INTERVIEW: Sarah McLeod - The Superjesus

Twenty years on from their platinum selling album Sumo hitting number two on the ARIA Chart, The Superjesus are back with an anniversary edition of their celebrated 1998 debut, set for release on August 17. The reunited band are hitting the road for an extensive tour across Australia performing the entire album so we caught up with vocalist/guitarist Sarah McLeod to discuss the 20 year anniversary and take a look back at that iconic album.

Andrew: How’s things with you and the band? I guess you must be excited with what’s going on with the band at the moment.

Sarah: Yeah it is really exciting! We’ve done tours here and there in the last few years but we haven’t done a tour this extensive since the 90’s and to be able to play “Sumo” in it’s entirety, we’ve never done and even when we first wrote it we still didn’t play it in it’s entirety. So there are songs that we have never played, I wouldn’t even know how to play them [laughs].

Andrew: Well that’s what I wanted to ask you, with this album that came out 20 years ago I was going to ask if there were any you had never played before. How many are we looking at that are brand new to you live wise?

Sarah: There’s 4 that I have no idea how to play and I was thinking that the main issue with working it out is we used to use a lot of alternate tunings and also lots of capos so over the years we recorded it and then 20 years later I can’t remember what we did. So it’s like how am I going to remember but once we get the tunings then I’m Ok but I’ve actually been a bit worried about it but I’ve worked it all out last night so I’m good now.

Andrew: So does that take you back to when you wrote and recorded these songs, trying to remember how to play these songs?

Sarah: Yeah totally! Because I’m thinking, ‘I know it’s in this tuning and I can hear something but I don’t know what to play, so relax and where in your guts does your hand want to go?’ And I would have flashbacks in my brain of shapes because we don’t play chords because the tunings are all different, I can’t say it’s an E or a G. None of that, it’s just weird shapes and my fingers would kind of just go there so I think, ‘ It was somewhere around here…’ and then I find it, there it is, oh my god! Brill!

Andrew: Do the songs change at all when you go back to them and relearn them? Do you find that you don’t want to play them exactly the way you originally wrote them or will you stick to exactly how you created them?

Sarah: We sort of have to because they’re written that way, they’re not really songs that you can just jam out. They are really complicated and have so many different parts to them and are quite progressive. I can fiddle around with the vocal melodies a bit but as far as the instrumentation, it’s pretty much set in stone.

Andrew: This album will be re-released in August as well and you have a bunch of live tracks, unreleased songs and interestingly enough a cover of Kylie Minogue’s “Confide In Me”. How did that come about and why pick that song?

Sarah: Well I am a huge Kylie fan and years ago, I think it was ’97, we actually recorded a cover of this song. We never finished it but we started it and it was dirty and heavy and it was in low C and sounded like Black Sabbath. We thought, ‘Yeah this is cool’ but then we thought covers were…we’re not going to do a cover, we’ll just do our own songs so we never finished it. And then recently we were at a party and we had just finished a show and the whole band were together which is rare for us and it came on the radio and I said, ‘Guys remember this!’ I remember thinking that was a good idea, we should have followed that through and so I went home the next day back to my studio and I just started working on it and I put it together as best that I could remember how we did it and then I pitched it to the guys and they were like, ‘That’s actually cool’. So everyone went into the studio and everyone put their own touch on it and by the end of the day it was mammoth! We played it live and it went down really well at the Hotter Than Hell Festival, everyone seemed to like it so after recording it I wanted to get it remastered and I actually contacted Anne at Warners and said, ‘Hey what’s your connection with the mastering guy because we’ve just recorded this’, and I just put it in the email and she came back straight away going, ‘I love it, let’s put it on the Sumo album anniversary!’ I was like, ‘I can’t believe it, it worked! I laid the trap and she fell into it’ [laughs].

Andrew: Nice! So I guess the question is will Kylie hear this song and what would she say about it?

Sarah: I have no idea if she would hear it but I think she would dig it because it’s not a standard cover, we haven’t just taken her song and sung it again which noone really likes. I mean it’s flattering but you think well it’s not my version is it? But to hear someone put a spin on it that’s so different, I think she would find it creative, I like to think so anyway. I mean I say that and if someone comes to my door with a subpoena I’ll let you know.

Andrew: [laughs] You don’t want that obviously! But it’s interesting when bands cover songs from a well known artist, you always think about what they would think and whether they ever get around to hearing it.

Sarah: Yeah exactly. I notice a lot of people on social media are tagging her so we’ll see.

Andrew: Oh right Ok, you never know! So it’s 20 years which is an amazing thing and I remember when this album came out and you guys had exploded, do you remember what you were thinking and feeling about the whole success of that album and coming literally I suppose out of nowhere at that time?

