10 years ago, Blue Planet Eyes introduced the world to The Preatures: a Sydney five-piece who distilled rock, soul and pop into something fresh and undeniably Australian.
With hits like Is This How You Feel? and Somebody’s Talking, the album quickly cemented the band as a defining voice of the 2010s. Now, after years apart, The Preatures are reuniting with their original line-up (including guitarist Gideon Bensen, who left the band in 2016) for a 15-date national tour celebrating the album’s 10th anniversary.
Speaking to Beat ahead of their Melbourne show at Northcote Theatre, Isabella Manfredi and Gideon Bensen reflect on the album’s legacy with hard-won clarity.
Check out our gig guide here.
“I remember feeling the pressure around the first record and the tension between what the album wanted to be – scuzzy, a bit lo-fi – and the expectation we were going to be a big rock band,” she says. “It’s only looking back now and considering it apart from all those feelings that I can accept that maybe it didn’t need to be a masterpiece to have an impact.”
The Preatures’ signature sound, it turns out, was baked into the contradictions. “All the tensions between DIY and hi-fi; good and bad taste; rock, new soul and RnB; and a young band figuring themselves out on the fly,” Manfredi says, “which is what music is all about now, but back then it felt too self-conscious and naive to be truly successful.”
That tension might explain why the band took an indefinite hiatus after a whirlwind rise that included playing Coachella, Glastonbury and the Sydney Opera House. But after their one-night-only reunion at Sydney’s Lansdowne Hotel last year sold out in six minutes, it was clear that fans hadn’t moved on, and neither had the band.
“It was surreal,” says Bensen of their first rehearsal together in years, “like muscle memory kicking in, emotionally too. The first few minutes were a bit tentative for me, but then we started playing and it was like, ‘Oh yeah, this is still here.’ There’s a real kinship between us that never left.”
Manfredi agrees. “It was like all the electric cliche tropes come true, just nothing compares to that feeling. Getting Gid back in the fold has been a key to casually opening the lock on the group too.”
The return of Bensen brings the band full circle, especially for long-time fans. “There has been distance, life and growth,” he says, “but when the idea of rejoining the band came up, I felt a real pull. Playing music with everyone was such a massive part of my life.”
On tour, the band will play Blue Planet Eyes in full, along with fan favourites and maybe even a few new songs. “We’re writing, and if we can get some of the songs up to scratch enough to throw into a set, we will,” says Manfredi.
Some older songs have taken on new emotional weight. Rock and Roll Rave, for instance, has become “a homage to Sydney during the lockout years where so much of our nightlife culture had been annihilated,” Manfredi says.
“It feels deeper and more cathartic now we’re stretching its dimensions as a club-rock jam centrepiece of the set.”
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This time around, there’s no major label breathing down their necks, no pressure to be Australia’s next great hope. Everyone in the band has grown, both personally and musically, and that maturity has reshaped their creative chemistry.
“I couldn’t have stepped back into the band with the clarity and self-respect I have now without the solo project and becoming a mum,” says Manfredi, who released her solo debut izzi during the pandemic. “I’m a more grounded, mature woman, clearer communicator, better musician and performer now than I was the last time The Preatures played.”
It’s also meant letting go of perfectionism and returning to music with fresh eyes. “Back then, we were figuring everything out as we went,” Bensen says. “Now there’s a deeper sense of self, both individually and as a group.”
Manfredi echoes the sentiment: “The biggest difference I see now is that we have a clear idea of who we are musically… The band is, at least for the moment, purely a passion instead of a fully-fledged colossus with all that entails.”
As they prepare to take the stage again, Manfredi says she’s most excited about the production they’ve put together. “We’ve been working on staging and lighting we’ve never done before. And the clothes! My bestie, Kitty Callaghan, has styled me for the tour and for Melbourne, I’m wearing a custom suit dress by Melbourne tailor E Nolan,” she says, listing a who’s who of local fashion talent she’s working with.
“There’s so much cool stuff going on in Aus fashion right now and many opportunities to collaborate.”
Whether it’s the fans who were there from the beginning, or a new generation discovering the album for the first time, The Preatures are ready to bring Blue Planet Eyes back to life. As Bensen puts it, “It’s rare to get a second chance like this, and I’m stoked to be a part of it.”
The Preatures will perform on 7 August at Theatre Royal, 8 August at Torquay Hotel and 9 August at Northcote Theatre, with more information available at preatures.com.
