10-02-2010Interviews - Expatriate

Australian expatriates in Europe

Expatriate, I like the word. It rolls nicely from the tongue and brings with it an imagery of travel and adventure. A fitting name for this band out of Australia who share similar credentials in their music and message. Formed in 2005 by Ben King a singer songwriter who says over a mid-morning coffee in a hotel just outside of Manchester City Center, "I had a bunch of songs that I wanted to record having had them lying around for a while playing in other bands and not singing. Those bands fell apart and I went over to our keyboardist Damien's house who had a studio and Christo our drummer was living at the time and they became the first batch of songs that ended up on this record. It just all happened very quickly within six months we had a record deal." Pretty good going you would say.
 
The music Expatriate deliver is as a big sounding indie rock outfit inspired by the bands own unique upbringing. They say in certain cultures that a name is a representation of an appearance and for this band it is certainly true. Ben, looking between myself, our photographer Rick and bassist Dave Molland sips from his coffee and talks about his upbringing, "I grew up moving around a lot between Indonesia and Australia, like Sydney and Brisbane. It's kind of a double edged sword because you grow up seeing the world, I went to an international school with over 50 nationalities, it's very utopian. Going to school at the UN there's no sense of difference between people. Then one day you have to leave that world and go back to where you were born in a sense of where your roots are and I went to boarding school in Sydney."
 
Many inspired art forms have grown from a life of travels, experiences and new understandings and in this case its evidence is in abundance on the new record 'In The Midst Of This', "Going from an American style high school to a boarding school in Sydney was kind of weird and sort of messed my head around for a while. It allowed me to start investigating it through songs and a lot of the record deals with good things coming to men in isolation. It worked its way into the songs lyrically but now its come full circle because we're all Australian expatriates living in Berlin." Which leads to the bands current situation. After a number of years playing across Australia and Asia and amassing a respectable fan base, completing sell out tours the band felt it time to move from down under and move to a more centralized location to begin their assault on the mainstream audiences. Rather than the obvious LA or London scenes the band chose the artistically driven Berlin as their new home away from home. Why Berlin I ask, "We wanted to release our record in Europe and had a lot of interest` from German record labels so the time came to relocate and Berlin came up as an idea. It happened to be a good call because its very affordable and central to other parts of Europe so we can just jump in the bus. It's a city where you feel you relate to it because your in the right place." Says Bassist Dave who was the last member to join the ranks before Ben adds "Anything goes there sort of thing, it's very open minded."
 
The album the band have come over to promote is 'In The Midst Of This.' First release in their native Oz in 2007 and it is just about to start getting its full airing over here. Standout tracks such as 'Gotta Get Home,' the anthemic 'Only Wanna Love Ya' and new single 'Blackbird' (see video on the left) are the cream of a very good crop. Live it shouldn't be a problem as the band have had plenty of experience playing the songs for over four years now. "We had a choice to release this album (again in Europe) or move on and we do believe in this album and we wanted to release this. Ultimately this was our choice and we have to stick with that but it is kind of a headfuck to pardon my french. We move on, we get new songs, we develop as a band but were stuck in the first album era." It's a bold choice because the band have a steady legion of fans back home who may not be too happy at their favourite rockers to have disappeared for years at a time."It's been hard. We try to feed them with news about what were doing over here and that were working hard at it and that we haven't disappeared or anything. It's just kind of a weird cycle that were going through but from now on we can do the whole record release tour all within one year" And as Dave explains you can tell that it is something that is still niggling the band, I think its a good thing as it's a sure fire sign that they don't like being a disappointment to anyone. Its a sentiment shared by Ben, "It's hard, we've always wanted to do this but fans back home will be chomping at the bit to get some new music and that's frustrating as we can't release it." Their loss is our gain in Europe as numerous quickly converted fans have experienced as the band hit the European circuit hard last year, culminating in an arena tour as main support to rock superstars Placebo.
 
"It was pretty amazing" goes Dave "We had a chance to play some summer festivals with them, got to meet them and hungout and then they invited us two play two shows. They were kind of keeping their eyes on us at those shows. After the Bucharest show they came backstage and said we really like you guys, we love the music and we'd like you to come on our European tour with us, it was a big compliment coming from Brian Moloko standing in the room saying he likes your music" It seems though for all their hard work they have a long way to go before they reach anything like the levels of Placebo as Ben candidly sums it up, "I was talking to Brian one night at the show and I said 'I signed my first breast tonight' he turned round to me and said thats nothing yet wait til you see your face tattooed on someones back"
 
So what can you expect from 'In The Midst Of This?' well that would be best left to be explained by its creators, "Its primarily a rock record. A big loud record with drums, live takes and guitars. Its pretty passionate and very direct, particularly lyrically. I don't write in character mode or anything its all stripped form experiences of my life." Those experiences draws from one particular emotion that has influenced almost everything that has come and will for the rest of time. That's right, The girl, Love. "It's comprised mainly of being in a relationship with somebody that's stopping and starting all the time. When you want something badly but you know you can't have it its not good for you. It's the push and pull and I think a lot of the music represents that, the lyrics are quite direct about it, its romanticising the darker elements of ones life without leaving you like you want to jump off a cliff, like a Joy Division song, for all its beauty its quite morose at the same time"
 
The album 'In The Midst Of This' is released 1st march with accompanying single 'Blackbird' and the band intend to return later in the year to play some live shows of which Dave says "We really like to make it our show, we don't come out and look at our shoes. We like to come out all guns blazing and put on a spectacle both visually and audio. I'd like to think one would come to our show and be captivated for the entire time."
 
For more information check out:
www.expatriateband.com