As with most bands around the world, COVID-19 has dealt a pretty tough hand for them all to play and Western Australia’s Eskimo Joe are no exception. March saw the alt-rock three-piece primed and ready to hit the stage for Anthems Festival at Commonwealth Park in Canberra, which was to feature such bands as Icehouse, The Temper Trap and Rogue Traders, before social distancing restrictions and venue closures meant live music ground to a complete halt. As things slowly start to get back to normal, it’s exciting times for fans of a band who haven’t released any new material in over seven years, with that all about to change in the form of their brand new single ‘Say Something’, which is released on Friday 26th June.
Formed in 1997, the band have come a long way since first stepping out on that stage at the University of Western Australia, competing in a local heat of a National Campus Band Competition, which saw them progress to the finals in Sydney. Stu Macleod, Joel Quartermain & Kavyen Temperley went on to win the final, which in turn earned them a place on the line-up at Livid Festival, which was held at the RNA Showgrounds in Brisbane, alongside bands like Powderfinger, Reef, Grinspoon & The Superjesus. Twenty-three years, six studio albums and four EPs later they have received a multitude of accolades (the band have received thirty-five ARIA nominations), with their 2006 release ‘Black Fingernails, Red Wine’ the most successful to date, going 4 x Platinum. Add the fact that Eskimo Joe are one of the few current Australian bands to be able to boast still having the original line up and with ‘Say Something’ they have shown that they continue to push themselves and their musical boundaries.
The Rockpit spoke to guitarist Stu MacLeod about the new single, performing live and what goes into playing Eskimo Joe songs accompanied by a full orchestra.
Sean: Hi Stu, it’s Sean from The Rockpit?
Stu: Hey mate, how are you?
Sean: I’m doing well thanks mate. How have you been?
Stu: Pretty good actually, all things considered. I think here in WA we’ve been pretty lucky; I mean we’re a lucky state in a lucky country. We’ve got a good way of life, but I think we are weathering the COVID storm better than most folks.
Sean: Most definitely and fingers crossed we continue getting back to a bit of normality. I’ve had the new single ‘Say Something’ sent to me only yesterday…
Stu: …ah, fantastic…
Sean: …and all I need to say is “Welcome back, Eskimo Joe”! It’s a wonderful track.
Stu: That’s great mate. You know, I had actually remembered when we were in the initial stages of writing this song. It was quite significantly different and I said to the guys, “Is this the song? Is this the one that’s going to make people think that the Eskies are back?” I didn’t personally think it was there, but Kav & Joel were like, “Yeah, this is it mate!” So, we worked on it and you know what, they were right.
Sean: It’s catchy, it’s hooky and I can just picture an arena or stadium full of people all bouncing up & down to the chorus. It’s got that vibe. It’s great. I just know everyone is going to love it when it gets released on 26th June.
Stu: Awesome. Cheers man. We’re really looking forward to getting it out there. It’s a very unique experience for us. Since the day we started it’s just been go, go, go so to have seven years between releases is a very unique experience for us and one we are not quite sure how to approach, you know. We had originally intended to put this on a ‘Best of’ as one of those songs you include as part of a package but given the circumstances and given how the song turned out, we figured it really deserved to stand on its own two feet. So, yeah, we are stoked with the way it’s turned out and we can’t wait for people to hear it en masse.
Sean: I think it would fit very nicely on a fifth EP [laughs]
Stu: [laughs] Well look, we came into it with no expectations, but it was so great to do. We have a few others that are in the development stage so we’re just going to keep on working on our music and whatever format it goes on in the future then so be it.
Sean: Well, I’m working on the fact that ‘Say Something’ has taken seven years so we can expect the EP in about twenty-four years’ time [laughs]
Stu: [laughs] Exactly. We’re working to steepen the curve, put it that way. [laughs] Hopefully we can accelerate that curve and next one won’t take quite so long.
Sean: We look forward to seeing what the future brings. Sadly, COVID caused the cancellation of the Anthems Festival you were due to play in Canberra, which must have been so disappointing for you because playing those huge stadium shows must be something your itching to get back out to do.
