The offer of a microphone proves irresistible to the Young Divorcees’ Travis Cotton, a born performer who also sidelines as a stage actor. “I’m the lead singer…” he says by way of introduction, brandishing the flimsy handheld mic, “and this is Hamish” gesturing to guitarist Hamish Michael. All three of us are perched on the precariously high bar stools at Fitzroy’s Builders Arms, and from the get-go the close rapport shared by the bandmates and erstwhile housemates is obvious.
“I’m forever trying to simplify things, and Hamish is forever trying to complicate things and within that we find, what’s that German word for Happy Medium?” Travis asks, “Not Shaudenfraude …” Hamish offers, “No! Not a happy accident!” Travis laughs, “but part of that is in there.”
The creative collaboration between the two mates, along with guitarist Simon Maiden and drummer Paul Ashcroft, is obviously a winning one. Young Divorcees have been handpicked from over 400 unsigned bands to play the Garage to V competition. The band will compete with 16 other hopefuls nationwide for a chance to appear on the bill of the V Festival with the likes of The Pixies, Jarvis Cocker, The Rapture and Phoenix (not to mention $10,000 worth of studio time).
A garage band once conjured images of a bunch of gangly teenagers locked away in a suburban house, sweating into their amps. There’s still a lot of sweat involved, and skinny never goes out of style, but the garage that produced the Young Divorcees’ attention grabbing demos is actually a piece of computer software, bundled for free with the Apple MacBook. “Each ibook comes with a demo program called Garage Band” explains Hamish, “so we recorded straight into the laptop. You can record some pretty good stuff just with the laptop.”
The demos are raw, but they do the job. Comparisons won’t throw much light on the project, but there is something of Gareth Liddiards’ Drones in the Aussie vernacular and wryly humorous songwriting. Travis recites his lyrics strapped firmly to the acoustic guitar, the bold imagery crosscut by Hamish’s dexterous electro-guitar musings. A tough proposition for most bands, the Young Divorcees possess a palpable talent for shifting musical gears with ease. One minute they’re producing lilting country rhythms, the next sonic guitar mayhem, before easing back into first gear with Travis’s dense lyricism dictating the pace.
“Basically we’ve always both had a real passion for music” Travis says, “I think the great thing about Hamish and I is [that] we come from music from a different angle. I think I’m quite simple, I have simple ideas and simple song structures and Hamish plays his guitar through a MacBook, he’s got quite a complicated convoluted set up.”
The musician standing next to me at their Public Office gig summed it up nicely, “I got to get me one of those…” he said reverently mid-set, referring to Hamish’s impressive manipulation of the Kaoss Pad to produce seamless pitch shifting, distortion and hand sculpted reverb. “I guess I’m really analytical as far as things like that go” Hamish admits, “I do a lot of electronic music by myself as well, a lot of construction and programming and sampling and simulating stuff.”
While they’ve got a firm grasp on their sound dynamics, the practicalities of working part-time jobs, rehearsing and pursuing other personal projects are still being ironed out. “Our main goal this year was just to gig.” Travis says, “I mean we’re all so busy, I’m doing a play at the moment and Hamish is doing his other artistic endeavors, we’re all bloody exhausted!”
“We’ve had no expectations on ourselves” Travis continues, “to start with until you start gigging you don’t really have any motivation to rehearse. When the Garage to V thing came up we immediately went into rehearsals.” “Paul had mentioned it [Garage to V] to us, and we kind of thought we’ll have a stab.” Hamish explains, “Travis, he’s a Pixies fan, and I just got on the net and FasterLouder was the gateway. We had this shitty demo that we had recorded, well you know it’s beautifully charming in our way, but it’s pretty low-fi. I bought the bandwidth of the songs down and managed to cram three of them on there, and it then it was just a wait and see basically…”
Can’t stand the suspense? Never fear, the winner of the state heat will be announced on the night. Head down to the East Brunswick Club Thursday March 8 to see Young Divorcees face off against The Capitals, Ouch My Face and The Inkrements, with special guests Children Collide. As for how the sleep deprived Young Divorcees rate their own chances, “Well,” says Travis with a grin, “none of us have bought tickets to The Pixies yet…”.
