The Good Ship to turn their back on their troubled hometown
Brisbane was going through one of the worst natural disasters to ever hit Australia last January when the sea-shanty folk-rockers The Good Ship set off for the Illawarra Folk Festival. It was a bitter-sweet experience, as vocalist/guitarist Daz Gray recalls, because kick-starting the band’s biggest year yet required The Good Ship to turn their back on their troubled hometown.
“The Woodford Folk Festival was the first thing we had on, and that brought in the New Year in a great way,” says Gray. “But then all the floods hit Brisbane, though, overall people in the band have been lucky in that respect. Everywhere you look now though, there is a constant reminder of a hard time Brisbane went through. It was really weird at the time because on the one hand we were heading off for the Illawarra Festival and we knew we would be having a great time drinking ourselves stupid and having fun the whole week, but at the same time all this unfortunate stuff was happening back in Brisbane.”
Still, The Good Ship sailed on and will continue to do so in the lead up to the band’s upcoming national tour. And it’s a special one indeed – with the release of double single Bury Me/I Can Make Her Laugh, Gray announces the return of songwriter and now-Canadian-based band member Brett Harris.
“Brett was in the band full-time initially but then his fiancé moved to Toronto for work and he went too. We’d already recorded the album by that stage and he’d written Bury Me. He’s really awesome, he’s a creative genius, actually! He came back last October and played with us on some of our shows because he was coming back anyway to see family over here. This time it’s pretty special because he’s actually coming back specifically for this tour. Bury Me is his song, so he’s returning exclusively to be a part of this, and plus it’s crappy without him!”
The origins of The Good Ship, however, go back to its founding fathers – Gray and guitarist John Meyer. After years spent as part of various indie bands around Brisbane, both grew increasingly bored and restless, wanting to try something completely new and somewhat quirky. From there onwards, as Gray explains, the project literally snowballed into the monster it is now.
“As a songwriter, I like being unflinchingly honest in my songs,” laughs Gray. “I like to write songs the way that myself and my friends talk, which sometimes means having semi-questionable lyrical content. I had a few folky, country songs floating around that weren’t suitable for my old band. John and I became good friends because our partners are friends, and he showed me this song one day that he had, and I was blown away because I was like, ‘oh my god, I’ve got 10 songs like this!’ We looked at each other and said, ‘wouldn’t it be funny if we had a side project like this’, and we just hit the ground running. We knew exactly what we wanted to do, John and I had 15 songs that were compatible pretty much straight away which meant we could release an album [‘Avast! Wretched Sea’, 2010] straight away. We started recording six months after forming the band. Once our old bands were behind us, this thing just took over our lives.”
And Gray is very glad it did so. Not unlike a magnet, The Good Ship soon drew interest from both musos and non-musos who wanted a piece of the pie, and Gray and Meyer were more than happy to expand the crew.
“You know how when you’re running down a hill and your legs are running faster than you intend them to? It’s been like that! We’ve got nine band members now. We’d meet people who’d go, ‘um, I used to play the trumpet in high school…’, and we’d go, ‘you’re in!’. Or, ‘ah, my nan has an accordion…’ – ‘you’re in!’”
See myspace.com/thegoodshipisaverybadship for more info and dates.