Stu: You know, I love performing no matter what the scale. Every sized crowd & every sized venue gives you an opportunity to experience something else and providing that crowd is on your side, are with you and you put on a good performance then it doesn’t matter if you’re playing to ten people or ten thousand people. You can get just as much out of it but it’s just a very different experience and just as satisfying. To be honest, most of the time the smaller the gig the more intense it is and the more personal it gets. The pressure is really on because it’s under a microscope, you know what I mean? Everything you do is right there. If you play in front of ten thousand people you can jump around like an absolute wally and all someone will see is you from a distance. It’s a very macro experience compared to a very micro experience.
Sean: One of your last shows here in WA would have been Freo Social, which is the old Fly By Night Club in Fremantle. It’s a fantastic venue.
Stu: Yeah, I love that venue. They’ve treated the room really respectfully and put a great PA in there as well as some good sound treatment, so it sounds & feels fantastic. It’s got such a good vibe in there, but it takes care of the musos in there too which is really comfortable. It felt like a no brainer for us to revisit the ‘Black Fingernails, Red Wine’ album and I’m really looking forward to getting back out on the road and not only playing the new stuff but also maybe exploring a few more of… maybe even taking that album tour on the road as well and playing a greatest hits encore – that kind of vibe.
Sean: Well, the new single will certainly find its way easily into a set filled with so many good tracks that translate perfectly on the live stage. You’ve kind of put pressure on yourself in a way, as I’m sure the fans will be begging for a follow up once ‘Say Something’ has been out for a while.
Stu: You know, as much as we love every aspect of being in the band there are two main aspects of being in a band this long. There is touring season and there is recording season and I guess we are most at home in the studio to be honest. We throw ideas around and that creates inspiration. When something really clicks and there is that ozone in the air… that creative ozone smell… it fizzes & pops & crackles and all of a sudden, you’re like, “Wow!” There’s a real excitement that is quite addictive so I’m really looking forward to rubbing those two sticks together again.
Sean: How does the writing process work for you guys? Do you all come in with separate ideas and kind of bubble them around?
Stu: I guess it’s kind of a bit more like that over the years. Recently, like over the last five or six years we’ve kind of branched off and done our own thing so I would say in terms of the music side of things I’ve been more indirectly attached to the music industry, firstly as General manager of a community radio station and now as the General Manager of a three-day music festival so I haven’t really devoted a lot of time to that right side of my brain and created music, whereas Kav has been doing solo stuff and Joel has been writing with other people and producing & engineering for other people so I guess for me, getting back into the studio was a really positive experience, just to be able to access that part of my brain and create some music again. Whereas those guys bring the experience of the last five or six years and are really keen to inject a more of a modern sound I guess, which is good.
Sean: As a band you’ve had such a successful career, not only here in Australia but in Europe & the UK too. You guys have picked up some wonderful International songwriting awards over the years, which is always so nice to see, especially when music from this country leaves such an imprint on other parts of the world.
Stu: It is. There’s actually been quite a few appearances from Australian bands over the years at those type of awards which has been great, yeah. It’s been an awesome journey for us. I haven’t been back over to the UK for some time, but I do have some very fond memories of some great gigs over there.
Sean: So, with a stadium-style shows like the aforementioned Anthems Festival and with six albums & four EPs to pick from, it must be quite hard to select tracks for a set, especially when there will be crowd favorites but also one or two you each want to throw in that you love to play?
Stu: Yeah definitely. We were actually scouring the archives. Over the last eighteen months or so we had been doing a bunch of re-releases of our old records and along with all those re-issues we’ve added old demos, outtakes and that sort of thing, so there was quite a bit of nostalgia flowing from our way. So, when it came to picking tracks we just delved into the old albums because we had been living with them for the last eighteen months. There would have been a healthy mix for everyone.
Sean: I was listening to the live album you did with the Western Australian Symphony Orchestra (WASO) at Perth Concert hall, earlier today. Where did the idea come from to put that together with a full orchestra?
