THE BEAUTIFUL GIRLS [01:08.07] ROOTS MANOEUVRE Mat McHugh, the singer/songwriter /guitarist behind The Beautiful Girls, Australia's genre-transcending superstars, is a broken man when he talks to Scene. "It's been a bit shit today. I've actually got a bit of laryngitis, and we had to cancel last night's show and tonight's show. I don't feel sick, but my voice just isn't working. Everyone's looking at me just going, 'come on, you're not sick!' I've only ever cancelled one show in the band's history before now, so it's pretty hard to deal with at the moment. Apart from that, everything's good!" Yes, laryngitis aside, life is certainly good for The Beautiful Girls, who are in the middle of a sell-out Australian tour after packing out venues in Europe, Canada and Japan. The group has also begun to receive airplay on Japanese commercial radio, making them the latest in a long line of worthy bands to become 'big in Japan.' "Around the world, everybody's pretty similar, but Japan's a bit different. Japan's just culturally a different place, you know. In America and Australia and Europe, it's more like you're just in a room with a band having a good time, and you'll go up to someone who's just played and buy them beers, and hang out or whatever. In Japan, it's a bit more reverential. They clap when they should clap and then they just walk orderly out of the venue. It's just obscenely polite, which takes a bit of getting used to." The global interest in The Beautiful Girls comes as a result of the band's latest album, 'Ziggurats', a rockier, hookier effort than previous releases such as 'We're Already Gone', 'Learn Yourself' and 'Morning Sun'. Moving well beyond their mellow roots sound of yore, 'Ziggurats' is packed with muscular tunes - like lead-off single 'I Thought About You' - that owe more than a small debt to a certain school teacher turned rock star. "The prevalence at the moment for roots acts is to use the currency of emotion and over-earnestness - the breathy, quavery kind of singing, and there's all this clichéd playing. So I wanted to do something that was a bit more cynical and angular and cold and clinical, and The Police were great at that kind of stuff, so they were definitely influential. Like, 'I Thought About You', part of that song is a direct tip of the hat to 'Roxanne'. We basically ripped it, and I've got no problem with it. I love The Police, everybody's influenced by somebody, everybody stands on the shoulders of someone else, and that's the way it goes, you know? If you like the song, you like it, and that's it." This might not please strict adherents of Australia's roots scene, but that's no concern of McHugh's. "I think that whole roots movement ... I don't want to speak out against it, but I don't wanna be part of it either. There's some amazing artists who are making amazing music within the Australian roots scene, but there's a lot of shit, too. It's the same in any scene. Any scene is more about the people who wear the clothes and subscribe to it than it is about the bands. I can't write an album of mellow acoustic songs because the people who wear beanies and go to the Woodford Folk Festival would like me to, you know? And I apologise ... well, actually, I don't, I don't apologise, that's just the way it is." And it's not just the roots scene that McHugh finds himself at odds with, either. "Most people in the music industry just tow the line a lot. Everybody's pissing in each other's pockets, and they just want to get more famous and make more money. So you're constantly at war with the industry, because like any industry, it's basically about profit and loss. The deeper you go into the music industry, the more that it becomes soulless, like a big, mechanised monster. You've gotta wage a war against that shit everyday, and it's not easy, but at the end of the day you can look at yourself in the mirror." Rohan Williams 'Ziggurats' is available now through DIE!BOREDOM Records. The Beautiful Girls headline the Ekka on Saturday August 11. You can also see them at Splendour In The Grass. back to top ^

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