Today marks the launch of The John Steel Singer’s (highly anticipated) record Tangalooma, which was produced by The Go-Betweens Robert Forster. Later this month we’ll be seeing the band embark on a national tour in support of the record – but a couple of weeks ago, while they were still on tour with Tame Impala, I sat down with Pete and Luke from the band to catch up on all things JSS! But when I sat down in the Dew Process offices, things immediately got off topic:
Pete: Have you seen The Room?
No i haven’t… but that’s the one that’s bad on purpose, right?
Pete: Yeah it’s fucking amazing man, it’s incredibly bad and funny.
Luke: It’s so funny. There’s such a fine line between being that and so bad that you can’t even watch it. But it’s so watchable because it’s so bad.
Pete: It’s got all these subplots, and major turning points that they’ll never mention again… like the Mum goes “the doctor called… it’s true, I’ve got cancer…” – and then it’s never again mentioned at all.
Sounds like an episode of Home and Away.
Luke: Yeah it’s like that, but times a hundred. It’s great, it’s really good.
What’s your touring digs like? Do you have much of a chance to watch movies on the go to kill time on the road?
Luke: Not this tour, but for our national tour we’ve got a splitter van with video capabilities.
Pete: Yeah that should be wicked.
Luke: Lots of Xbox and movies to go through.
Pete: Finally touring in style and not cramped and shit in a crappy little Tarago.
Luke: Although apparently this van is capable of getting into a lot of crashes. Apparently bands crash it all the time, it’s one of those cursed vans.
Pete: Really? As in smashed?
Luke: Like they just run into heaps of things all the time.
Pete: *shocked face* Adam will be driving though… our tour manager… so we’ll be sweet.
So your life is in his hands.
Pete: Yeah but I completely trust him. And our sound is in his hands.
Luke: He does a good job of that – although it’s not life or death.
Pete: “If you don’t do this right I’ll kill myself Adam!” *laughs*
So you’re touring with Tame Impala at the moment, how’s that going?
Pete: Yeah it’s awesome, those guys are lovely – we’ve known them for a good two years now. And Felicity Groom as well, I think we met her at the same time, Southbound 2008. Yeah it’s really fun, everyone’s chilled out and cool.
Luke: Pretty hectic, everyone’s rushing around everywhere. Hopefully that will ease up and we can party a bit more…. although we can’t really complain, we’re only a few days in. The Tame boys have been touring non-stop for months.
Pete: Although the other night I went on some magnificent adventure to find some fabeled club (after our gig). I can’t remember if it was any good or not.
Luke: Wasn’t there some Motown cover band playing?
Pete: Oh yeah! There was an amazing Motown cover band. A Phil Spector (today) type on keys, and a Fred Durst type on the guitar…
Oh that was probably actually Fred Durst
Luke: Apparently he’s moved back in with his Mum?
Pete: Didn’t someone debunk that theory? But I picture lots of “Where’s my cookie Mum!? Where’s my cookie Mum!? I want a fucking cookie.” They are going back on tour though, so they must be a bit desperate for cash…
Luke: They did have Halle Berry in the video for that awful Behind Blue Eyes song though.
What celebrities would you like in your next video?
Luke: David and Margaret, definitely.
Pete: Fuck yeah! That’d be awesome!
Luke: Like a full on battle style.
Pete: Armies?
Luke: Like a domestic dispute.
Pete: In a kitchen destroying everything, threatening with knives…
Chairs broken over heads…
Pete: Good stuff. Maybe a gory disembowlment. That would be amazing.
So you do have a new video out, “Overpass” – It’s a pretty wild ride. I love the furry animals! There needed to be more furry animals!
Pete: Yeah! Me too.
Luke: We actually considered adding an extra verse (from the full album version of the track) so there could be more furry animals.
Pete: And more of the dog.
Where was the sand dune stuff filmed?
Pete: It was in Cronulla!
Luke: Yeah we flew over it this morning actually… I looked out the window and was like “that’s where we filmed it!”
Pete: And the bowling alley was in Marrickville I think, and the gas station was nearby – but we weren’t there for that…. but it was a 7.30 start for the shoot in Cronulla. It was hard. We had to lug our equipment through 400 metres of sand dunes and set up and then pretend to play.
Luke: Which we also did for our album cover shoot. You think we would have learnt our lesson…
Were you actually in Tangalooma (on Morton Island) for that one?
Pete: Yeah we went over for that. It was freezing. It was in the middle of winter. Everyone in the lower states will read this and go “fucking pussies!” but it was cold for us.
