Melbourne’s Two Steps on the Water have deservedly been chosen as one of the 12 acts for the Friday night live music series, coinciding with NGV’s exhibition of Vincent Van Gogh. The gig will be one of their last headline shows before the release of their second album, Sword Songs.
Two Steps are a band that possess a remarkable power on stage, with lead singer June Jones’ emotional delivery rooting audience members to their place. While it may appear to be a difficult thing to do on stage, Jones explains this isn’t what she finds hard as a performer. “I don’t really find songwriting or performance to be painful,” she says.
“It’s only painful when it’s boring or tedious. We’ve been playing these songs for over a year now and in that time we’ve played quite a few shows. I think the hardest thing is remembering what they’re about and for it to not become a robotic process to play well.”
Given the NGV is a very different venue for the band, Jones admits they are approaching the show differently to how they normally would. “We have a tendency to play pretty similar spaces a lot of the time because we feel comfortable in them, but I’m going into the NGV show with an open mind. I’m always excited to broaden our audience and I think we’ll aim for a well polished, classic Two Steps on the Water set, whatever that means,” she laughs.
As the shows have gotten bigger, so has the band’s sound. While thematically the songs are similar to those on their debut, God Forbid Anyone Look Me In The Eye, musically things are more ambitious. “With this record we’ve worked quite a lot with different instrumentation – we’ve recorded bass, organ, strings, banjo, trumpet, bass saxophone and electric guitar throughout the album,” Jones says.
“I think this time around we learnt that recording an album for us doesn’t need to just be a good live performance, and that we can spend some time with the production and extra instrumentation that we can’t necessarily do at an average live show.”
When asked how her songwriting has changed between albums, Jones reflects on how her perspective on the world has changed to some degree. “My response to the world is not as passive as the songs on the last album,” she says. “I imagine in a lot of songs the narrator is wielding a sword – on the last record they were wielding a shield or trying to build some armour. The first album was receiving information and processing that, and this album is doing something with that information and responding to it in a way that could be seen as offence rather than being passive.”
Two Steps on the Water have also released a number of incredible videos to accompany their songs, working particularly closely with Emmett Aldred as a collaborator. “We’re very lucky to work alongside talented filmmakers,” says Jones. “I think we’re pretty protective of creative control so usually we’ll write something and put it forward to the director, and then it’s just a bit of a back and forth about what we can do and what’s going to look good. Sometimes we think something is a good idea and they’re like, “Well actually that’s going to look very weird,” says Jones.
In terms of what Two Steps on the Water get out of being a band, Jones expresses her gratitude, but also acknowledges that being a musician is often tiring. “I think I vacillate between feeling thankful that anyone would want to come to our shows, let alone 300 people to the album launch, to feeling totally exhausted because it’s been almost three years of what has been effectively working 30 hours a week.
“I’ve gotten to the point as a trans woman who sometimes has a hard time with mental illness, that there aren’t that many options for me to make money outside of music.”
If you or someone you know is struggling, there are stacks of places to get help. Lifeline is available 24/7 on 13 11 14 or beyondblue on 1300 22 4636. Or you can check out their websites for additional resources.
