“Man, what’s OK to print? Let’s see,” McKenzie considers. “Having to get the van towed onto the ferry in the UK to get to Calais to find out on the ferry that there’s no hire car companies, no mechanics, nothing open. Eventually getting a 750 euro taxi to Amsterdam airport, where we still missed the flight and had to pay another two and a half grand to get everyone home. That was whilst in torrential rain and wind, pushing the van along the side of a highway in France, where the only people who would help us were not cops, but the refugees. Having to replace a fan belt every few kilometres with a piece of rope or an occy strap or stockings, anything we could find. And the fan belt is for the alternator, so it wasn’t even charging the lights, so we’re travelling along this highway, trucks whizzing by, and I’m on the phone to the cops saying, ‘This is an emergency,’ and all they wanted to know was what colour the car was.
“It was a dark time. It was a very, very scary place to be. That was the last day of a three and a half month tour, which made blowing the clutch in the Austrian mountains quite a pleasant story in comparison.”
Having your tour van implode has been a staple of tour life for years, but Woohoo appear to push their adventures much further than most. They are an exuberant, raucous bunch, whose membership is always being updated, and their travels are clearly far-reaching. Lately, however, things have been somewhat quieter. That last overseas trip took a toll, and the Estonian House gig will be their first Melbourne headliner in over a year.
“After that I was about ready to give the whole thing up altogether,” McKenzie says. “That was the second European tour, and that was supposed to be better, but it ended up costing a lot of money. We did some amazing shows, but it was a bit of a hair-brained scheme to be honest. Getting over there with a bunch of people where nobody really knew each other very well, trying to rehearse a band up from scratch in three weeks. It was ambitious, and many memorable times were had, just not all of them were good. Now, we’ve really been waiting for the right time. The band has momentum again, we’ve got a good bunch of guys, some of the old crew back too. Everything seems in place to have a real good ol’ party.”
Given it has been four years since their last LP, Moreland’s Ball, this may also be your first chance to hear fledgling songs from their next album.
“We’ve half an album we’ve been mucking around with. It’s quite a departure from the Balkan gypsy inspired stuff. It’s definitely a real mix of stuff from people who play all kinds of strange and interesting music. That’s going to be the focus this winter. We’re not going back to Europe this year, even though we’ve been able to avoid winters three years now. But it’s time to lock ourselves down in dreary old Melbourne town for the winter, which is also probably a good way to get things done.”
BY ADAM NORRIS
