“I was living in Bali for a few months,” he recalls. “We heard on the grapevine that there was a guy that had sort of a makeshift studio on a mountain at the back of Bali. So we took all our gear up there and did a lot of recording. He had these traditional Balinese and Polynesian instruments, and we used them throughout. There’s actually quite a lot of them of them on the album.”
Being in such an exotic and unusual locale apparently unleashed a great spark of creativity for the band, and it resulted in an album full of many different colours, flavours and textures. “Yeah it did,” he confirms. “It was fun, the studio itself was outdoors, and we just sort of did it as we felt like it. It was really good to do that, just feel creative, like we were playing outdoors under the stars.”
Since the album was recorded in some different locations and the band had a fairly relaxed approach to writing and recording it, 24 Bit Guitar Orchestra ended up taking a while to complete and release. “It’s taken probably two years of work, really,” he reveals. “It’s hard to say, but two years overall of doing it.”
Subsequent to the album’s release, the band have some very big ambitions for themselves as a band, beyond simply releasing the record and touring. “We’re looking at doing our own outdoor festival,” he tells us. “One that we really enjoy playing at, with similar kind of acts, with a similar kind of ideas. We’re looking at doing that, at this stage, probably next year.
“And then we’ve got a really ambitious idea to do kind of a rock opera; an Alice in Wonderland type of thing. So all that’s going on, maybe we’re biting off more than we can chew, but that’s kinda half the fun, yeah?”
However, before they start to fulfil those hefty ambitions, the band have a rather extensive Australian tour to get through, including trips to some more off the beaten track centres across the country. Paul is very happy to be heading out on the road once again. “We’re at the airport right now, about to head to Perth,” George says. “We can’t wait to get into it, we’re excited to play all the new songs, this is our first run at it. Generally we’re in very good spirits.
“We’re getting to a few places we’ve never been to before,” he continues. “Places like Wollongong, and we’re going to Port Headland, which is where we’re going tomorrow. So it’s good to see a bit more of Australia than we normally do, and get our music out more.”
And speaking of getting their music out more, the band will not be limiting their touring endeavours to our own country – they will be heading overseas to play at some stage in 2015. So it’s a ridiculously busy time coming up for Tijuana Cartel.
“It looks like we’re going to get back to Europe and America,” he states. “Probably a month in each. We’re starting to go okay over there, so we want to get over there and keep going back.
“We’re starting to get some festivals over there,” he goes on, “and we’ve got some interest from a management team over there, which we’re chasing. We’ve got enough (support) over there to get over there and make it worthwhile.”
BY ROD WHITFIELD
