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 For an album that was written two years ago, the new album by Sydney indie-rock group THE DEVOTED FEW is as fresh as they come. BEN FLETCHER talks to LINDSEY CUTHBERTSON about the trials and tribulations that surrounded writing and recording Baby, You’re A Vampire.
How does a band like The Devoted Few survive a fractured writing period of two years? How did they keep the indie-rock fire burning brightly when they not only funded the recording of their new album themselves, but also relied on winning a competition to gain studio time?
There are a lot of questions, but at the end of the day, do they even matter? For with their third album, Baby, You’re A Vampire, The Devoted Few have delivered an album so startlingly brilliant, the unorthodox writing process that spawned it comes across as a godsend.
Frontman and main creative protagonist Ben Fletcher is astonished at the positive reception that Baby, You’re A Vampire has received in the press, especially given that the bulk of the album was written nearly two years ago.
"You’re never sure how your album is going to be received, especially with this one being in the oven for so long," he says from his home in Sydney. "I wrote most of the songs two years ago and we worked on them for about a year so it has definitely been a long time coming."
With this elongated writing process came change and adaptation to the songs Foster originally penned, as they were played live over the course of the years between their last album, Schematic Tracks, and the recording of their new one. In fact, The Devoted Few had to bring their touring van to a grinding halt to keep the songs sounding fresh and, above all else, to stop the band from getting sick of the songs before they were even on the record.
"We had to stop playing for ten months last year because we knew the album was coming out so we wanted the songs to not be stale for when we toured the record," Fletcher says in a bemused manner. "It’s not my favourite way to do it," he adds. "I’d much rather write, record, release quickly, but obviously we couldn’t do it as we paid for it ourselves."
Among the riff rock tracks like Don’t Listen To Us and the somber, haunting Ocean Beach Park, the album showcases not only Fletcher’s ear for songwriting, but also his talent as a wordsmith. There is a recurring motif of fire in the lyrics, but used as a metaphor rather than an actual phenomena.
"Fire, to me, brings back the feeling of being young and invincible. It encompasses a feeling of being free. To me, if something is on fire then it’s very Jack Kerouac, very free and unburdened. If the city is on fire, then to me it’s jumping and full of life," Fletcher says.
Given the fact that the record was two years between creation and completion, is Fletcher worried about the abnormal process happening again?
"A little bit. I’ve stopped myself for that reason, because I don’t want the album to be in the oven as long as this one," he answers. "I’m still putting a few things down but I’m not fleshing them out until it’s time for the next record."
THE DEVOTED FEW play the Great Northern in Byron Bay on Thursday Mar 19, The Troubadour on Friday Mar 20, and Bon Amici’s in Toowoomba on Saturday Mar 21 (all shows supported by The Middle East and Drawn From Bees). Their wonderful new album, BABY, YOU"RE A VAMPIRE, is out now through Inertia. www.myspace.com/thedevotedfew
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