The Temper Trap

Thu 15th Apr, 2010 in Features

The Temper Trap are playing at Splendour in the Grass 2010 – check out the full line up!

As a band that’s challenging the competition for the title of the biggest band in Australia, it’s easy to expect a certain detached manner when the band members are forced to do yet another interview. They’ve normally done them a thousand times before, and been asked the same questions over and over, and while almost always polite, it’s all pretty standard.

However, I’d heard a lot about The Temper Trap being nice guys, and I guess most of us have, because they have the Melbourne curse of everyone knowing someone who once worked with one of them or shared a dodgy flat in Brunswick.

Four years ago, they really were just four guys living in Melbourne, with serious plans to make a band and try to make it big. The difference is their unshakable determination to make something of it, and not just trying for the sake of it. This perseverance saw 2009 as their biggest year so far, with the release of their debut album Conditions, a move to London, and acclaimed shows in the United States.

When I get transferred through to Jonny Aherne, the bassist for the group, I find him “sitting in the hotel bar” and really experiencing what it’s like to be on tour in one of the largest nations in the world. “Just as soon as you think you’ve got the States figured out you go to a different city and it’s all new again. Just because one place loved you doesn’t mean the next will, but that’s part of the fun”.

One of the major highlights of the seven week tour is appearing at the legendry South by Southwest and Coachella festivals. Having wowed the execs and crowds at SXSW last year, Aherne is looking forward to a slightly more relaxed journey this time. “You hear about those festivals growing up and it’s one of those things that seems so remote a possibility that it’s fun to think about how cool it would be to play there one day. I’ve always been a dreamer, to the point of being made fun of and now these things that we never took that seriously are happening. It’s incredible, but at the end of the day, we’re in a bus and you still go to sleep with eight snoring dudes around you” he says with a laugh.

The immediate thing that strikes me about Aherne is his genuine interest in the conversation, and the confidence he has speaking about the success of the band. It’s something that’s often a point of criticism, because there’s nothing that a fan hates more than when the band they love ‘sells out’ and starts playing to sold out crowds in stadiums around the world.

“I don’t think there’s anything wrong with wanting success” Aherne says simply. “Maybe we will end up playing in stadiums and that will make us seem less indie or whatever, but if we can have it and not compromise our morals or what we believe in and what we want to do as musicians, I think it’s a good thing. I think people often confuse high hopes with motive. We made songs striving for something we thought was artistically solid, not something we could sell. I think we could write really huge pop songs if we wanted, but if it’s not what we believe in then it’s not something we’ll do”.

When I mention the speed in which everything has happened Aherne is quick to dispel rumours. “It might look like it happened quickly, because we didn’t tour Australia relentlessly like a lot of other bands, but we worked really hard and if there weren’t any shows we’d put on our own. We went through a lot of practices, and made some really mediocre stuff to get what we have now”.

Presumably the confidence and work ethic they share comes from the long running friendships within the band, with Toby Dundas and Lorenzo Sillitto having gone to school together and Dougy Mandagi teaching Aherne to play guitar. With a sense of pride Aherne says “he was this really cool guy with bright red hair that I used to see around. I’d dropped out of school and needed a friend. I had nothing to offer him but he took me in, he’s just like that with people. I’d never met anyone like him. So when he decided he wanted to make a band and make it work, it had been in his head for a long time, and from the word go we took it seriously”.

For the next month and a half, the focus has returned as they attempt to woo some of the toughest crowds around; something that’s been made considerably easier after Chrysler Motors picked up Sweet Disposition for their latest commercial.

“It’s just such a great place to tour” says Aherne of the States. “There’s so many different types of people and audiences that you can’t not enjoy it. I think I really enjoy it because my wife is from Idaho so I’ve been here a lot of times before. When I first met her parents I was some Aussie trying to take their daughter away and they didn’t think it was that great. But now that our song is on the TV they seem to trust me a bit more. Her dad still shows me his shotguns though,” he says with another giant laugh.

The Temper Trap are playing at Splendour in the Grass and sideshows in July:

Thursday 22 July – Metro City, Perth
Saturday 24 July – Festival Hall, Melbourne
Tuesday 27 July – Hordern Pavilion, Sydney