“We have done an international tour before but it wasn’t what we thought it was going to be,” laughs Tuka. “We did some shows in New Caledonia which was a pretty interesting experience because they don’t speak English over there and we definitely don’t speak French! I can’t complain though, you know, we scored a couple of fans…On the first night that we played, it was really bad weather and it was on a Wednesday night and pretty much no-one there knew who we were. At least we had the bar staff all come out and check us out, they were sort of getting into the music, but there weren’t many other punters. For some reason there was some liquor spilled on the floor and a fire got set accidentally – so we literally set the dancefloor on fire at least! And I remember there was this one dog just running around the place like mad, it was very random, and he made friends with Jesse!”
A little more planning may go into Thundamentals’ international tour next year, Tuka adds, but first things first starting with the boys’ upcoming official Foreverlution album launch which is set to take them all across Australia. And you better believe that to Paint The Town Red is quite literally Thundamentals’ mission…Lock up your daughters and your dogs then…
“Yeah, people can bring their dogs if they want!” laughs Tuka. “No, just joking! We’ve had a lot of love for that track from radio,” he adds regarding the album’s lead single, which debuted nationally at number three on the Air Charts, number 17 on the ARIA Urban Charts, and number 19 on the ARIA Top 20 Australian Album Charts. “Paint The Town Red has its own little place on the album, but it’s definitely not what the whole story is about. It’s just a bit of a party song and we thought that would be a good way to kick things off with. It’s also actually a bit of commentary on the alcoholism going on in Australia, so you can take it both ways. We went into the album wanting to cover as many bases as possible in terms of themes. For me personally, I love How You Been, which is a track about some old friends of mine which I don’t see anymore. Both Jesse and I could relate to that one, so it was one of the easier songs to put down. That one came out in literally half an hour and was the easiest to write, so I love it for the fact that it was so organic”.
It may be a word that Tuka admits almost a little like a cliché, but when the writing process is so effortless, there is no better way to describe it. In fact, as the emcee adds, the sessions were so productive that Thundamentals found themselves with more than enough leftover material which they’re considering making some use of in the near future. That’s right – Tuka reveals that Tundamentals have already started thinking about commencing work on a whole new album in the New Year.
“We’re not sure what to do with these tracks, so we’re talking about maybe using them for another album,” he reveals. “We’re really fond of them so we don’t want to just discard them. The big thing for us is to launch this Foreverlution properly and finish off that touring cycle. You never know, though – as soon as we finished off our last album [Sleeping On Your Style], we wrote Paint The Town Red almost immediately, so when the juices start flowing there’s really no stopping them. You just can’t plan these things.”
Squeezing in a bit of a break somewhere in between all of this is also part of the plan for Thundamentals, with Tuka announcing he will most likely concentrate on his own solo work if he gets a little time away from the touring and recording.
“Hopefully we’re going to give each other a bit of a break before we get down to another album because we want to do some solo work as well with other people for a brief period. If you want to be a full-time musician in this industry, it’s the way to go, just get involved in many different projects. It’s tough writing songs strictly for records because the climate we’re in, people just aren’t buying a lot of records. It’s come to the point where a lot of musicians just have to hold out nine-to-five jobs just to get by, unless you can get yourself a grant, but that can be tricky. For us, it’s all up in the air right now, to be honest”.
BY BIRDIE
