They've been recording the sophomore LP at Albert's Studio in Sydney with acclaimed producer Wayne Connolly (Josh Pyke, The Vines, You Am I, Silverchair). It's the follow-up to 2010's Escapades, which has experienced remarkable success in Europe's Benelux region. It's because of that success that they're about to make their first major international festival appearance at Pinkpop in the Netherlands.
Pinkpop — headlined by Bruce Springsteen, The Cure, Soundgarden, The Wombats, The Hives, Miike Snow, Bombay Bicycle Club, Linkin Park, Mumford & Sons and more — opens the door to a full European and UK tour for the boys, which will include their first shows in Paris, Germany and Belgium (and a return visit to the UK).
While overseas, they'll be spending time in Berlin, where they'll mix the new album with Simon 'Berkfinger' Berckelman (fittingly enough, HKOH's first national tour was alongside Berkfinger's defunct outfit, Philadelphia Grand Jury). When that's done, you'll finally have a new HKOH record to hold in your sweaty little hands, and that's just good news for everybody.
Hungry Kids Of Hungary will play Pinkpop Festival on Sunday May 27.
Four years of solid touring, Band of the Year honours at the 2010 Deadlys and the QMA for Best Indigenous Band last year have positioned the former Cairns-based four-piece perfectly ahead of the group’s debut album release, ‘Foundations’.
“It’s been a long time coming,” the band’s guitarist, Andrew Thomson says. “I guess we’ve all grown independently and as a band, but I guess the whole dynamic of the band hasn’t really changed. We still see this as a really long term [project] and no one is pulling out any time soon ... Everyone has a lot of respect for each other; when it comes down to the band, everyone loves each other — it’s a big family.”
Spread across 11 tracks, ‘Foundations’ provides a great snapshot of the band’s first four or five years, with the inclusion of live favourites ‘Beggars’ and ‘Joseph’. “We didn’t really think we’d be recording the older tracks onto the album until the last minute, and that’s... when we sat down and thought about it, that’s where the name of the album came from, ‘Foundations’.”
If you’ve never caught The Medics live, you’re doing yourself a disservce. Sprawling rock soundscapes is the order of the day. Just don’t use the ‘p’ word. “I don’t see us as psychedelic; that comes across more in the live show. I couldn’t really say, like we have a lot of different ideas. But I think we’ll stay the way we’re going. But I don’t know if it’s psychedelic, it’s kinda experimental.”
Although they’re an emerging act, The Medics still have plenty to tick off their bucketlist. But winning a Deadly award is no longer on the list. “It boosted our recognition at the time, and at the time it was a really important step. We really wanted it because we missed out the year before. It was one of the stepping stones that we... ‘tick it off the list’... then there are always bigger fish to fry or bigger goals to push for.”
The Medics play Black Bear Lodge Tuesday May 22 and Splendour In The Grass July 27-29. ‘Foundations’ is out now.
“Well, sort of,” laughs keyboardist and pianist Heather Shannon. “We don’t really have homes at the moment, but we’ve got a rehearsal space here. We come back here and rehearse on the days we’re not on tour, and then we... go back on tour.”
Surely all that drifting leads to some degree of anxiety? “That’s a good question,” Shannon says, “because anxiety is the word, yeah. I do get anxious sometimes, being on the road, but I think you start to lose that and get used to it. It’s just hard... you feel like you’re not doing anything, because you’re just sitting in a car and going into a venue every day, and that’s it. But you start to find pockets of time where you can do other things. You get used to not having a routine.”
Drummer Charlie Watts once described his first 25 years with The Rolling Stones as 5 years of playing and 20 years of waiting around. Shannon can already relate. “Yeah, that pretty much sums it up! I have this guilt embedded in me, I don’t know if it’s from uni or something, but I hate sitting around doing nothing. So I try to take stuff on the road to work on.
“At the moment I’ve got this book on counterpoints [a classical music technique popular during the Renaissance], and I’m trying to teach myself how to write them properly. I learnt a lot about that stuff at uni, but I just want to get really good at it. It’s kind of annoying not having a teacher to help, but I just try to do it myself. I’m probably doing it completely wrong.”
