing the albums are crossing over generations. That keeps our enthusiasm strong. It’s different to feeling like you’re becoming a nostalgic band, and that only. I think if that was the case, it would be time for the band to finish.
“The great thing about having a new album is that you can play the new stuff, and give some new life to the old stuff as well. We’re putting a lot into this tour. The production is going to be bigger than anything we’ve done before.”
More than anything, Rising With The Sun is a celebration of The Cat Empire and the community that supports them. “The atmosphere comes from the people, and as long as we continue to be a band that no-one can quite put their finger on or describe in terms of a genre or style, people are going to keep being a part of the music.
“For me, it’s about the fact that everyone in the room that night doesn’t necessarily belong to any country. It’s not about any one genre or style, it’s about people being part of the music as we perform it. That’s our legacy, and we’ve been around long enough now to realise it. We’ve surpassed what I imagined the band might do, so it’s been incredible to sit back and just be surprised by what might happen. It’s nice to look up, as opposed to always looking down.”
BY SETH ROBINSON
