Life Can Be A Bit Of A TeaParty

Sun 12th Sep, 2004 in Features

The Tea Party are one of the few stayers from the alternative rock nineties. Formed in 1990, the band has now released six albums, a couple of EP’s and a live DVD. They have formed a strong legion of fans throughout the world, but particularly in Canada, their home, and here in Australia.

The Tea Party’s sixth album, Seven Circles, was written and recorded through a time of great sadness for the band.

Jeff Martin, lead singer and guitarist acknowledges how this has challenged the band. “The band has been through a lot of had stuff. Losing a manager and best friend to cancer in 2003 and seeing the fight he went through. It was the music that kept us together.”

Steve Hoffman’s battle with cancer affected the band’s lives in a profound way. Hoffman wanted Martin and the rest of the band to continue producing music whilst he was sick, so the band began work on Seven Circles. Hoffman’s illness impacted on the band, they generally takes about eight months to write and produce a new album, but because they were in and out of hospital supporting their friend, the process was stretched over two years. Whilst this was unusual, it did not alter the way they went about the song writing process. Martin says
“The Tea Party aren’t a band that just can sit down after dinner one night and write a song. Each record is like a possession. The music has to come from a place of passion. In the process of writing this record there was a lot of soul searching going on.”

On The Tea Party’s last album, The Interzone Mantras, Martin’s reignited his passion for playing guitar; this has carried through to Seven Circles, and you can really hear how much he’s enjoying it on this long player. The first single from Seven Circles is the awesome Writing’s On The Wall. Martin explained, “Writing’s On The Wall was chosen as the first single for this album because we thought we needed to come out swinging after a two year hiatus.” It packs one hell of a punch.

On first listen Seven Circles doesn’t seem to have the same strong Middle Eastern influence as The Tea Party’s previous recordings. Martin acknowledges this but eschews the comparison by saying “Every Tea Party album has been off on a different tangent. This one is no different. We weren’t going to make Edges Of Twilight 2 or Tryptic 2. Whilst the Middle Eastern influence isn’t as obvious on this record it is still flowing beneath the surface.”

Martin still has a passion for those Middle Eastern sounds and thinks that they may well come back, maybe even stronger on their next recording. “This album was written to get straight to the point because that was the frame of mind we were in whilst writing it, but you never know what will happen on the next one.”

The production of Seven Circles was shared between two producers. Three of the eleven tracks were produced with Bob Rock in Maui in September/October 2003, just prior to Hoffman’s passing. The other eight were produced in 2004 with Gavin Brown, who’s been responsible for producing some of the cream of the Canadian music industry, including Danko Jones.With Hoffman battling hard, Martin felt that “if I produced it would be a little too close to home,” so the original intention was to get someone else in to produce this album so that Martin could continue to learn as a producer.

For Martin working with Bob Rock was as terrifying as it was exciting. Rock has such a huge reputation in the music world; and he’s learnt from the association. The band realised that whilst the three tracks produced by Rock would make the album, they weren’t going to be singles. So for the rest of the album they wanted someone younger with a more modern approach.

Gavin Brown had been a big fan of The Tea Party and had wanted to work with them for a long while. Martin decided to bring him on board to assist with the production of the rest of the album. Martin and the band had produced all of their previous albums, and after their experience with Rock it was hard for The Tea Party to let Brown in; it was a “private club, a boys club”. When it came down to it, the final production duties were shared; Brown was there to produce the arrangement of the tracks, with Martin working on the overall sonic landscape for the record.

The Tea Party have had a great deal of success in Australia. They’ve toured here ten times; playing throughout Australia as well as gracing the stages of the Big Day Out, The Falls and Alternative Nation in 1995. They’ve sold numerous albums here, going platinum a number of times. When asked why The Tea Party keep coming back to Australia, Martin simply replies, “You keep asking us back.”

Their relentless touring has made them a crowd favourite and Martin is more than a little attached to Australians; he’s even married to one of us. On the band’s next tour here, later this year, Martin is keen to find a house in Perth, and join the growing legion of other rock artists who divide their time between Australia and their place of birth. His ultimate aim, sometime in the future, is to make Australia his permanent residence. He’s quite impressed with the talent coming out of Australia right now and would love to spend some time producing records for some of the Aussie artists he loves.

Of all the shows The Tea Party have played in Australia, the one that sticks with Martin the most is Alternative Nation at Eastern Creek in 1995. The band was headlining the second stage at the festival and “an announcement was put over the PA that our set was about to commence. A wave of people began to move from the main stage, it must have been a couple of thousand. At that point we knew we were huge in Australia.”

All of The Tea Party shows I’ve seen have been pretty special to me. When asked to describe the feel of a Tea Party show Martin described them as “passionate, sensual, a communion, with a feeling of intimacy no matter how big the crowd is.” When I saw them play on the first night of The Falls in 1999 I felt all of those things; they blew me away.

Over the years there have been many comparisons made between The Tea Party and The Doors; Martin is not a fan of these. Whilst he acknowledges there is a similarity between his face and physique and that of Jim Morrison, which Martin attributes to his mother, he believes that the musical similarities are few and far between. The one area that Martin does believe that there is congruence is in their live shows. “I’ve watched some of the archival footage of the Doors, and I see a similarity in the passion with which the two bands play. That is the only analogy I see between the two bands.”

The Tea Party are coming back to Australia late this year for tour number eleven. According to Martin, “The tour dates are all locked in, and I think Frontier will announce the dates maybe next week.” At this stage it looks as though the band will be making two trips. The first in late November, early December, when they’ll play the major capital cities; the second in our autumn, “probably around March”, when the band come back to play a more extensive tour, taking in shows in the regional areas like Newcastle and Canberra.

Coming along for the ride this November will be US band The Burning Brides. Martin describes them as having “good indie creds”, and “just a great rock band. If Jet is AC/DC redone, The Burning Brides are early Stones.” With a line up like that, the tour is sure to be popular and I’m waiting with baited breath.