Sarah: We totally did, we came out of nowhere because we had been working quietly on that album for two years and we didn’t really play any shows and we just honed our craft quietly at home. When it did come out it went gangbusters so quickly that we didn’t even really have a chance to notice what was going on, it was like day by day there was so much action, my phone just kept ringing from my manager going, ‘This is happening and that’s happening. Gotta go here, gotta go there’. And there really wasn’t time to stop and reflect on what was happening, we were in our own little bubble. We had our own troubles at that point as well, we were a difficult band communication wise and our chemistry was great musically but as a friend level it was difficult. It was hard because we were thrown together but we were uncomfortable at times about being together but we were together all the time and all this chaos was going on outside so we had to find comfort in each other to kind of get through it, it was a very strange time.

Andrew: Yeah I’m sure it would be. When you reunited again a few years ago, what were the biggest things that changed as far as band chemistry and how you guys were working together?

Sarah: When we came back together years later we were different people, we didn’t have all the hang ups that we had when we were kids. Every move we made didn’t feel like our lives depended on it, we’re here now because we love music and we love each other and we love the band and we just love to play, so there’s different motivations now. Back then it was sort of like, well I won’t say like concentration camp, but it wasn’t fun, I’ll put it that way. Some of it was fun but a lot of it wasn’t fun and there was a lot of people’s jobs on the line all the time, there was a lot of financial stuff at stake so we had to be a certain way because this machine was bigger than us and it had taken over us. So it was fun but it was also a lot of pressure and kind of scary.

Andrew: Was that the main reason you disbanded originally or were there other reasons as to why you went your separate ways?

Sarah: Well there was a few reasons but mainly we had these troubles in the beginning and then Chris (Tennent, guitar) left and then we got Tim Henwood (guitars) and OK, ‘Time to pull our socks up and don’t worry about the past. We’ve got each other, let’s try again, it will be Ok’. And then after Tim left I was just so disheartened I thought, ‘Why do they keep leaving, what are we doing wrong? How hard can this be?’ I was really sad after he left and then we did another record and I think all of us were just like, this was just exhausting, we’ve had it, we’ve been working so hard for so long. We went to play a show in London and our manager had put us on the cheapest flights possible, these student fares that made us sit at Johannesburg airport for 9 hours either side of going to London and it killed us. We just sat there drinking and arguing and by the time it was time to go home we were like, ‘See ya, I’ll call you’ and we didn’t speak for another 10 years!

Andrew: It does get like that with bands sometimes, a band is a group kind of thing where you spend all your time together and I guess people don’t realize that being on the road and being on tour must be quite difficult at times.

Sarah: It really is, some bands find it easier than some. I used to look at Jebediah and think those guys always look like they are so tight and having so much fun and we were never like that. We are now but we were never like that and I always thought, ‘God they are so lucky, I’d love to be like that. They can have their cake and eat it too, I got all this cake but I’m not really allowed to eat it’. Just awful.

Andrew: [laughs] Yeah exactly! Now as mentioned before this tour that you have coming up, it’s massive and you even have 3 shows coming to WA. Aside from playing the album in it’s entirety will you be playing other stuff or just the album on it’s own?

Sarah: No we’ll be playing the whole album in it’s entirety and then a short greatest hits set.

Andrew: So how is it all working together so far? You must have something pretty cool planned for the fans I guess.

Sarah: Yeah it’s sounding really good. To be playing those songs again is blowing my mind because I’ve never heard them live and to be honest I haven’t even listened to them from the record between when we released it and now. I had to buy the album to learn the songs, it was like ‘Oh this song!’ I couldn’t remember what song was what and there was an American version with different songs as well so it was really confusing. But to hear them finally, playing in a room together, it’s really taking me back but in a nice way. I’m in a good place now so it feels beautiful listening to them again now, I only remember all the good things about what happened then and I appreciate the nature of the songs because they are strange songs. They’re not the kind of songs that I would write these days, they’re not pop songs, they’re really weirdly orchestrated and strange songs. Really weird [laughs].

Andrew: Yeah but in a good way because obviously fans love this kind of stuff and have been fans of you guys for a long time.

Sarah: Yeah some songs have like 8 parts, they’re just epic and keep going. Here’s another part and another part and as you can imagine it’s a mind fuck to relearn them all.

Andrew: Yeah like it’s layered almost. How is the song writing process then? How do you guys write songs, is it putting things together or letting it flow organically?

