Sparkadia

Tue 30th Dec, 2008 in Features

After 18 months of touring, both before and after the release of their debut album Postcards, Sparkadia are officially firing on all cylinders. The Sydney-based four-piece are having the time of their lives, and it’s been a non-stop whirlwind of touring, touring and more touring, both in Australia in Europe.

“We’re still amazingly passionate about what we do, but a few things do change,” admits frontman Alex Burnett. “I think the new material we’re writing is going to be a little bit different.”

It’s no surprise – much of the material found on Postcards dates from a long ago time, with the band coming up with many of the songs that appear on the album after they formed in 2004. Since then, the band have had a name change – they were originally named The Spark – and dropped some of their ironic ways – when they first started, Alex used to wear a boiler suit on stage with a white belt, no less.

“We’ve seen the world a lot, and I’ve fallen in love a couple of times, and so we’ve met a lot of people – different types of people from weirdo stalkers to people in bands. We’ve seen a lot of the world not completely in a bubble but in an interesting way of living life.”

Performing at the Big Day Out in early 2009, the next step for Sparkadia after that is to head back into the studio – but not just any old studio. Instead, the band will leave the comforts of home for the musical hotbed of Berlin, where they intend to work on their second album. Berlin has often drawn musical Australians to it – from the likes of Nick Cave to more recent ex-pats such as Angus Andrews from the experimental group Liars.

“We’ve always intended to do different things in different places,” he says of Sparkadia’s recording future. “The demos were recorded in my basement [in inner west Sydney], the debut album was done in London, and so I think we’ll give Berlin a go. It’s such an inspiring and interesting city and I think it’ll have a positive effect. We might go on tour again; we don’t ever make huge plans because it always changes so dramatically. But Berlin is pretty much the plan.”

Alex explains that, while the band was touring throughout Europe, it was the one city that all band members absolutely adored. “It’s sort of got this decrepit beauty about it,” Alex explains. “There’s lots of great music clubs and interesting bands, and it’s such a funky town. The other thing is it’s cheap; it’d be amazing to hang out in New York but it’s very expensive and hard to get a place. [As for] Berlin – while it’s sad that it’s got a lot of unemployment – it means that everything is quite cheap and it’s easy to get a flat and jump into an interesting musical, arts, and cultural scene.”

Postcards was recorded in 2007 with English producer Ben Hillier, who has worked with the likes of Elbow and Blur. But of course many of the songs were written prior to that, having made up the bulk of Sparkadia’s live set-list for some time. So where to from here?

“We do what we do and I don’t think we’ll suddenly change and become progressive house,” he deadpans. “We haven’t had heaps of time to think about writing songs and it’s hard to get perspective on songs. We’re more experienced so we know what we want to do and where we want to go but at the same time you’ve got to make sure the songs come from the heart as opposed to intellectualising the whole experience.

“We’ve listened to a lot more music since then,” he says of the time passed since they made Postcards. “We’ve got into people like Burt Bacharach and Lee Hazlewood and Scott Walker, where back in the day when we recorded the songs we didn’t really know much about them. There are a few different influences which will affect the whole process. I think we’ve grown up as people as well, so I think we’ll come up with some more mature songs.”

The one thing that he hopes Sparkadia can keep is the sense of innocence that was found on Postcards. It’s an album that captures a band at the beginning of their life, when they’re free to write songs that make them happy, without having to worry about external pressures. Everything has changed since the album’s release. Taking the songs on the road around Australia and overseas definitely affected the way Alex appreciates the songs now.

“When you tour an album it becomes a different beast,” he says. “When I listen back to the album it’s beautiful and it reminds me of that particular period of time. We had 12 days to record 12 songs so it was a pretty intense experience. There was a lot of energy and intent on the record. When we play it live it’s got a bit more brutal, a bit more passionate, a bit more rough and at times a bit more experimental.”

Sparkadia tours nationally in January as part of the Big Day Out extravaganza. They’ll also be seeing in the New Year at the Peats Ridge Festival and the Purple Sneakers House Party.