Joel Plaskett has something very important to do when he arrives here with his band The Joel Plaskett Emergency in March – find David McCormack. “Custard toured Canada a few years ago and I got to meet him, and since then I’ve had this idea of him and I starting a band called ‘The Commonwealth’. Maybe we’ll get someone from Trinidad to join too.”

Joel has a definite affinity with Australia having toured here a couple of years ago and noticed the similarities between his local music scene in Halifax, Nova Scotia and here in Australia. “There’s the same sense of community in Halifax as there is in Australia, it’s a closely knit scene and everyone is carving out their own terrain without being immensely competitive. Music is made for having fun.”

The Joel Plaskett Emergency have had huge success in their native Canada; just last week they picked up three prizes at the East Coast Music Awards – best songwriter, song of the year for Nowhere With You and best DVD. The DVD has recently been released in Australia with the album Make a Little Noise which is a compilation of two Joel Plaskett Emergency albums to allow Australian audiences to hear what they’re about; something Joel is pleased about, “It’s kind of a ‘best of’, it’s nothing but the hits!”
 
You know you’re a officially a rock star when you make what you refer to as a ‘concept album’ and Joel reveals that their next release is going to be along those lines, “The arc of the record is from 89-91, my teenage years, and it follows the story of two best friends who have a band, and the girl that comes between them.”

Unfortunately Joel wasn’t able to get his ‘ideal person’ to make a guest appearance on one track, which will be the first single released, Fashionable People, “Í was trying to get Tone Loc to perform on that song! But he was too expensive. Maybe we’ll get him for the remix” (For all you young kids born in the late eighties and nineties who may not be aware of Tone Loc’s work – look up Funky Cold Medina, it’s a classic).

Before we hear the new album though the Joel Plaskett Emergency will be touring extensively as part of The Great Escape festival, as well as dates with Augie March and some solo shows. Joel is looking forward to touring with Augie March and the challenge of playing to people who may not be very familiar with their music, “It’s exciting, we put in a lot of work on stage and we pride ourselves on our live shows so the only problem I think we’ll have is shortening our shows, I tend to have a kind of high strung energy on stage and stretch out songs, so we’ll have to try and get it down to about 45 minutes instead of about two hours!”

Hopefully in between the many gigs they’ll be playing here in March and April, Joel manages to meet up with David and finally live his musically united Commonwealth dream.

For Joel’s tour dates click here
For full Coverage of the Great Escape click here