All that touring has resulted in a devoted British audience for the band, even if the UK music press hasn’t embraced them as wholeheartedly as their Aussie counterparts. “Actually, it’s strange,” Shannon admits. “We’ve sold a lot of tickets here — at our last show in London, we sold 1200 tickets — and our fans are amazing people, just like in Sydney. The challenge here, though, is convincing the media, because it’s much more intense and they’re sort of hot-and-cold here.”
“[Being Australian] is sort of a mark against you, in a way. It’s weird. You have to prove you’re not just an Australian band that’s going to be here for a few shows and then leave; you need to show them you’re in for the long haul. In all the stuff people have written about us here, they always mention Crocodile Dundee or Fosters or something, just really lame stuff, just because we’re Australian.”
Not that Shannon is completely immune to Aussie clichés, of course. “I do really like Vegemite, actually. That’s a cliché, but I haven’t seen them write that one yet!”
For Shannon, her band’s journey to the top has been slow and steady. For those of us on the outside of the tour bus looking in, though, it’s been an absolutely meteoric rise, capped off by winning the 2011 Australian Music Prize and their insanely popular set at last year’s Splendour In The Grass. Bluejuice frontman Jake Stone has been quite vocal about his jealousy of the speed of The Jezabels’ ascent, and he’s not alone.
So how does Shannon feel when critics say she hasn’t ‘paid her dues’? “I don’t agree with them at all, obviously. But Jake’s a really great friend of all of ours. He’s just an intense person, and we all love him. I don’t know... some people like to say different things. Everyone has an opinion, and that’s fine. It doesn’t bother me. “I know how hard we’ve worked, and I know we deserve this. That’s all that matters.”
‘Prisoner’ is available now. The Jezabels play the Brisbane Convention Centre on Thursday June 7.
When I talk to James Mercer ahead of the release of ‘Port Of Morrow’, we barely mention The Shins.
We don't go into detail about the new album, and we barely touch on the end of their deal with Sub Pop. What we talk about, for the most part, is the gap between 2007's ‘Wincing The Night Away’, and the new record. Two important things happened in the intervening years: Heath Ledger died, and Mercer founded Broken Bells with producer Brian Burton (aka Danger Mouse). As he explains it, one thing is inextricably linked to the other, and those things together took him away from his acclaimed indie rock group — and eventually back to it. But the story starts a bit earlier, in high school.
“I am somebody who is a fucking late bloomer. Like, fucking late,” Mercer laughs. “I was very shy in high school, then in my twenties I really locked down with a few very close friends. I held on tight to that small social group, which was my original band Flake, and the few people around us who I was able to relate to. In my thirties, I got signed — and suddenly I had to do things like this, have interviews like this, and it was terrifying. It's social anxiety — I don't know why some people have it and some don't.”
Mercer got used to his crippling fear of interviews, but he never got over it. At first, he says, he couldn't feel his fingers. But after ‘Oh, Inverted World’ was released in 2001, and he was forced to stare down music journalists in every corner of the globe, the numb terror subsided to an intense discomfort; he figured he was doing fine. Then, in 2008, Heath Ledger overdosed on pain medication and left a sea of bewildered friends to mourn him. Mercer wasn't one of them.
“I was asked to go and sing at [Heath's] memorial service in LA,” he explains. “I went down and they had me sing a Neil Young song. Sitting in the audience and watching these people who were very close to Heath, what was revealed to me was that this person had lived so full-on, and really emotionally engaged a lot of people around him. He was very present, and they were very affected by his passing. I realised at that moment that my memorial service, if I was to have one, would not have felt that way, because I was so closed off. It was really disturbing. I was upset being there.
“When I started playing in the band and we were signed, I became challenged by new social engagements — and that was good for me,” Mercer continues. “Some people look at life and they kind of see it as a wonderful, fascinating thing to explore, almost as if they were in a video game or something: 'This is your avatar, this is the world we've created for you; go, explore, and enjoy yourself.' I realised it was much more than a game to me — way too much. I realised I really needed to figure this thing out and learn to open up.”
When Mercer got home from LA, a friend called and invited him to go to Chile, hike through the wilderness of Patagonia and maybe make some music. He would have said no before Ledger's funeral, but he decided to say yes — and that made all the difference.
