Theredsunband: Theircrosshairs are trainedsquarely on you

Thu 17th Jan, 2008 in Features

theredsunband have garnered the critical acclaim of giants, with the trio’s sound compared to Mazzy Star and personal hero Cat Power – who the band have supported, along with Sonic Youth and other such luminaries. From gracing stages at the BDO, to working with producers Dean Dirt and Tim Whitten, theredsunband – as fronted by Jessica Michalik Music Endowment recipient and interviewee Sarah Kelly – are making ready their new album for delivery this year. In the meantime they will shortly launch four new tracks on the EP, Like An Arrow.

Your website (theredsunband.com) is in a word, intense. Who did this for you? Are you very involved in that side of things? Or do you have specially trained monkeys?

A company based in St Peters called mathematics designed it for us when our first record came out. we’ve always been very involved in the artistic output, yes. John has painted every cover of all of our releases (we have a total of five), and I write everything by hand.

The other four songs are exclusive to the release and were recorded over theredsunband’s three year absence, with various people at different studios and houses. Tell us more about this! How lends their house to the redsunband? What were you using to record on – a portable set up?

The two people that recorded – œFell Free’ and – œEchoes’ on the EP (Toby and Al) lived at the house we recorded in. They had a Persian rug for the drum kit in the lounge room, and a Protools set-up in Al’s bedroom. I did the singing upstairs in Toby’s bedroom.

Tell us about the gestation of the songs on the album. How did they come into the world? What was it like working with Tim Whitten? Did he regale you with stories of the Oz music business of yore? Does he prefer eggs overeasy? That kind of thing.

Are you referring to the Smith’s story? The eggs? No?? (We aren’t but this sounds fascinating! We implore anyone to ask Tim about this when next they meet.) Tim Whitten is a very cool guy, he skates. He lives near the beach and has a tan. He’s self-taught! Awesome. Anyway, I guess we chatted about bits of stuff. I asked him a lot of questions about Australian bands I like that he recorde,.

What’s been informing your sound as the band has developed since the first album?

We listened to heaps of folk music. We moved away from the city. We
started playing the songs on a nylon string acoustic and focussed on
getting the three-part harmonies right before we moved on to drums and amps.

If you had to choose (which you do), which has been your favourite support slot/gig/tour so far?

That’s hard. I love Cat Power so it was pretty incredible to play with
them. I nearly fainted when Chan drawled to me in her southern belle
whiskey voice “I lurve y’all’s bayund nayum” (translate: I love all of your band name). But I like fun tours too, like the one we just did with Liam Finn and EJ Barnes. They’re lovely, and so are their crew, and they all drink like mothers.

What are you listening to at the moment?

The new PJ Harvey record. Way too much. Gaslight Radio. Old Paul Kelly.

Is there a hidden meaning to the spelling of redsunband and the run together letters? We notice that teenagersintokyo do this also (nothing escapes our beady eyes). Are you members of a sinister cabal we know nothing about? Should we be worried?

I like the way it looks: theredsunband – see? It looks better then the
red sun band. Perhaps that is teenagerintokyo’s motivation also. I have not the faintest idea.

Who: theredsunband
What: Like An Arrow
Where: The Annandale
When: Saturday January 19