Messrs

Wed 7th Dec, 2011 in Features

Adelaide band Messrs, (formerly The Touch) have personally experienced the opportunities which can come from being a part of the FUSE Festival. Last year, the three-piece was selected to perform at the Great Escape Festival in the UK, bringing back what they learned to Adelaide and looking at their music in a whole new light. Craig Lock took some time to chat to FasterLouder the Music Industry Conference and why Messrs will be involved for a fourth year.

Messrs – Everyone Knows

I know that a lot has been made of the change for name for Messrs and I don’t want to harp on about old news. But just to confirm, was the reason for the change because you found there were a lot of bands sharing the name while you were on tour?
That was a part of it, but it was also timing. We could have continued under the same name, but there was an issue with having the same name as a few bands who had signed with labels overseas. What we’re worried about is if we tour again, there could be confusion and potential legal issues.

So there’s that, but also the fact that what we’re doing now has changed. When we started off, we had no idea what we wanted, we were playing music as something to do, and the next thing we knew we were going overseas and realised that we need to rethink what we were doing. We’re trying to write new songs that are better than the last batch and have really moved on from where we started. So we thought that it would make sense to change the name now.

Was there a lot of work involved in maintaining your casual fan base while you were changing your identity?
Our vibe had reached a point where people knew who we were, but that was both good and bad. People might remember us from when we started, but we’re a lot better than we were then, and a lot different. So for people who had seen us a couple of years ago and thought “jeez, I’m not really into that,” we hope to change their attitude. And if we lose anyone from our fan base in Adelaide as a result of that, we think realistically that doesn’t matter in the long run anyway, because we’re thinking on a bigger scale.

There’s always a lot of discussion about what the Adelaide scene is as a whole entity; piecing each section of it together to create a more complete picture. What’s your perspective upon how the Adelaide music scene operates?
Of the people who go to gigs in Adelaide, there are very few who actively will go and see someone they’ve never heard of before, just because. A large number of people who go to shows only want to see artists that they’ve heard on triple j, where they might see a local band opening but won’t follow up on them. There’s only a small number of people who are caring and looking at what’s going on locally.

Would you say as well that those people are mostly in bands or friends of and members?
These are the people who are watching what is going on. And they probably go to see a band three or four times during a year, can begin to form an opinion and might actually think something. But that’s such a small amount of people here, and you can’t sustain a living out of that fan base. So, I guess it comes down to what you want to get out of performing as a band, and we’ve realised that we can play as many gigs and we want here in Adelaide, and play to full rooms here, but it doesn’t really mean anything in the grand scheme of your national profile.

So then feeding back into the idea of the FUSE Festival, which is intended to help develop this contact with the rest of the country, what are the opportunities, which have come to Messrs through the Festival?
For us, I think we’ve done FUSE three times now and we seem to always get something out of it. The first one, you sign up for and you think that it’s going to be amazing, you’re going to get signed and it will be unbelievable. But then you go in there and get a reality check and that’s great for everyone, because you realise that none of those things are going to happen very quickly.

You get to meet people and talk to them, hear stories and form a better picture of how everything works and what you have to do as a band. For me, that’s the main assistance, to understand how it works and what we should do based upon that information.

In terms of meeting people, it can be good but at the same time they’re not just going to come and watch your showcase and say “this is unbelievable, you’re the best thing I’ve ever seen!” They need to see a bigger package of what you’re doing. They’ll ask, “have you got radio play? What’s the live show like? What about your recordings?” Then if they see you they could enjoy it, and you might get onto their radar, even if nothing comes of it right away. All of that stuff is valuable, and people need to be realistic about the value of those sorts of experiences, even if the big pipe dream doesn’t happen. For Messrs though, we got the chance to go overseas thanks to FUSE and a lot came out of that. So the event feeds into a bigger overall plan.

For the second part of that question, what is the significance of the showcases for punters, who might wonder exactly why they should head along to see them in the first place?
That’s a tough one. I guess the way I see things from a punter perspective goes back to my point that there aren’t a huge number of people who are actively interested in live music in Adelaide. Those people are going to be already aware of FUSE of most of the bands who are playing, so for them it may not be as exciting because they’ll have seen a lot of the line up already. That’s where learning about the industry side of things through the conference can become really interesting.

For the average joe, it’s tough again, but that’s also why FUSE always attract a few draw card acts which the average punter will be more interested in. Even those sorts of showcases highlight really good up and coming acts, and while the punter might not know about them yet, they’re definitely starting to come through and for a band like San Cisco, who played the other year, they’re now getting airplay on triple j. So these bands are really just about to get exposed, and if people knew that then they might be more excited to find out about them.