Things have been quiet in the Seabellies camp for a while now, but with three years having elapsed since the release of their excellent debut, By Limbo Lake, the Newcastle sextet have spluttered to life, with a series of shows and a fine new single, Paper Tiger. In spite of the apparent lack of activity, Grenell explains that they haven’t exactly been taking it easy.
“Most of the band spent time in Europe over the last few years, and a lot of that was in Berlin,” he says. “We did a lot of writing, over there.” In essence, the band was on a working holiday, but it certainly wasn’t planned that way.
“It was intended to be a retreat. By the end of the album cycle with By Limbo Lake, we realised that we’d been touring together for five years, and we all needed a little bit of downtime, so we all took off for Europe.” This downtime, though, evolved into the creation of Fever Belle, their soon-to-be-released album.
“So we were in Europe,” Grenell explains, “and eventually we converged on Berlin, and started some writing sessions. Then we came back to Sydney, went into the studio and started putting it all down. Then Berkfinger went back to Berlin – he has a studio there – and I followed him, and we did the overdubs, and vocals and mixing.”
For the new album, the band went with an unusual production arrangement. “We went with two producers this time – Tim Whitten and Berkfinger. Tim was kind of in charge of sonics, and Berkfinger was focusing on performance, and pushing the boundaries in terms of how to record things. They come from two very different schools of thought, but they worked really well together, and with us.”
It sounds like things might’ve gotten a little tense from time to time, but Grenell is adamant that the sessions ran smoothly. “No, they’re old friends,” he says of Whitten and Berkfinger. I don’t think they’ve really done anything like that before, so they were really excited.”
Seabellies have comprised the same six members since their inception, and it seems that their collective relationship is as healthy as ever. “It started off as separate journeys,” Grenell says of their ‘hiatus’, “but yeah, we all ended up meeting up after a few months. We played a show in Newcastle not long ago,” he continues, “and the sound guy said, ‘You guys must be the longest-standing Newcastle band I’ve ever seen.’ It’s hard to stay together – so many bands that we came up with, and toured with, have fallen away – but it’s worth it.”
As if all this wasn’t sufficiently exotic, Grenell took the unusual step of slipping away during the recording sessions to work at a Ugandan orphanage. Sadly, this was not a Paul Simon-esque sonic pilgrimage, but an attempt to put some personal troubles behind him.
“Yeah, that’s another reason the album took so long,” Grenell offers, by way of explanation. “I had a bit of heartbreak during tracking, and I had to take off for a little while to do some soul-searching, and it took me to Uganda. It just helped me to refocus, and return to Berlin in a clearer state of mind.”
It seems Grenell is possessed of a rare decisiveness, both in his career and in his personal life. “Yeah, I just woke up one morning and said, ‘Stuff it, I’m going’. I spent a month there and it was amazing, really grounding. I know it’s a cliché and everyone says it, but it’s true.
“Still, it was a shitty year, last year,” Grenell says ruefully.
So far, the only aural evidence of Seabellies’ upcoming album is Paper Tiger, a strutting, electro-fied anthem. Is it an indicator of Fever Belle’s direction? “Yes and no – it’s probably one of the boldest things on there. People that have heard the new album tell us that it definitely sounds like us, but it’s a little more adventurous, in different ways.”
Grenell believes that the band have grown considerably since their first effort. “Because the last album was our first, it was a product of us trying to impress record companies. I think we partially nailed down our own sound, but I think you can hear a few songs that were pandering to A&R types. It didn’t feel like a completely comfortable Seabellies record, and this one does, I think. It’s still pretty diverse, though.
“It took a long time to get the first album together. We really wanted to be successful, and we were talking to a lot of label people. I think it confused us – everyone had their own ideas about what we should be.”
Back in the here and now, and Grenell mostly just excited to get in front of an audience. “Basically, it’s us road-testing songs that we’ve not played before – ever. We played a bunch of new ones last night, and it went really well. It gives our set a bit more depth now. It’s what we’ll be doing when we come to Melbourne, introducing more new ones as the tour progresses.”
BY EDWARD SHARP-PAUL
