“We didn’t work at all for around three or four years, then got back together in 2008. We started playing together just because we wanted to, and it felt very good so we kept on doing it,” Spencer states plaintively. “After some time we figured we should make another record – it just felt right. When we made the new record, it was the same way we went about touring – just for us. We didn’t owe anyone a record, it’s not as if we made Meat & Bone because we were in a contract or had an obligation to some company. We did it just because we wanted to do it. The feeling within the band, the three of us, has been very good and very positive. While the album certainly carries on the tradition of the work we’ve done in the past, it does in some ways feel a bit fresh and new.”
Meat & Bone follows on from a definitive and expansive reissue series, replete with a bevy of supplementary material accompanying each JSBX release. “The purpose was to make those records available again,” Spencer reasons. “They were going out of print, so we made it that people were able to purchase, listen and enjoy. I’m proud of them, I want to have them available for people. It was a very big job, I didn’t want to reissue the records in a straight fashion. I wanted to be as complete and exhaustive and as thorough as possible. We’re a very busy band, we wrote and recorded a lot of material for every one of those records. I was trying to tell the story of the group, not like, ‘Here’s this old record again’. The whole series was trying to tell a story for those first ten years. Am I a nostalgic person? No, not really. And I’ve got to be honest with you, before I started that job it was something I didn’t want to be doing. I would much rather be working on new music or a new project.”
Blues Explosion’s impending visit marks their second since exiting their hiatus, with their last visit resulting in the seeds for their latest LP. “It was one of the things that got us going on the Meat & Bone record. While we were over there, we were asked to record a song for a television advertisement, a cover of the song Black Betty. It was kind of funny, because I was there for Big Day Out a while back and the band Spiderbait had a hit with that song. So I was thinking why the people just didn’t use their version or the original for the advertisement,” Spencer recalls. “Anyway, we were asked to record and we had a budget and a day off, then we cut this demo in Sydney, I believe. That experience kind of proved that if we wanted to make a record, then we could go do it.”
BY LACHLAN KANONIUK
