A Musical Rainbow

The Beach Boys were renowned for their soaring vocal harmonies, The Byrds for their creation of folk rock and The Zombies for breathy vocals and upbeat tunes. Crayon Fields combine the best of all three.

With their 12-string guitar, alluring vocals and a lyrical focus on romance (both new and old), Crayon Fields is taking Melbourne, and the world, by storm. But lead vocalist Geoff O'Connor says he's still got a lot to learn about musical technology.

“At the moment I'm trying to work out how to use a sampler. It's not going very well - I feel like these were designed for DJs whose brains have fried a long time ago.”

It seems a lack of samplers isn't standing in the way of this quartet's creativity. After releasing a self-described “less-than-stellar” debut album in 2006, their second record ‘All The Pleasures Of The World’ has received enthusiastic reviews from most critics.

“We mostly self-record our stuff, but our last record had a bit more of a budget so I guess it was a bit more of an endeavour. We were pretty lucky, we got a lot of support overseas and we seemed to get a lot of positive reviews. But sometimes the really positive reviews can really annoy you.”

Geoff's disapproval of eager reviews stems from a desire to learn and improve on Crayon Fields' growing repertoire.

“Sometimes the negative ones can be a bit more informative. I think there are some people out there who just want a free copy of the album so they write a good review.”

First forming in high school in 2002, Crayon Fields' current line-up consists of only one original member. The others, bassist Brett Hudson, guitarist Chris Hung and percussionist Neil Erenstrom, joined when the band began to play “properly” in 2005.

Though Geoff says they would prefer to forget their first release, 'Animal Bells' paved the way for 'All The Pleasures Of The World', with critics describing it as ‘warm, shimmering two-minute pop songs’ and earning itself a 7.8 review on Pitchfork.

“('Animal Bells') was pretty much a collection of demos. They were all songs that were written when we were quite young and when we were in a different outset I guess. 'All The Pleasures Of The World' is the only one we're really proud of.”

Proud or not the boys have taken their melodramatic pop all over the world, recently completing their first tour of the United States, which included sets at the South By Southwest festival in Texas.

“Our first tour was interesting. The shows were really great and South By Southwest, which is the festival we went up there for, was a bit of a riot.”

But the shows weren't the only thing making their tour fascinating.

“We got to stay with this Texan family, which was a real eye-opener. They were really lovely, but quite conservative. There were certain things we couldn't really talk to them about. Like they were speaking positively of their uncle's band, which was George Bush's favourite band and how much of an honour that was. That was one of the little signals we got from them that we'd probably have a fairly ugly political conversation if it got to that.”

A fridge crammed with Dr Pepper and 'We Love Texas' t-shirts put paid to any underlying tension, with Geoff full of praise for their American hosts.

“They were lovely, they took us in, and they gave us these Texas t-shirts. And they had a fridge full of Dr Pepper, which was amazing. I kind of miss Dr Pepper; I'm quite ashamed of Australia for not accepting it.”

The band managed 14 shows in two weeks, playing SXSW as well as gigs in Los Angeles and New York City, and Geoff says round two will be a bigger, more expensive production. But before leaving Australian soil again, the boys are heading to Brisbane to play the Frankly Festival.

“We're certainly looking forward to coming back to Brisbane, we've played at the Powerhouse before and it's a really nice venue. And we can't wait to see Xiu Xiu again. They came down here a couple of years ago and they were amazing.

“But I expect it'll be a very long day. We're arriving there in the morning and Neil will have just come off a ferry from Tasmania before he gets his flight, so I'm expecting Neil to have a nap and we'll spend our time maybe taking care of Neil.”

And if Geoff could be any colour crayon in the world?

“I'd go for purple. I think it's a very nice colour and it looks good. I like it when people pull off purple. I guess I wouldn't be drawing on people though.”

Crayon Fields play the Frankly Festival, at the Brisbane Powerhouse, this Saturday, September 4.