Despite Tumbleweed’s original success – which included supporting Nirvana on their 1992 Australian tour, playing and recording overseas and a loyal local following – Lewis felt there was still a “sense of unfinished business” that the original Tumbleweed lineup needed to attend to. “I thought we’d always missed the mark a bit in the past,” Lewis says. “We were still writing songs when the band broke up, and we felt that the chemistry was still there between us.”
The ‘classic’ Tumbleweed lineup – Lewis, guitarists Lenny Curley and Paul Hausmeister, bass player Jay Curley and drummer Steve O’Brien – had reformed in July 2009 for the Homebake festival. The success of that initial reformation – which had followed a number of years of estrangement – had led to a series of national tours and a re-kindling of the band’s creative and fraternal spirit. That spirit had buckled over ten years previous, when – faced with frustrating commercial imperatives and an overbearing industry – Tumbleweed had gradually shed members and lost sight of its original artistic focus.
Regaining that focus was critical to the recording sessions that led to the making of Tumbleweed’s new album, Sounds From the Other Side. “For us [making the album] was about fulfilling a creative need,” Lewis says. “I think after Galactaphonic, and the break-up of the original lineup, Tumbleweed had gone off on a particular direction that had strayed from where we’d been going originally. So for this album, we wanted to go back to that original path,” he says.
Tumbleweed’s fans, while loyal, could not be taken for granted. “I think we’re one of the few lucky ones to have loyal fans over the last 20 years,” Lewis says. “So for them I was conscious of making something as good as the past stuff. And with this album, I felt we were on the same wavelength of our fans. We didn’t over think things – we just took the same philosophy that we used to have.”
Having been burnt by overzealous industry types back in the day – which included an ill-fated dalliance with the major labels in the late 1990s – Lewis says Tumbleweed was determined to maintain control over the creative process. “I think this is the first record that we’ve made that we’ve been 100% in control, including the financing,” Lewis says. “I’m not into the whole pledge thing, so it was a case of going into the studio when we could, and we had the money to record.”
Older and wiser about the recording process, Tumbleweed could – literally and creatively – afford to define their own artistic vision. “These days we take a much more active role in the studio,” Lewis says. “Early on in our career we had these big US producers, but now we’ve got more experience. That said, you’re always learning something about the studio, and each studio is different. Getting back into the analogue studio was great – you get that warm, analogue sound.”
The reception to Sounds From the Other Side has justified Tumbleweed’s artistic, emotional and financial investment. Now notionally free from the shackles of a pure nostalgia trip, Lewis says Tumbleweed is enjoying playing music more than ever before. “All I can say is that we’re enjoying it more now than in the past,” Lewis says. “Back in the day we lost control of our band – we were influenced by our label, booking agents and other people to try and make money, and we became a slave to that.”
For Tumbleweed, playing music has once again become a subject of passion and pleasure, rather than expectation. “Now it’s an escape – we all have jobs, families, and lives outside of music,” Lewis says. “We do Tumbleweed for enjoyment, and we enjoy every time we play because it’s an escape. Because we’ve been around the block we’ve realised that the differences between us aren’t actually divisive, but the things that keep us together.”
BY PATRICK EMERY
