Introducing the new SomethingFor Kate

Mon 17th Jul, 2006 in Features

Instead of breaking up, Something For Kate has re-emerged as a new band. They may still have the same three members – Paul Dempsey (vocals/guitars), Clint Hyndman (drums) and Stephanie Ashworth (bass) – but they have reinvented themselves on their fifth studio album Desert Lights.

Dempsey suffered a severe case of writer’s block after 2003’s The Official Fiction and as he reveals, it took its toll on the band.

“There were three or four times when one of us walked out and said that’s it,” he said. “We always come back though. You can get angry and frustrated, but it only takes two hours to realise you miss playing with these incredible people. We will be around for a while yet.”

Dempsey said the reason they all act like boomerangs and can’t stick to quitting is because they are the best of friends. “We don’t only do it together for the music. First and foremost we are friends,” he said. “If we were just people that tried to start a band to get famous, I don’t think it would work.”

That is good news for SFK fans, who have approved of the trio’s decision to turn back to the basics of a live rock band. Since Desert Lights hit the stores at the beginning of the month, it has received a welcome back party, debuting at number one on the ARIA chart and already achieving platinum sales (70,000).

Dempsey said he is flattered by the tag as one of Australia’s best songwriters, but he didn’t feel any outside pressure when he was struggling to pen down the tracks for the album. “It is nice to hear a compliment like that,” he admits. “It doesn’t change the relationship with what I do. It is only us (SFK) that have to feel what we’ve done. The pressure is internal.

“I have come to except that writer’s block is part of the process. I thought that writing songs was easy, but it is not. I give myself a hard time and I am trying to relax more. I was coming up with a lot of stuff, but I didn’t think it was any good.

“You can go through a year doubting yourself and you come through that with a new record and you feel like a new band. In a way it feels strange when I see our back catalogue because I feel like Desert Lights is our first record again. On the last tour it all felt new to me.”

One of the reasons Dempsey is such a good songwriter is his ability to improvise. “All the solos are improvised,” he explains. “I’ll sit there when we are recording the track and just have three or four goes at it. You just need to get the right energy for the song and the only way to do that is on the spot. I try and play it the same live for the fans in case they are hanging out for that one little guitar bit, but after a while and with the older songs, I do them completely different.” 

Dempsey said he was more excited about making this record with producer Brad Wood (The Smashing Pumpkins, Ben Lee) in Los Angeles, than he was when the band was first starting out.

“We spent 18 months in Melbourne writing the album and when we finished we just wanted to be somewhere different,” he said.

“We wanted to make the record with Brad Wood, and it made more sense to go to his studio in LA. Because studio time is so expensive you have to work through and record the album in really long sessions, but because Brad owned his own studio we could work normal hours.”

Wood helped SFK with their long road back to a raw sound after experimenting with other sounds and layers on the last two albums, and Dempsey said they are completely happy with what they have created.

“The last two albums were studio albums. Everything was pristine and perfectly placed. They were dense arrangements with strings and piano. We were ready for a change and we wanted the record to be closer to what the band is live,” he said. “The reason you start a band is because you like playing guitar to people. Each song is a different story and has a different mood, so when you play a show you move through all these moods. Also the energy of the live audience makes it like a communal shared experience. A little journey or something.”

SFK will hit the road at the end of next month for the national Desert Lights tour. While on the road for more than a month, the trio will take comfort in their current single ‘Cigarettes and Suitcases’.

”’Cigarettes and Suitcases’ is in a sense about being on the road. Trying to find a home or a place that feels like home, but never quite getting there. It’s kind of like being on the road or being in a new house,” he explains.

The band plans on releasing a second single and will decide by the week’s end which of the other nine amazing tracks will be the lucky one. 

Dempsey said the only thing worrying him now is the hard task of putting together a set list for the fans.

“It is harder and harder to put together a set list. You have a one-hour or one and a half hour set list and you can only play 20 songs. We have got over 100 songs, so the decision to play 20 can start a lot of fights,” he said.

“My favourite is a song on the new album called ‘Impossible’ or a song called ‘Faster’ on our B-side album. I wish it wasn’t a B-side. The band has never played it live. We might play it on the next tour.”

The two-CD limited edition version of Desert Lights is out now and includes a bonus disc of live bootlegs, recorded on SFK’s Sci-Fi Sunsets Tour in May, as well as Dempsey’s cover of Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Born To Run’.