“It was almost like setting a match to a bunch of dry grass where each blade sets light to the next,” he muses. “It was like a prod to me — don't live your life [so] filled with fear and inside of yourself that you forget to actually experience life; you've got to break out of that … I wanted to connect with people, and you see people around you that do — they're comfortable with other people and they have a charismatic way about them, like Heath — and you want that; but for whatever reason it doesn't come naturally to you, and you have to practice.
“Honestly, it's something that I wish someone had told me in my past. You feel that fear, you feel that push to introvert, but the thing you need to understand is that… it is unhealthy to close yourself off from other human beings; you are a social creature and that's in your genetics … Saying yes to things and going and doing things… It's uncomfortable at first, but you just get better.”
When Mercer got back from Chile, Burton asked him to start a band, and he said yes again. He wasn't sure if he wanted to make another Shins record, and this was an opportunity to step outside that world, and see if he coped. Touring the world with Broken Bells, off the back of their self-titled 2010 album, Mercer found he did just fine. More than that, he realised that the world is filled with kind, talented people who are worth getting to know.
“I feel like there was a dependence that I had on the social side of [having] my bandmates, you know, and it wasn't healthy — not on my side … I relied on them too much … Once I realised that I could engage other people in this [creative] pursuit, it really was a strong draw. I explained this to them, and they've been supportive, which I really appreciate,” he says.
The Shins have always been a James Mercer project, from the minute he holed up in his bedroom and committed the first demos to four-track tape; he writes the songs, he sets the creative direction. The cast of players that records with him and tours with him has shifted over the years, so there wasn't much of a demand to go back to the band and start working again. In the end, ‘Port Of Morrow’ came about because Mercer had drifted far enough away to feel like The Shins was less of a prison and more of a home — something he could change to reflect his newfound openness and the sense of opportunity he had found in the wider music community. As Mercer tells it, the album was born out of a much “happier and healthier” time of his life.
“It's always been about me trying to realise these songs with the people around me, but now the circle of people around me has grown,” he explains. “I have a lot of people around me now who are friendly and talented and I want to engage all of them as a collective to work on and contribute to The Shins' music.
“I'm guessing that me writing all the songs alone is going to change in future; with all the people that I know now and the skill level and taste level that a lot of them have, I could see myself writing songs with a lot of these people — including the guys from The Shins. I'm in a more comfortable world now and I don't want to hold it all to my chest anymore.”
The Shins play Splendour In The Grass at Belongil Fields in Byron Bay, July 27-29. ‘Port Of Morrow’ is out now. splendourinthegrass.com
Last Saturday was supposed to be the opening of The Loft (an all ages venue on Musgrave Road at Kelvin Grove) but the Brisbane City Council put a hold on proceedings.
The issue? After submitting his intention for the site six weeks ago, venue manager Stephen Windolf was told he didn’t need to apply for any further permits before opening.
But on Friday, a letter was delivered by environmental officers outlining a $20,000 fine if the venue was to operate.
“If when they'd first gone to us they'd said we needed to get a permit, this wouldn't be an issue at all,” Windolf told City News yesterday.
With an entertainment venue permit taking 20 days to process, The Loft could remain silent for some time to come. And with more than 20 internationals already booked, the venue is now facing financial disaster, with Mr Windolf — who used to operate arts collective The Fort in Fortitude Valley — outlining that the delayed opening had already cost several thousands dollars.
But they haven’t let it go to their heads. Vocalist and guitarist Mike McAlary modestly puts it down to the success of Brisbane’s local music scene.
“Right now Brisbane is kind of exploding a little bit ... it’s just starting to take off so I guess we are just a part of that,” he says.
Although McAlary and bassist/ vocalist Oliver Duncan went to the same high school, it wasn’t until they left that mutual friends and interests brought them together.
“All of our other friends were in bands and we weren’t so we thought, ‘hey, let’s make some music’,” McAlary says.
And the rest is history in the making. The release of their recent single, ‘Side By Side’, has been met with the same glowing reviews as their debut single, ‘Twin Rays’.
“The reviews we’ve got have said we’re sounding like Real Estate and a bit like Beach House, which is cool — I’ll go with that. We didn’t set out to do it but that’s what everyone’s getting from it,” he says.
