The Gin Club play Wedding,Parties, Anything?

Tue 10th Oct, 2006 in Features

The Gin Club has spent the last few years slowly but surely building themselves a reputation that most local acts could only dream of. During this time they have been compared to some of the greats such as The Band, Neil Young and The Pogues and all the while putting on live shows that appear ramshackle in spirit but convert even the most difficult of audience members into die hard followers. For those that have been lucky enough to see them in the last year or two their shows are truly memorable. They would certainly be regarded as one of Australia’s best live acts and hardest touring bands, so it comes as no surprise that they are once again hitting the pubs for a string of dates. However, when I speak to crew Captain and songwriter Ben Salter about the bands motives behind this particular mini tour, something does stand out as surprising.

“Yeah we’re actually playing a wedding down in Sorrento on the Saturday night. The groom has actually been good enough to get the whole band down there to play a couple of tracks at his wedding. He’s not someone we knew, he just liked the band so it should be a good trip for us because it’s given us the chance to get down to Melbourne and play a few shows along the way. He’s putting on some drinks for us too so it should be really good.”

With a band of at least ten members at any one time, touring could be quite a tricky exercise but it’s something this band has always taken in its stride. In 2005 they managed to perform seventy gigs in Australia alone and the number of shows has steadily been increasing as has the popularity of the band. Last years radio hit Drugflowers hit number three on the Triple J Net 50 and this opened them up to an even wider audience. Containing cheeky lines like ‘I once swallowed Acid it was purple like the colour of a Jacaranda; and she could understand me, and I could understand her’ and hidden between perfect pop melodies it took many listeners by surprise. It was the poppiest moment of their 2005 sophomore release Fear of the Sea but it further proved the songwriting talents that existed within a band that contained no less than five chief songwriters.

“I was actually sitting on that song for about a year before one of the guys actually sat me down and said ‘Look mate, it’s just a really good song. You’d have to be nuts not to record it; we’re just going to have to do it’. I didn’t want my parents to hear it because; you know it was talking about drugs. I’ve been lucky though because they haven’t really said anything about it.”

But the bands modest success could not simply be put down to luck. It’s more hard work than anything else. It’s a credit to them too considering how many acts struggle with diplomacy when there are only the one or two songwriters. So how can a band deliver a cohesive body of work when there are so many people to keep happy?

“It’s never much of an issue. There’s no major theme of sorts when we are writing for an album. We’re all just pretty much on the same page. We are pretty interested in similar sorts of music but obviously each of us has our particular strengths. It’s not like we have to have major votes or anything like that. Over the last couple of albums we have just divided the songs up to two each and that has been great because we have always had a couple of songs each that were worth putting on the album. We all just love playing together; that’s how the band started playing in the first place.”

Salter suggests that the band currently have seven new tracks that they are getting ready for another album which they hope will be out early 2007. The long player that is being put together with the intent of  ’being gold, from start to finish’ will continue in the same vein as the previous albums but will be a lot fuller in sound. While The Gin Club may be a large songwriting collective that on stage swap instruments, drinks, cigarettes and vocal duties their previous recorded work has always been rather stripped back. This looks set to change with the new album and audiences will be treated to new material on the upcoming dates.

“We’ve got a couple of good songs each at the moment (for the upcoming album) but we really want this next album to be a lot bigger. I think we’ve often been referred to as a bit ramshackle and we really want to get this next album right and just make every piece of it really strong. But they’re good songs to play so it will be good to get them out and to play them live.”

While ramshackle has been a word bandied about in the past it must be said that this is more the spirit in which the music is played rather than anything else. The ramshackle spirit makes it feel like tunes crafted for outlaws and lovers, music that could exist in any time and age. But this could be the last run of shows for quite some time with the band preparing for some well deserved time at home.

“We’ve done a lot of shows over the last couple of years but we’re going to start pulling that in a bit. It’s been pretty crazy but at some point you’ve got to slow down a bit otherwise people are just going to get sick of you.”

With the excitement of a new tour and promises of a new album it’s unlikely the general public is going to get sick of this act for quite some time. So if you’re not invited to the wedding on the weekend then you can see them packed with their booze and cigarettes at their upcoming shows:

12/10/06
Evelyn Bar (Melbourne)

13/10/06
Espy – Gershwin Room (Melbourne) + The Vandas, Jump 2 Light Speed

15/10/06
The Tote (Melbourne) supporting Nick Murphy (The Anyones)