Founded by Sarah Kelly and John Mathews, the band went through a couple of line-up changes that eventually saw Sarah hang up her bass for the electric guitar and John replace previous drummers Kate Wilson and David O’Leaf. Sarah’s sister Lizzie became the third and final member of theredsunband in 2003 and so emerged an eerie, inseparable and inspired dynamic that allowed for the unique song writing we fell in love with on Peapod, albeit some of us a little later than others.
” We used to freak people out cause it was just all of us all the time and a friend was saying to me the other day: “you know when I use to see you around it wasn’t like oh there’s Sarah, it was oh there’s theredsunband”, we were known as a little gang…,” says Sarah.
“I met John when I was very young and it was incredible how easy it was to write songs together and the way you’d pre-empt what each other were thinking for songs. And it’s such a great feeling when you find someone you can write with like that, I mean I have heaps of musician friends who say the same thing, you know it’s rare and you’re lucky if you find it,” she adds.
This cult of three have lived together, written music together and toured extensively together following the success of their first release. The intensity of this proximity is perhaps what fuels the fire of theredsunband and has seen a house burn down, amps kicked over, smashed drum kits, expletives screamed into microphones, purposefully directed spit and more than one guitar leave this world. Beyond the excitement and rawness of this, however, lies the storm from which many of their great songs have poured.
“I think a lot of people always thought, about us, that we were going just going to implode right from the word go. It’s always been like they are not going to last, because it was always such a fraught relationship,” explains Sarah.
This fraught relationship was also evident in the band’s experience with the Australian music industry, which somehow worked to reinforce the importance of the band and its members to each other.
“…we had so much trouble because not only did people think that we were going to fall apart, but people always had advice for us and didn’t understand that we knew exactly what we wanted. We were always very one track minded and we fucking pissed off so many people. You know everyone idealises – œthe band doesn’t compromise their values,’ [but] if you’re actually like that it just means shit fights from day one.”
“The beauty of that situation is that no matter what personality differences exist within the band… when things start to go wrong you turn to each other and just say that’s fucked and you know exactly, you do still have that common goal and that’s great, when that happens it’s a great feeling, it’s just you, the little band,” says Sarah.
And so, in classic theredsunband – œwe’ll do it this way instead’ style, the band disappeared for a while, but instead of falling apart or imploding, they’ve recorded a brand new EP Like an Arrow, which includes the single of the same name, plus four exclusive tracks recorded over the course of three years.
This project saw them reunited with Dean Turner, the bass player from Magic Dirt, who produced the bands first record. The band had met Turner and studio owner Craig Harnath during their first tour of Melbourne and formed a production team that still endures.
So they headed down the highway again to record, this time checking into a hotel in St Kilda, rather than an abandoned squat. Only instead of mixing with Hothouse the band decided to take their recordings to Tim Whitten. A move that produced the new sound for theredsunband that is evident on Like an Arrow.
“Probably the main difference is the production I would say. I don’t think Like an Arrow is that different necessarily in terms of the song writing, but it sounds really different it sounds sort of really smooth and pretty and that’s cause of Tim Whitten being involved I think.”
“I decided at the last minute not to mix in Melbourne again…and that I wanted to work with Tim Whitten and that was a great decision. He did everything from home and basically I went to his house for a few days and we worked on the songs together. I don’t think I was as involved in that process as much on the first album,” explains Sarah.Despite these production changes there remains theredsunband’s haunting sound that has been described as – œpretty loud, dark, heavy, sad dream-pop’. A sound that is reminiscent of Cat Power and PJ Harvey, and relatively unparalleled in Australia today. One that shows an undying love of distortion and feedback. When I asked Sarah if they still turn up the distortion she replied:
“Fuck yeah, I got an extra distortion peddle for this, so now I have three…and feedback I still really like feedback, but I don’t think it necessarily has to sound loud or angry, I mean a lot of the time it sounds really, really beautiful. I love feedback sound.”
There is an understanding of the dangers involved with over-complicating their sound and theredsunband have figured out how to achieve complexity from the few tools they employ. For Sarah, a lot of songwriters over-think their songs and are left with a structure that is too convoluted and has too many parts to retain any natural flow.
“It’s good to have constraints and I think a lot of people set parameters that they can’t move outside of. For example, we’re just a three piece; we’re not going to add more stuff to the band. I don’t think it is necessary, we just have to get better at the things we do.”Theredsunband have been producing songs that Australian audiences have loved since 2003, and both new listeners and fans alike are going to react to their new music in a similar way. The new single Like an Arrow has already achieved high rotation on Triple J. The Like an Arrow EP, out on the bands own label Enchanted Recordings, is due for release on 24 November 2007.
This will be followed by the release of their new album, The Shiralee, due to come out early 2008 also through Enchanted Recordings.
You can see theredsunband on their national tour in support of Liam Finn from Betchadupa, at the following venues:
Wed 28/11 Hoey Moey (Coffs Harbour)
Thu 29/11 Sol Bar (Coolum)
Fri 30/11 Troubadour (Brisbane)
Sat 01/12 Miami Tavern (Gold Coast)
Sun 02/12 Great Northern Hotel (Byron Bay)
Wed 05/12 ANU Bar (Canberra)
Thu 06/12 Northern Star Hotel (Newcastle)
Fri 07/12 Annandale Hotel (Sydney)
Sat 08/12 Oxford Tavern (Wollongong)
Sun 09/12 Clarendon Guest House (Katoomba)
to listen to their music now on 