“I feel pretty good about it, it’s kind of gratifying because we record it all ourselves. The new single we just released the other day, I recorded it all in my living room and in my bedroom, it’s mixed by me and we just take it and get it mastered. So it’s a really good feeling ... rather than going to a studio and having a team of people do it for you.”
With a slew of live supports around the country, Gung Ho are now looking forward to playing back home at all-ages gig Cheap Thrills, alongside interstaters King Gizzard And Lizard Wizard and Kira Pura & The Bruise.
“You get to play to your friends. You feel so much more supported when you’ve got your friends in the front row, you feel more comfortable. It will be our second all-ages gig that we’ve ever played. The other one was supporting Bleeding Knees Club at Alhambra and it wasn’t really a very big one. This will be our first big all-ages show and we’re pretty excited about it. It’s got a really good line-up; I think it deserves a lot more attention than it’s getting to be honest.”
They’re not ones to underestimate their underage following either.
“I really enjoy playing to underage fans. I find that they’re really there to watch all the bands. You get a lot more attention than say, playing at a club night at 11 when everyone’s drunk and kind of just standing around, and you’ve only got the fist row or two watching you. But for underage kids they really get into it, it’s a really good feeling.”
With the band in the process of writing and recording new songs, McAlary is hopeful their debut EP will be released next month.
“We are kind of in a transitional period now where we’re writing newer songs, we’ve been playing the same set for the past three little tours we’ve been on. We’ve got sets that have new songs which are kind of in the same vein as the singles that have already been released,” he says.
“We’ve just recorded a few potential tracks for our EP with Sean Caskey from Last Dinosaurs. He engineered it and kind of helped produce it a little bit, but I think we’re going to go back to writing a whole bunch of new songs, and then hopefully put them in the EP.”
Gung Ho play Cheap Thrills at the Judith Wright Centre Saturday May 12.
Long regarded as a cultural backwater, bands on the coast would usually pack their bags and travel up the M1 in order to have their music heard. These days, however, you more and more hear the Gold Coast referred to as a ‘city’, and perhaps certain preconceptions turn on such a tag.
“It’s definitely evolving,” says Paul George, lead singer of Tijuana Cartel, who, like Bleeding Knees Club alongside them, are capturing ears both nationally and internationally. “Actually, a friend of mine said this just earlier: it’s such a concrete jungle and it can be a little superficial, but in that environment you always get a few weeds growing up in-between. We kinda like that … There is a nice little thing going on at the Gold Coast. But what I find funny is that every band that comes out seems to have a completely different style. I don’t think it’s really developed a scene, as such, it’s just that certain people are coming up with their own sounds and getting out there.”
Tijuana Cartel certainly pack a sound of their very own. As we talk about the coast, George mentions strip-staple Swingin’ Safari, and it’s a great way to sum up the Tijuana MO – a heady mix of influences from around the world presented via block-rocking beats and bowel-moving basslines. It’s addictive and it’s distinctive, and came to a head recently on the Tijuanas’ third longplayer, ‘M1’.
“We have been happy with the album, in the sense that we’ve sold more of this album than we have any others,” George explains. “At first it was a bit hard, because we had a lot of people saying that they liked our old stuff better than our new stuff. And we could see that because it was quite a leap from what we were doing. But I think over time people got used to it and the songs seem to be growing and people request songs off that album. It’s worked out in the end.”
But what about artistically? Does the band now reflect upon the six months since the album’s release and think about things they’d do differently?
“Yeah. I like to say I don’t, but I think I do that with all our songs and albums. It’s very rare that I can actually put it on and enjoy it – now and then I can, I just switch off to it – but I think it’s also the fact that we know exactly what went into it: with each guitar bit or synthesizer you think, ‘I could have turned that up a bit,’ or, ‘We should have tried this or that’. I find it hard to let things go and move on.”
Regardless of what George thinks, ‘M1’ paced strongly both critically and commercially and – as albums are often designed to do these days – lit a fire under the Tijuanas’ electric live performances. Late last year, the five-piece ripped through 32 dates around the country. It was a watershed tour, confirming the band’s live prowess to a heap of fresh fans while introducing their unique sound to many more again.
