True Live talk Tours & the Future
Author: Tamsin Young
Friday, December 1, 2006
Thank-you
You started the year with a mammoth set of dates… 9 gigs in 5 or 6 states in 2 weeks, and have just come off a month long tour of the east coast - How do you find touring in these intense blocks-
We love it, all we want to do is play music - that's what we chose this life for. It is an absolute pleasure to get on stage with 5 other brilliant musicians and engage an audience for 2 hours straight.
Do you find it energises the band and their peformances, or does it cause tensions to flare-
The more we tour the more we become a unit; we kind of help each other out with life and stuff, and that shows musically, when we start making the same decisions at the same time, particularly the rhythm section, we just lock in.
With a (slightly) reduced schedule over the Christmas New Year period, are you turning your attentions to new recordings-
I'm working on some other records for myself and other artists, and True Live are gonna hit the studio and start drafting in January.
Have the late night sessions allowed for new music to surface-
It's funny, the evenings lead us to be better musicians, the mornings is when I do my writing usually. We don't really form songs from jams, we prefer to arrange things and think about them a bit harder.
What have you found inspiring about the gigs thus far-
I think it's actually nailing what we planned to do, which is move asses and souls. The thing is, when you commit to this kind of music the risk of being written off as a party band is really high, but I've had girls coming up with tears in their eyes saying that our songs really touch them and that is what inspires me to keep going because people are getting it.
What side projects, if any, are you developing at the moment-
I've got Rah which is myself and the violin player Tamil, making orchestral big band beats with a subtle opera libretto. It's like the Mars Volta, but being played by the MSO Charles Mingus and Kruder & Dorfmeister - it's being mixed as I type this.
I got Paris Wells, who is a vocalist and I'm making some deep soulful Betty Davis-style funk dirt for. www.myspace.com/pariswells [This shit is hot! - Paris & performed an awesome medley of True Live Songs at the TL afterparty in Melbourne - Check it out! Ed]. I've also got my solo record which I'm writing now and I'm doing some writing with Amali Ward. She's a beautiful young singer with a great voice and an old soul - I'm helping her find it.
Given the committed nature of all the True Live musicians, to this and other projects, what is your vision for the band in the next 12 months-
We want to be able to tour Australia and then Europe then Japan and maybe just maybe come home and be able to pay our mortgages.
How did you find audiences at festivals in 2006 responded to your performances- Did these gigs inspire you to look at festival opportunities overseas-
The festival response has been amazing, people love the band at festivals because the energy is so huge and they can dance, and the musicianship really stands out. People like to move around at festivals and that is great for us, we're not just there to play our singles and advertise our record, we're there to play out and get it on. Yes, we've been aiming for festivals overseas, particularly the European jazz fest.
What would your dream tour look like-
It would be in the US headlining big, good sounding venues, followed by late night jazz jams at the closest jazz bar till the wee hours of the mornings at each gig. It'd be great to have a bus and jet where you can lie down in and maybe even enough money to take the expanded ensemble around (that's an extra string quartet 2 percussioni Tags