Like their music, post-punk Sydney quintet teenagersintokyo exude effortless and sexy new wave cool, whilst maintaining that Antipodean exuberance that we Brits are too cynical to possess. Even on a day when they’re holed up in the studio, they still manage to look like a photo shoot for American Apparel, and yet are all smiles on downtime when I meet them in the canteen for a chat. With the other band members called away on rehearsal duties, I speak to leadsinger Sam Lim about their latest release – the dark, 80s tinged double A-side Isabella and Long Walk Home – amongst other things. “‘Isabella’ was one of the first songs that we finished and were really excited about. It’s kind of a bit different from our other stuff, it’s a bit more atmospheric but at the same time it’s got that edge. There’s shredding… and more reverb vocals and we drew out a story from that,” Sam tells me excitedly.
Since moving to London last March, the band have been working hard on a more developed sound, since their initial EP release in 2006. They have reaped the rewards of emigration, recently working with Bat For Lashes producer, David Kosten on tracks for their upcoming debut long player, expected early next year. Sam explains, “We were really excited to go in a new direction. Every band that starts and puts out one thing, they get known for that. It’s tricky to try and do something new and keep people interested.”
The move from Sydney, a scene they understand and know so well, must have been a big decision for the band: “It seems like London and Sydney are similar, but it’s just that London is on a bigger scale,” Sam informs me.
“The music press here is a lot more supportive and more interested in discovering new stuff. Just from the sheer fact that there are more artists and bands, it is easier to uncover new music in that way. In Sydney you know everyone, you all go out on the weekend and you know all the press. Once you’re in one street press, you’re in another one,” she adds.
Have there been any bands here that have grabbed your attention? “We played with this band Woe at Old Blue Last at some Shoreditch festival thing, they had a cool vibe and we played with O. Children last year who are also cool.”
The Kosten recording session was a week in Wales but the band are not shy of holing themselves up, in the name of their craft, “We decided to go on band camp in the Blue Mountains, which is a couple hours out of the Sydney. We went away together just to write. No Internet, no phones, no distractions. We were in this little tin shed and brought all these DVDs. We watched the whole series of Twin Peaks together, it was the perfect mood, eerie and atmospheric.” This could similarly describe the music the band wrote during this self-enforced exercise and was quite possibly a subconscious catalyst for their new sound.
Inhabiting a confined space with bandmates for days on end is bound to send anyone loopy. Sam tells me an interesting outlet for this studio psychosis, beard scratching, “Have you seen Rudy[the drummer]’s beard? I can’t remember what song, I think it’s Robocat, he shakes his beard up close to the mic and it sounds really cool. You go a bit crazy in the studio sometimes. We did a whole bunch of random sounds as well like throwing things down the stairs, scrunching up paper.”
“We liked the idea of using found sounds. There’s a track on our EP that we did and the whole drum beat is us playing on water bottles and tin cans and blinds so we liked that idea of making something more organic again and putting that in through the record,” the singer explains.
Live, the sweet conversationalist before me, is more of a hair flicking, banshee. Their gutsy yet sultry stage performance has earned them support slots with the likes of !!!(Chk Chk Chk), Gossip and CSS: “One of my favourite shows was when we went on tour with !!!(Chk Chk Chk) in Australia and our plane was delayed. It was literally, our plane landed, we got in a cab, got to the venue, carried our stuff on stage and started playing.”
“Then the other two shows we did had this great energy, we would hang out afterwards and the sax player would play like George Michael’s, ‘Careless Whispers’ and we’d all sing along in karaoke. Those are the most fun shows when there’s a really good vibe between everyone,” reminisces the singer.
Of course things can’t always be so rosey, life on the road can serve up all sorts of unanticipated misadventures: “There was a time we drove to Melbourne, which is a twelve hour of drive. Linda was a little bit sick so we were like, ‘sit at the back of the van, rug up and make sure you look after yourself, hot liquids, cough lollies.’ We got to the venue, unloaded all our gear. Sound check comes and she had this crazy fever so we just couldn’t do it. We’d driven all that way and had to just pick up all our stuff and go home. We also had a DJ set booked and Linda was the only who could really DJ. We tried, ‘we can play tracks and dance like crazy people’ but they were like ‘no.’”
The four female members of the band met on the first day of high school: “I saw Linda at orientation day and our parents were talking so I thought I was related to her because she looked familiar.”
I have now in my mind, the idea of these four bushy-tailed high school kids aspiring to be the next Spice Girls, then maybe as they grew wiser were in tune with the bolder feminism of The Slits(who the band have also supported): “We started jamming in our living rooms, then eventually made into rehearsal rooms with proper instruments, learnt to play together and learnt to write songs. Then Rudy replaced our old drummer at the end of 2006.”
I recoil, so no ambitions to be the next Sporty Spice? Oh, just me then. “It was more like our friends’ bands in Sydney, Red Riders, Lost Valentinos. Bands that we kind of knew from going out or through other people.”
It’s rare to find a group of school friends that continued their friendship post pubescent pipedreams, enough to fly to the other hemisphere: “Moving here, if we had to just up and move to London by ourselves we would probably fall apart by now. Even Rudy we’ve known now for two years so is like our brother. “
The seemingly tight band not only went to school together, formed a band, moved continents but now are shacked up together in their own English suburban bliss: “We live in a family kind of house with a nice big living room and a back yard to run around in, so we all hang out and stuff.”
I’m imagining the kind of twenty something household where you all huddle in the living room to communally watch films: “We watch a lot of films together. From really amazing films, like Dario Argento’s Suspiria, which is beautiful this 1970s Italian horror, to stuff like 17 Again and Twilight. I can’t believe I just admitted that,” Sam giggles.
There’s a Zac Efron fan amongst the best of us it seems. Miska, the suggester of both film examples, actually studied the subject at university, where the other band members studied fashion, media and drama: “We’ve always had an interest in fashion, art and culture and are already interested in what is culturally happening,” which is apparent in their innate sense of style.
With the impending release of Amelia’s Anthology of Illustration and the creative outlet being a topic amongst the office, we get onto the subject of art, “Miska actually did the illustrations for our artwork, the EP and singles. And she won’t like me saying this but Linda actually got her artwork at high school displayed as the best of the state.” Oh, the benefits of speaking to one member of a band away from the mates.
After another Amelia’s Magazine type of discussion of generally being a better human, Sam gets another disgruntlement off her chest: “I think it’s really gross when people litter. You look at them and they don’t care that they just threw their rubbish on the ground. It’s bad for the environment and it makes you a bad person.”
Finally, I share a travelling anecdote of my own with the frontwoman. I came back from a ten month trip to Oz saying ‘but’ at the end of my sentences. “I can’t decide whether we’re doing it unconsciously or doing it because we made a joke out of it but I’ve started saying ‘proper’ a lot,” Sam shares.
With such a busy schedule, I return Sam to her bandmates and rehearsal time and ponder which teen (or art house) flick I’ll watch with my housemates tonight.
Similar Posts:
- School Of Seven Bells
- We Are All Fired Up For LoveLikeFire!
- Hello, Kate!! – Girls
- The Virgins, at Club fandango
- Your Twenties – An Interview