“I think we’re such a word of mouth band,” George says. “We kind of need to tour a lot, because it seems that people will tell their friends that they saw this great band that others have got to come and check out next time. And for the fact that they know it’s a bit of a party band, we can come back regularly. We can do three or four tours a year and get away with it, whereas other bands have to pull back. It definitely pays off.
“I mean, we’re all looking about ten years older because it is a hard slog and you don’t sleep much and you tend to party harder than you really should – all that kind of stuff — but it’s definitely worth it and we love it too. I think it takes a certain sort of person to do it. We’ve gone through quite a few members because that slog of touring gets to people. Unless you really love it, it really takes its toll.”
Now the band are looking to hit the road again, with 12 dates pencilled in around the country during May and June. This time, though, other than taking it a little easier, they’re also mixing up the show, bringing in new live elements via an extra percussionist and a clutch of trumpet players.
“We still have our own percussionist,” George says. “But we’re also taking along a Middle Eastern guy from Byron who’s quite phenomenal. We’re also going to be packing a few different trumpet players as well, and on top of that we have a lot of new songs. So we’re mixing it up and bringing on some special guests and really working with different aspects in terms of lighting and different sound engineers. We’ve tried to give it more impact and a greater stadium vibe.
“We’re also trying to get it a little closer to a DJ set. We want it to be more seamless, focussed on getting people dancing and having a good time. We used to chop and change beats-per-minute quite often and I think it’s better to get people – at least for three or four songs in a row – into one groove and have them dancing that way.”
The tour is to support Tijuana Cartel’s latest single, ‘Offer Yourself’. It’s the first cut from the band’s latest studio sessions, this time with EMI A&R boss and producer, Scott Horscroft. Horscroft has worked behind the boards for Empire Of The Sun, The Presets and 360, and helps bring the Tijuanas back to a more organic sound – something that perhaps balances the intricacy of the band’s early work with the raw power of ‘M1’.
“We’ve sort of gone back to a bit more of a Middle Eastern vibe, I think. Also, we’ve learned a lot about songwriting and how to fit vocals in more and also to get the instruments back in. So we’ve definitely progressed a lot since doing – and by doing – the last album. So yeah, we’re feeling pretty confident at the moment.”
And undoubtedly contributing to their confidence is the announcement of Tijuana Cartel’s addition to the line-up for Splendour In The Grass. It’s bound to be the festival’s most electric showing in years, a 45 minute sell-out vindicating the organisers’ decision to take it all back to Belongil Fields in Byron Bay.
“I think any band that gets to be part of Splendour must be pretty stoked,” George says, laughing. “It’s our first year on the main stage there and we’ve always wanted to do that, so we’re all very stoked about that, to be honest.”
TIJUANA CARTEL PLAY THE SOUNDLOUNGE, CURRUMBIN, MAY 18 AND THE GREAT NORTHERN, BYRON BAY, MAY 19. SPLENDOUR IN THE GRASS TAKES PLACE AT BELONGIL FIELDS JULY 27-29. SPLENDOURINTHEGRASS.COM
Band Of Skulls are a band on the up. Following their 2009 debut, ‘Baby Darling Doll Face Honey’, the Southampton trio have found their music used for TV commercials and Hollywood soundtracks, while they’ve toured the world with such luminaries as The Black Keys.
But as singer and guitarist Russell Marsden explains down the phone from Los Angeles, all the hype hasn’t affected the recording of their sophomore album, ‘Sweet Sour’.
“On our first album we didn’t have a big advertising campaign or a big launch or anything like that. We basically just went on tour for two years and a few things happened that introduced us to people that helped us get our music more out there,” he explains casually as he fights the droning noise of the LA traffic outside.
“Recording the second album was a brand new experience for us, which I think most bands will say when they hit this sort of level for the first time. At the time it was very unusual and weird and we had to sort of work hard just to decide what sort of record we wanted to make, but in the end we just made the music how we were feeling at the time and it seems to be the right way to go. It really has become a snapshot of how we felt at that time.”
With the release of ‘Sweet Sour’ in February, Band Of Skulls can expect a lot more time on the road, touring the new material. They’ve just wrapped up a US tour that included playing the massive twin Coachella weekends in the Californian desert alongside the likes of At The Drive-In and Arctic Monkeys.
