The Brow Horn Orchestra

Sun 20th Feb, 2011 in Features

The last eighteen months have been big for The Brow Horn Orchestra. The band has toured Queensland, taken out the Best Funk Act WAMi and won the Best Live Act at the Perth Dance Music Awards.

In the lead-up to their appearance at Future Music Festival, FasterLouder sat down with Nic Owen, Karri Harper-Meredith and Lyndon Blue from the band to find out what the 2010 rollercoaster was like and just what the future holds for them.

Was it after the National Campus Bands Competition in 2009 that it all started happening for the band?

Nic: It was probably a bit after that. I actually thought about this the other day. At the start of 2010, we were still playing gigs without a drummer. Which when you kind of think about that. Ben [drummer] joined at the end of 2009, but we still did the odd gig without him in early 2010. We really sucked without a drummer. So that kind of helps to think how big 2010 was. We’ve done a lot of gigs with Ben and it’s been a big long, awesome year. A lot has happened.

Obviously the campus band comp was our first major achievement and probably our first unity with Lyndon.

Lyndon: Yeah, that was one of my first memories of the whole thing.

Nic: It was like, welcome to the band – we’re going to Queensland! We had our first touring experience and got to really learn a lot about ourselves. It’s a shame it happened so early on in our careers when we probably weren’t as ready for it to happen as now, but good in a way…

The Brow have always been a fairly diverse and dynamic band in terms of members and instruments on stage. You’ve had fairly different line ups from time to time. Have things changed a lot since the band played at NCBC 2009?

Nic: Back then [2009] we were only a six piece. And after that, we decided to get lots of new members. And then at one point we had fifteen people on stage and it kind of got a bit claustrophobic. I guess it all just sort of clicked into place and we’ve ended up with eight people. It’s a good level – not small and regular band like, but not big and…

Lyndon: It’s like a party but it’s controlled.

Nic: Yeah, it’s like taking off your shoes and only having two ciders.

What has been the most challenging thing for the band in the last year?

Lyndon: I think, getting everyone in the same place at the same time. We’ve had people doing their TEE and all that kind of thing. And it’s sort of inevitable with so many people.

Nic: We still don’t play shows with the full 8. We’ve kind of agreed that 6 will be our minimum to perform with. Anything lower than that, we lose the point of the band. A lot of shows we do without our other front man, Alex, cos he works in the mines. So he’s a bit of a rare entity. It’s quite tough really. It’s cool in some ways, because it means different shows have different appeals. When he plays there’s a different dynamic.

Karri: What about… Reducing our set up time from forty-five minutes to about ten or fifteen?

Nic: Yeah, now we’ve played a few summer festivals… we can set up really fast now. We’ve got wise and smart about how to perform and tour.