For Sydney psychedelic-indie rockers The Valentinos, 2006 will be remembered as an unforgettable year. By September, the band had released their second EP, Damn and Damn Again, completing a national tour with UK art-rockers Johnny Boy, signed to hip indie label Mosquito’s Tweeter and snared a spot on renowned international compilation Kitsune Maison 3. Yet the most exciting and rewarding journey awaited them in the closing months of the year. In October and November The Valentinos embarked on a self-funded overseas tour that covered the UK, Europe and Japan. Not bad for a band that’s merely one and a half years old.
Bassist Pat Santamaria explains what inspired the 5-piece to take this big leap. “There were a few reasons. First of all we just signed a management deal with a guy from Germany and we were keen to go overseas to meet him and he wanted to meet us too. Also with one of our tracks coming out on the Kitsune compilation, we were keen to go and meet the guy who owns Kitsune in Paris and talk about other releases. They put out a compilation every now and then; they make waves with their compilations. We also wanted to play our second EP in front of people, especially in the UK.”
Pat is full of enthusiasm as he recalls the tour as one the best travelling experiences he’s ever had. Catching up with other Aussie bands abroad also made the tour more enjoyable. In the UK they met up with Presets, Midnight Juggernauts and Children Collide and exchanged valuable stories about the difficult and good experiences they had all faced in their quest for international recognition.
Yet no amount of peer support and advice could prepare them for the most important and valuable outcome of the tour – the lessons they learnt. “A main thing was being separated from your friends, your normal audience and fans that you’re comfortable with. But going overseas and being completely new again really affected our work ethic. Every time we’d go on stage we felt we had to do our best performance. At first I was quite intimidated by it, especially because in England you have such an amazing scene and bands but then we had a go and started getting a good response from the audience. It was really rewarding and exciting. Also, we went very much as an independent band. We had to do it for ourselves first; we wanted to test the waters and figure things out and learn about ourselves as an independent band,” muses Pat.
The most exciting part of speaking with a musician who has been overseas is to hear their perspective about how Australian music is viewed overseas. According to Pat, it is very encouraging for bands over here. “It’s good because there’s a lot of international attention for Australian bands at the moment. People are definitely talking about us and I think in a way it’s seen as the next great musical movement in the world, coming out of Australia. The important people we spoke to from record labels, management companies, etc, they all wanna know about what’s happening in Australia. There’s a big presence on the internet, on blogs and forums, talking about Aussie bands in that way. We were pretty surprised. It’s a small ripple at the moment but a very positive ripple. And I think for the first time in ages our isolation is helping us out. Like, we’re early in creating the next kind of music. When NME talk about this new wave stuff at the moment, when you think about it Aussie bands like Presets, Midnight Juggernauts, Damn Arms have been doing that stuff for much longer in Australia, way longer than NME’s talking about it.”
The Valentinos are set to close their amazing year with an appearance at The Falls Festival. The prestigious event, which is famously set ‘on a farm near Lorne’, will be one of the biggest shows the band will play but Pat says they are not apprehensive about the transition from small, enclosed venues to open, spacey arenas. “Until now we’ve been playing little sweaty clubs, packed out with low ceilings and intense high vibes but just the other week we played our first outdoor festival at Homebake and it was probably the best gig we’ve ever done. It felt really positive to think that we can translate to the big stage. It felt right being on the big stage.”
