Jebediah

Fri 8th Apr, 2011 in Features

After nearly 15 years since formation, Jebediah are back with another sure-fire hit, Kosciuszko, and they are certainly in a new era. Front man Kevin Mitchell spoke to FasterLouder about mountainous metaphors, working without record labels, a multitude of side projects and the latest record.

Having been together for nearly 15 years, where do you see Jebediah fitting into Australia’s musical landscape? Do you see yourself as being influential?
No. It’s funny you ask because this question has come up a few times today and I have to admit that it takes me a little bit by surprise! I don’t really have the perspective yet to know myself where we fit in the Australian landscape. It’s just not something I can recognise yet. Maybe by pure virtue of the fact that we’ve been stubborn enough not to give it away… maybe that placed us somewhere in the grand scheme of things. It’s not the sort of thing you examine too much when you’re in it. Maybe when I’m an old man and looking back on everything I’ll have the perspective and wisdom to see that stuff out. Where do you think we fit in the Australian landscape?

Are there any Australian artists you see as being influential or particularly notable? In the past or up and coming?
I think someone like Luke Steele has been very influential. He’s somebody that comes up. When I first met him, in the very early days of the Sleepy Jackson and played shows with them and I thought he was brilliant then and he’s gone to do amazing things since then. I think he’s probably influenced a lot of musicians. He would be the main one.

What is the most significant change to your sound over the years and with the new album?
With this album it feels like there’s definitely more texture and atmosphere. It’s less worried about capturing a live sound. It’s very much a studio album. By that I mean it was very much created in the studio. Some of the songs were practically written in the studio. The studio was like the fifth member or something. We really dove into the Pro-Tools thing…previously we’ve always been a bit resistant because I think our background was in indie and punk-rock but the Pro-Tools thing we were always a little but wary of. But not any more! This time we played with the technology as if it was another instrument. And above all that hopefully were all a little bit better at our instruments. I think also having done the Bob Evans thing my voice is quite difference to how it sounded on the earlier albums.

*Will your side projects (Bob Evans and Basement Birds ) be put on the back burner while you work with and tour Kosciuszko?*
Well the Basement Birds album and the Jebediah records were being recorded at the same time, which was during the last two years while I was touring the most recent Bob Evans album. So they both kind of happened at the same time. The Basement Birds one was finished a lot quicker, and we only had a limited time to tour so we got that all out of the way, and now that Jebs is on, it’s certainly what I’m focusing on. With Bob Evans, I’ll always be doing a few shows on the side while I do the Jebediah thing, but the new album is definitely what I’m focused on at the moment.

You’re the lyricist for Jebediah; what do you draw on for inspiration?
Well there’s always change. When we first started making records I was just a teenager. All the lyrics on Slightly Odway were written between the ages of 17 and 19, and that was all very angst ridden stuff, as most teenagers tend to do.

With this record though, I think a lot of the lyrics were actually inspired by the band. There are a lot of lyrics that are a bit self-referential. The energy I was often getting in the room when we were jamming inspired the ideas for the lyrics. There are a few songs that have a celebratory feel about them, which I think was just capturing the mood of being back with my best mates again and playing songs. There are some personal moments, but compared to Bob Evans which is all autobiographical, the Jebediah stuff is much more about capturing the feeling of the four of us.