“We were playing on the Sunday but we got there on the Friday so there was that element of pacing ourselves and not enjoying ourselves too much,” he laughs. “I saw Pulp for the first time, they were one of my favorite English bands from the ‘90s and we got to catch up with The Black Keys who we were on tour with earlier this year and of course I’m sure you heard about the whole Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre thing. It was so much more than just the 2Pac hologram, in the end with Eminem and 50 Cent coming out as well. It was a total hip hop extravaganza. It’s not the type of music we come too close to, but of course we love all their records and to see it all right there all at once made it feel like a one-off thing, but of course we’re doing it all again this weekend.”
On the subject of festivals, our chat quickly turns to the band’s upcoming appearance at Splendour In The Grass, an event Marsden reveals they’re very much looking forward to playing.
“We hoped the timing of the record this time around would really lend itself to coming back and we had a little inkling that it might, but we just found out as everybody else did that it has just been confirmed so we’re really happy. Last time was so good it’s going to be interesting to see if we can beat it because not only did we get to play Splendour but we also got to play Sydney and Melbourne as well. The audiences there are some of the best we have ever had.”
When it came to the Australian culture, Marsden found our way of life very similar to his British upbringing.
“It was very exciting ... what most Brits will tell you is it’s like a very strange version of home because the culture has all these similarities, but once you have been there for a while you realise it is such a different place.”
With a European tour booked before their Australian jaunt, which will then be followed by an appearance at the UK’s Reading and Leeds festivals, the rest of 2012 is going to be busy for Band Of Skulls.
“We envisioned bigger stages and hopefully bigger audiences as well, and she’s (the record) doing us proud!” he laughs.
Band Of Skulls play Splendour In The Grass, at Belongil Fields in Byron, July 27-29. ‘Sweet Sour’ is out now.
splendourinthegrass.com
Three years since her last album, ‘Curiouser’, Kate Miller-Heidke is set to release her third solo effort, ‘Nightflight’.
“Everything I’ve ever done has been a reaction against the previous thing; if ‘Curiouser’ was a playful, dysfunctional adolescent, ‘Nightflight’ is more like a damaged, melancholy person in her late 20s,” Kate says.
The result is a musically vibrant and deeply personal album that reflects the nature of the acoustic sets Kate has been performing for the last couple of years.
“I wanted to make a record that harnessed the power of that, the live show and the dynamics and intimacy of it. I wanted to make something with all real instruments and friends playing across it to give it a personal, honest thing that the last record didn’t have so much,” she says.
Though much of the album was written while Kate was staying in the hustle and bustle of London, she returned to finish it surrounded by the peacefulness of Toowoomba. “It was a contrast, it was like my world shrunk.”
But it’s this quiet town background that brings the story element of her music out, like the haunting tale of ‘Sarah’.
“I guess there are just certain stories that haunt me. I love stories. I’m a reader and that’s what’s a big part of being human; the stories that we tell.”
After three years of touring and performing across Europe, Asia and North America, Kate would have a few stories to tell.
“There’s an opera that I’ve just done in London that left a huge impression on me, I’m still thinking about it.”
Many people in London were thinking about it; ‘The Death Of A Klinghoffer’ was performed at the London Coliseum and Royal Opera House, and received glowing reviews for being ‘musically dazzling’.
While August will see Kate embark on an Australian launch tour, for now she’s got the travel bug and is heading back to the United States.
“We’re going to base it around residencies in New York and LA but I’m sure we’ll end up driving around a lot,” Kate says.
‘Nightflight’ is available now.
Love recently launched a Twitter tirade against the former Nirvana stickman alleging that Grohl tired to sleep with Kurt Cobain and Courtney’s only child, Frances Bean Cobain.
She’s alleged that Grohl hit on her daughter in the back of a car and that she thinks the Foo Fighters frontman is sexually obsessed with Kurt.
Frances has since responded, saying her “biological mother” should be banned from the social networking site.
Here's her statement: "While I'm generally silent on the affairs of my biological mother, her recent tirade has taken a gross turn. I have never been approached by Dave Grohl in more than a platonic way. I'm in a monogamous relationship and very happy. Twitter should ban my mother."
In response to the allegations, Grohl, through his spokesman, said: “Unfortunately Courtney is on another hateful twitter rant. These new accustions are upsetting, offensive and absolutely untrue.”