Luke: Luckily at that time of year there wasn’t anyone really to jump in the shot. But standing in the water, our photographer
Luke:, he’s amazing – but is very much about getting the exact right angle and spacing – so there was quite a lot of standing in the same place for as long as possible, in freezing cold. He’s like “stop shaking!”
Pete: And then we did the rest of the shots up on the sand dunes on Moreton Island, which are even bigger (than in Cronulla), and it was an even worse walk.
How deep does the location go to the themes or the feeling of the record?
Luke: Well it started out as an idea that Tim had for the photos on the cover. Then we started doing the album and the shoot was in the middle of the recording process. So once we went over there and did the shoot, we liked the shots so much that somehow we felt it influenced the rest of the album.
Pete: I think as well, it’s the Queensland aspect of it. Even though we did quite a bit of it in Melbourne, and we mixed it in New York…we’re a Queensland band influenced by The Go-Betweens, and working with a Go Between in Brisbane – there’s a lot of Queensland connection there.
Luke: And most of the recording we did do in Brisbane and on the Sunshine Coast.
Pete: Yeah it was like 6 days in Sing Sing (Recording Studios, Melbourne) and then 2 weeks up in a stup Mount Nebo (QLD) that we’ve used before. It feels like home everytime we go up there, it’s just amazing. Secluded, subtropical rainforest off the back deck. The guy that runs it is an absolute champion , my second Dad I like to call him. And then we did recordings in Tim’s bathroom and
Luke:‘s parents bathroom. We spend sleepless nights up there trying to get everything done. Did we end up giving your dog a producers credit?
Luke: Riley? No, just a thank you. He basically just rolled over leaves and stuff, pulled cords out.
And working with Robert (Forster) – can you even sum that up?
Pete: Amazing. That’s pretty much it.
Luke: Yeah, it was incredible. We’re all such huge fans of his work. I idolised him growing up and all that kind of stuff. So just for him to be involved was insane. You kept having to pinch yourself.
Pete: He has such an inquistive nature…
Luke: So much energy! More than all of us combined.
Pete: Really switched on, a little bit eccentric, but just amazing with music and songwriting.
Luke: Really funny as well.
Pete: And a good ping pong player! It would be the only time he’d take the jacket off of his three piece suit. He was more into it in than anyone. Screams after a missed shot and stuff. I was playing on his team once and we were almost winning but I missed a shot, and then I was so devastated that I’d let him down.
Luke: And when we were recording up in Mount Nebo, he lives around that area, and because we were staying up there, in the morning we’d see him walking up to the house in a three piece suit, holding a picnic basket, full of coffee, biscuits, homemade cakes and fruit toasts.
Pete: “Coffee, coffee, anyone, anyone? – all right 6 coffees coming right up!”
I enjoy reading your blog posts, too – especially the reference to almost pooing your pants when you saw the crowd at Splendour.
Pete: Yeah it was a close call!
That’s probably just because you hadn’t eaten properly in about a week…
Pete: Yeah when did we play? Saturday Afternoon? Well we got in on Wednesday night and set up tents, while it rained. It was such a giantic weekend… week even. Full on.
Luke: So bizarre. By the tim we got to Saturday and played – you know the feeling you have at the end of the last day and you’re on the way back to whenever you’re staying. That’s how we felt. And we were just like “oh shit, we have to actually play today!” But it was great, it was so much fun. Probably the most funnest one we’ve ever done.
And my final question for you is quite in depth. Because you had a blog post of two referencing Pokemon – if you were a Pokemon, which Pokemon would you be and why?
Pete: I can only remember a few actually…
Luke: What’s that one that’s really small but really powerful?
Pete: Pikachu?
Luke: Yeah I’m not going to say I’m Pikachu because that’s the only one I can remember.
Pete: Charizard. Jigglypuff. That’s about all I can remember. You can be Charizard, I’ll be Jigglypuff.
You’ve got the long mane though.
Pete: Yeah I should probably be a fire Pokemon. Pete, what are you? You’re an extremely nice, docile Pokemon.
Luke: I’m one of the Pokemon’s owners.
Pete: *laughs* owns the Pokemon farm out west.
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Don’t miss The John Steel Singers in your city when they tour around Australia – in their pimped out Van – from later this month and through to December! Tickets are on sale now and dates are below.
And their new record Tangalooma was released in stores today! Go grab yourself a copy! It’s a pretty damn fantastic listen.
