Relaxed and easy, Jeff’s sitting in an upmarket coffee shop on the busy shore of Melbourne’s South Wharf. “What basically happened with the three of us over the seven years we are not calling a breakup, but a ‘hiatus’,” making air quotes “were the differences that we thought were so pertinent and so philosophically opposed to one another? Well it’s all quite petty. It’s easy to get over, especially for the sake of making that music once again. Individually over those years we’ve achieved things we’re all proud of. But nothing came close to the collective that is us.”
That music The Tea Party made gained world renown. Their sound was and still is built on suffusing Middle Eastern, Asian and African influences into hard-edged rock‘n’roll. Since 1990, their experimental attitude earned chart-topping singles and albums both in Canada and Australia. Jeff not only plays guitar and sings, he flexes a considerable talent for exotic instruments. He plays the mandolin, the sitar, the oud, the hurdy-gurdy; and that’s just the half of it.
“I always have a desire to find new sounds,” Martin says on finding the time to learn them. “But it’s always in the context of rock’n’roll. I still think I’m on the tip of the iceberg right now. The reason why is because I’m a spiritual man. But I do believe we’ve all been here before. For me, it has something to do with the playing of stringed instruments. It’s a little uncanny, even for me.”
During The Tea Party’s not-breakup, Jeff left Canada for Dublin and eventually Australia. Bassist Stewart Chatwood and drummer Jeff Burrows set on their projects back in Canada. It would take more than mutual longing to put The Tea Party back together.
“The first thing we had to do was get into a room,” Martin says. “We had to know, could we sound like that band again? Can we capture that magic up on stage again? I think the Reformation Tour in 2011 here in Australia proved that we were a band better than ever. Could we find that brotherly love again that was so important to making records like The Edges of Twilight and Transmission and Triptych? Could we find that respect again for one another? Found it. Once we had all that it was like, ‘Okay. Let’s make a new record now’.”
Jeff and the boys changed their approach to writing and recording, easing the pressure they usually saddled themselves with. “We said, ‘First we need to take our time’,” Martin says. “There’s no rush. Fans will wait.” The band started writing in 2012 in Byron Bay. Jeff also made his way back to Windsor, Ontario to reconnect with family in 2013. “It was a case of getting back to my roots,” he says. “There was no hocus-pocus or toys or nothing. Just a Les Paul plugged into a Marshall. Jeff had a drumkit; Stuart’s got a bass, maybe a shitty keyboard. That’s it. We were going to use our skills, use our musicianship. Write some songs. The Line of Control came out of that, The Ocean at the End came out of that.”
Some of Ocean’s more involved tracks are lent signature Tea Party “Moroccan roll” twists, others driving back to Jeff’s Led Zeppelin roots. “I think Jimmy Page himself would say there’s no closer band to Led Zeppelin than The Tea Party,” Martin says with a wry smile. “It all comes down to how I write. The Middle Eastern things in there, it’s similar to what Page did. But what we do is take it a bit further. It’s a little bit more.”
The album even branches into a standout gospel-inspired number, Black Roses. Jeff lights up as it’s mentioned. “Some people don’t know this but I’m a huge fan of late ‘60s to early ‘70s country rock,” Martin says. “I like the Byrds, Gram Parsons, Flying Burrito Brothers. I thought it was cool because it was an element we’ve never really explored before.”
To support The Ocean At The End, The Tea Party will join forces with Aussie rock stalwarts The Superjesus on a nation-wide tour this October. Jeff toured with front woman Sarah McLeod earlier this year, performing intimate shows around the country. Jeff belly laughs being reminded he dubbed Sarah “a rock’n’roll firecracker.”
“That’s an understatement,” Martin says. “I love that girl’s soul and her spirit. She’s basically become my little sister. We’ve almost completed this collaboration between us and Nick Skelton, drummer for the Baby Animals. May God rest her soul, but where Chrissy Amphlett left off? Sarah has taken up her baton. She is rock’n’roll. She can be vicious but she can be absolutely adorable. I still don’t think Sarah has been recognised for the talent that she is in this country. If it’s the last thing I do,” Martin thunders, banging his fist on the table, “I’ll make sure that she is.”
BY TOM VALCANIS
