The Boat People/Seabellies/Washington - Setting Sail On Tour
Brisbane indie pop boys The Boat People, local luminaries The Seabellies and melbourne jazz-pop darlings Washington are heading out on a tri-state tour. 3D caught up with members of each act.
What’s been the most exciting thing to happen in your musical world recently-
Robin Waters, The Boat People: Without doubt playing CMJ in NYC was OTC. It was our first time in New York and five days before the election so the atmosphere was incredibly charged. My only regret is that we were playing so much that I didn’t get to go see as many other bands as I would have liked (and maybe that I got stuck drinking with the Austrian Mafia; “I have an uzi in my apartment, I could kill you right now”).
Trent Grenell, The Seabellies: We just got back from a short tour of the States, which involved playing at CMJ festival in New York. It was an amazing experience to be part of such a diverse collection of artists. And we got to sit in the seat where Sally had her fake orgasm in When Harry Met Sally.
Megan Washington: I just bought a Farfisa organ for my house. I found it in an op shop in Gisborne and risked life and limb driving it home down the highway in a crazy storm on the back of a friend’s ute. It weighed about a hundred kilos and when you turn it on it coughs and grumbles like an old man in the morning. Anything you play on it sounds like the soundtrack of The Life Aquatic or an extremely questionable video game from the ’80s. It’s awesome.
What do you reckon will be the best part of going on tour with this motley crew-
RW: Adelaide. No question. No, the best part, and possibly the worst in terms of my liver, is that everyone in my experience is partial to good times.
TG: We spent a day with The Boat People in NY on a photo shoot, and it was really fun. They are a great bunch of quirky intelligent guys, so I reckon it will be a good mix of messy partying and 4am existential debates.
MW: I plan to document the entire tour by getting at least one photo of every member of each band sleeping with their mouth open in the tour bus, preferably with drool strands and crumpled up sleep face. I will then compile said photos into a PowerPoint presentation and arrange for it to be projected onto a screen, on stage, on the final night of the tour. This is my mission. I will succeed.
What about the worrying parts – do you think any of them will drive you crazy-
RW: Naw, it’ll be fine – it’s only seven dates. I’m much more likely to be driven crazy by my own band than by another.
TG: Well, considering that in the space of two hours on our NY photo shoot we managed to lose Eddie from our band, and Robin from the Boat People went missing there for a while, I think our biggest problem may be a general ‘getting lostness’.
MW: I doubt it. They all seem like excellent human beings with a firm grip on reality and the ability to write amazing songs. As long as nobody puts on any Bono, Alanis Morissette or that Mrs Mills Plays Party Songs on the Pianola record in the van, everything will be fine. I didn’t mean that about Alanis Morissette.
Finally, what’s next after this tour-
RW: Well, we’ve got a few festival shows in January then it’s off overseas again. We’ve been invited to SXSW in ’09 so we’ll probably do a whole bunch of US and UK shows around that as things are really starting to build there and we have a lot of great people who’ve gotten involved. We’re already writing for the next album too.
TG: Finishing our long overdue album. We have been in preproduction for ages now, wanting to get the right mix of songs, which we feel we finally have now. We think it will be surprising for a lot of people.
MW: After this I’m launching my EP Clementine in Brissie, Sydney and Melbourne. I expect the album will be coming out shortly after that.
WHO: The Boat People, The Seabellies and Washington
WHAT: Play Spectrum / Transit Bar, Canberra / Great Northern Hotel, Byron Bay
WHEN: Wednesday 3 December / Thursday 4 / Thursday 11
MORE: myspace.com/theboatpeople / myspace.com/theseabellies / myspace.com/meganwashington