Sarah: We always work individually and then come together at the end once it’s done. I always prefer to be alone and get as much off my chest as possible, every idea I can think off, leave no stone unturned until I’ve exhausted everything in my brain and then I put it into some sort of order and I send it out to the guys and they do the same thing. I think you get the most out of people that way rather than sitting in a room together because in a room together I always find if I have an idea, someone will go, ‘That’s great, and then I’ll do this’. Which is sort of what you’re meant to do but if I’m alone that idea that I would of pitched to them, I would keep working on it for two days until it’s a better idea rather than go with the first ideas that you think of.

Andrew: Do you ever think about how that would translate to the live stage at all?

Sarah: You mean writing in real time in front of people?

Andrew: No I mean when you have an idea for a song, how that song would actually go over live.

Sarah: Oh absolutely, of course we do! We think of what tempos work the best, I think of where my voice will sound the best. When I’m writing at home I’m usually just singing quietly like ‘ladadadada’,quietly and then I’ll get into the rehearsal room and realize once I’ve got to belt over the loud music it’s always way too low so I have to try and juxtapose everything always to go up higher so I’ve got to keep that in mind.

Andrew: Yeah definitely! So obviously you have a solo career as well and have been on the road for a number of years now, over the years and especially with what’s going on with the music industry, how do you feel the Australian music scene is going? Do you think it’s going pretty well or do you think it could better in some ways?

Sarah: I think it’s going as well as it can given the weird gridlock that we’re in with how radio doesn’t play any Australian music and how you can’t make any money selling anything anymore because of Spotify. It’s a very difficult time to be a musician, however having said that, there is one cool thing in that now that people don’t give a shit about trying to care if radio are going to play their songs, I feel like people’s songwriting is getting freer and more experimental. So there’s a lot of different bands coming out in a lot of different genres. I can’t find a particular scene, like back in the 90’s we had a scene where everyone was kind of doing a similar thing. I can’t really find that now but I think that’s kind of cool because everyone is just freed up to go mega-eclectic and just experiment, that is like the bridge to the next stage whatever that may be.

Andrew: Sure and it forces people to work a little harder to try and get people’s attention and make songs that are original and “eye-catching” I suppose.

Sarah: Yeah just different, it’s good to be different.

Andrew: With the digital streaming and all that, are you into all that kind of stuff? Have you embraced new technology or do you try to stick to the old school way and buy the physicals and all that stuff?

Sarah: I begrudgingly embrace it, if I love an album I’ll buy it, but I do the old ‘What’s on this playlist’ to try and find new music. Because I don’t want to listen to the radio to try and find new music so that’s kind of the one good thing about Spotify is that you can get on other people’s playlist and they can show you things that you normally wouldn’t of heard. But I don’t really like doing it but if I find someone that I dig, I’ll buy it.

Andrew: Yeah I’ve discovered a lot of bands in recent years that 20 years ago I certainly would not have imagined finding those kinds of bands. I guess there’s a posiitve and a negative to how things are.

Sarah: Yeah the negative is just the band gets nothing for it unless you buy the record but you’re allowed to sit there and listen to it whenever you want without buying it so it’s kind of a tough one. I can see why people do it, noone asks me to pay to walk on the footpath.

Andrew: [laughs] Yeah I guess where it’s really at is the touring, where bands are making money and getting people’s attention is the live shows.

Sarah: Yeah well the live shows is always where it’s at for a musician so as long as we still have that, then we’re Ok but the minute that becomes monetized in some strange way, then I think there’s going to be trouble for everybody.

Andrew: So take us back all the way to the beginning of your career and how you got into music and why you decided you wanted to be in a band.

Sarah: I wanted to play guitar but just as a sort of dinky player on the side for kicks. I had only played for 3 months and I went to Bali with some of my girlfriends straight out of school after year 12 and they had this weird thing at the place we were staying at, they had a fashion parade and they wanted people to go in the fashion parade. The girls said, ‘We’ll go in the fashion parade if you go up and play with the band’ and I was like, ‘No way!’. Anyway they went into the fashion parade and I got up and played with the band and before you knew it, I was playing with the band every night and then I started touring with the band all around Bali and then I went home and I quit my university degree and I put a band together and I never looked back.

Andrew: Oh wow! Were you already playing guitar a lot at that point then and had an idea of what to play and what kind of style you were looking at?

Sarah: Yeah I had only been playing for 3 months but the Balinese band had a book on a stand with all the songs they were playing and it had all the chords in it. So I said to the dude, ‘Can I borrow your guitar’, and he stood begrudgingly on the side and just watched me with his head down while I commandeered his band every night. I was like, ‘This is great, I love it!’ People were buying me beers and clapping and I thought, ‘This is the life, this is me!’

THE SUPERJESUS 20^TH ANNIVERSARY OF SUMO NATIONAL TOUR
Presented by Triple M* and New World Artists

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