Stu: That was probably a good three years in the making, I think. From conception we had an idea that we had our twentieth anniversary coming up and we wanted to do something special. It actually ended up being our twenty-first anniversary in the end because it took us so long to get it off the ground. I guess we just wanted to do something special and a bit grandiose, so we figured what better way to do it than in front of an orchestra. We started talking with WASO and those conversations were largely about the logistics of how it would work and took around twelve months. Once we got all our heads in agreement we moved on to the creative, which was such a fascinating process working with some incredible arrangers. We pointed out what we thought would work orchestrally and how we thought it would work with the orchestration and treatment as well as the approach of each arrangement and then we sort of left it with them, then had one rehearsal where we ironed out a few wrinkles, changed a few parts, threw out one song all together because it wasn’t working. We left them to do a re-write for a month and then we had just one more rehearsal before the show and then off we went.
Sean: Incredible. The album sounds fantastic and clearly works. Quite a few artists have gone this way now. The Angels have had huge success with their Symphony of Angels shows and Peter Hook from New Order & Joy Division brought his show to Perth Concert Hall late last year and it transforms these songs into incredible pieces of music. It also opens it up to a whole new audience that may not be a huge fan of the artist as such but enjoy the orchestration.
Stu: Oh, definitely. There was a very diverse audience at every one of the shows because we did a bunch of these all over Australia. From young ones to oxygenarians, there was every single age you could imagine in the crowd. The best thing I took away from that experience was just hearing the songs in a completely different light. Some of them just stood up head & shoulders above the others and that was completely unexpected. To be honest, I felt all the singles didn’t fair as well as some of the unknown’s songs like Comfort You & Running Out of Needs that just really took on a life of their own.
Sean: We live in a state with a wonderfully diverse live music scene. Do you still get to go out much and watch live music at a more local level?
Stu: I don’t get out as much as I used to these days…
Sean: …that’s kids for you… [laughs]
Stu: …[laughs] yeah, raising two kids indoors a lot of the time but I listen to my local radio station, which is RTR FM and that keeps me in touch with all the local goings on. It’s amazing – there is some incredible talent in WA and in Perth and it’s great that stations like RTR FM allow you to keep in touch with what’s going on.
Sean: I was speaking to Jack Jones (Irwin Thomas) last year and he was saying how very different the music scene is here in the West, which he puts down to the us being so isolated from the rest of the country in some respect.
Stu: I agree. It also gives you the space & time to develop your own music and your own sound without the pressures of record companies and that sort of thing.
Sean: Well, I like to close with a few general questions if that’s ok with you.
Stu: Yeah mate.
Sean: If I booked you into a restaurant and you could invite three guests from the music world, past or present, who would you have join you?
Stu: Oh mate…. Jesus!
Sean: No, you can’t have him… he’s not a muso [laughs]
Stu: [laughs] I’d have to invite Tom Waites because I think he would be an absolute hoot and would bring some amazing & interesting conversation to the table. I would love to have David Bowie there… he seemed like a nice guy and a good chap so we’d bring him back and also to tell him what a fuckin’ genius last move that was with that last record – about as genius a final statement as you could possibly imagine. And… who else? Fuck me!
Sean: Text it to me later if you’re stuck… [laughs]
Stu: [laughs] I may have to… No, maybe Bono just so we could take the piss out of him [laughs]
Sean: [laughs] He’s in. Great table. I’ll foot the bill just to watch the evening unfold [laughs]. What was the last album you listened to?
Stu: The last album I listened to was one I had on in the car today on the drive up. It was by Unknown Mortal Orchestra. It’s the instrumental album they did called ‘IC-01 Hanoi’.
Sean: Finally, just to put you out of your misery with an easy one, if you could be credited with writing any song ever written, which song would you choose?
Stu: Any song ever written? I reckon ‘A Day in the Life’ by The Beatles. That would be pretty amazing. It’s such a masterpiece – it’s got drama, it’s got melody, it’s got harmony… it’s got everything.
Sean: In incredible song to finish on and another to add to my playlist. Stu, thank you so much for your time. On behalf of us all at The Rockpit, we would like to wish Kav, Joel & yourself all the best for the new single and we hope to see you guys back out playing live as soon as possible.
Stu: Really appreciate it mate and thank you for your support.
Sean: Thanks Stu.
Stu: Cheers buddy.
