When The Grates’ Patience Hodgson broke her foot onstage at Perth’s Southbound Festival in January earlier this year, guitarist John Patterson initially didn’t realise something was wrong. Why? She lay flat on her back, completed the song, and only then mentioned something ‘may be up’ with her rapidly swelling ankle. But as I find out, that’s just the type of person she is. And the shows will always go on, be it on crutches at The Big Day Out or catching a flu-like disease on tour in the US. Broke foot. Damaged lung. Bung ankle. You get sick. You get better. And you always smile. Ladies and gentlemen, meet one-third The Grates, Patience Hodgson.

Popping up in a flurry of shouty glee, knee-high socks, Converse and confetti, The Grates appeared on the local indie-pop radar sometime in 2002 with their self-titled demo. Sometime later their 10-copy Regular Fries, Small Coke, Regular Fries sampler found it’s way to Rave, containing two tracks, Trampoline and Rock Boys. Recorded in an all their homespun glory, both tracks eventually gained rotation on JJJ with then-host Robbie Buck’s Home & Hosed, and Rosie Beaton’s Super Request.

Not long afterwards the group courted interest from labels, going with Brisbane team Dew Process (sidling up nicely with Universal), and soon it became the story of the little Southside trio that could. The three – Patience Hodgson, Alana Skyring and John Patterson – have since stuck together pretty tightly, and for a relationship that started in high school and fused with arduous touring on the back of 2006 debut LP Gravity Won’t Get You High and sophomore effort Teeth Lost Hearts Won, it’s a combination not likely to come unstuck anytime soon.

This is something that permeates every facet of conversation with the wildly tangential and genuinely delightful Patience Hodgson. Coming into this interview like the typically cynical Brisbane music scribe I am, I was determined to find something underneath her always-grinning nature, sharpshooter wit and ease, seemingly fuelled by little more than red cordial.

Sorry readers – in follow-up chats with the wily Patience, she is essentially a ‘what you see is what you get’ type of girl … at least in terms of what people think they know about her through the curious prism formed by music, videos, interviews and live shows.

And it is a credit to the band, really, that as the Valedictorian’s of Brisbane’s Graduating Class of Indie 2004, they are still motoring on – and on all fronts, seem rather happy to do so.

Initially speaking with Patience from her hotel in New York after their recent SxSW run of shows, and midway through a run of dates in Manhattan and Brooklyn, it’s apparent the streamer-twirling Bat-Girl-Major-Bandleader never stops … unless it’s embracing her inner-homebody, and getting all environmental on its arse. You see, for the first time in a long time, Patience has left the bastion of share-housing, and now has a kitchen to call her own … further cementing her, and the band’s, firm stance to always call Brisbane ‘home’.

"I was thinking about this the other day. I don’t really switch off from the band, which sometimes is good for you, it’s good because it’s what I love doing. But at other times, it can be a force of pressure … when you just can’t escape, you know, your career or whatever." Chatty as ever down the phone line, Patience is in no way whinging, just relating a simple truth apparent to most 24-7 musicians.

And make no mistake, this is their full time occupation.

"Sometimes it is hard to switch off when you’re reading, especially music stuff like a music magazine, or listening to music or just, thinking about The Grates or thinking about a song. Songwriting is really important, I always put it above, and it’s that funny thing, where it always competes with whatever I’m doing at the present time.

"And I have to figure out what’s more important, it’s like, it is very hard for me to switch off," she laughs. "Probably an area I should work on."

But in a typically dorky-girly way she laughs, "There are things that I do do to switch off, I get pretty homely [I think she means ‘homey’ here, not homely in the UB40 sense – Ed] and I really get into being practical around the house … two months ago, I moved out for the first time and it’s pretty exciting, like now I’ve got the whole kitchen to myself!"

Stepping outside the home for a moment, and her possible relationship to Tyler Durden ("I really hate, hate massive companies and how everybody needs to buy products and consume all the time. I love it when I don’t have to, when I don’t go out and buy my own hand soap and I make my own. And I get to put them in old home brand vinegar bottles"), Patience is clear to point out though that although she may be the focal point of The Grates – all streamer-twirling and glittery up there front and centre – she would look a little ridiculous without her right and left arms; those of course being John and Alana.

"It definitely takes three to tango for The Grates, and it is really a collective [where] we could not do it without the other."

Something that’s perhaps a little lost on the average bystander witnessing a gold spandex-clad woman clutching a sceptre and running along the Byron Bay Cliffs, merry players in tow.

"It’s a little less display and more … cause you’re performing … you are being seen, but at the same time it’s very active and you get to be, in a lot of ways, you get to be in control, ‘cause you do get to be the focal point; but at the same time everyone’s got their role, because you cant just be running around the stage singing without guitar or without drums or without keyboard."

Yes, that would look more like a High School improv-theatre group than a pop band (John and Alana incidentally met Patience in high school drama class, avoiding physical education). But it is testament to the effect of pop-music and style on the general populace that those thrust into the spotlight become some sort of style icons, or at the very least, accessory-leaders.

Remember 2006? Brisbane being swamped with Veronicas clones after 4Ever, the sharp Karen O bowl haircuts and bold colours (now mutating to leather jackets, gloves and entrenched eyeliner) …or the multi-coloured legs of schoolgirls in Brisbane? The latter were Patience and Alana’s influence.

"Yeah, I think that did happen," she reminisces, once again laughing. "But that was the only thing I noticed. I swear, that’s the only thing I’ve ever noticed!"

About to embark on their biggest national tour yet, and after a plethora of eye-catching stage costumes (some of which have been retired to the closet, until such time GoMA sees fit to have a local display in about 30 years, a la Kylie Minogue) and recently catching some of the most eclectic musical displays at SxSw, who do the Valedictorian’s see snatching the Most Likely To Succeed title of 2009?

"Well I definitely think The John Steel Singers are doing a tremendous job. I think they’re getting played a lot on the radio and I think they have a lot of fans, including Robert Forster."

Having both witnessed the union at the Fire & Flood Benefit, Patience exclaims: "Oh you know, it was, oh fuck, it was super! I think they’re doing an amazing job, and slowly I think [with] other bands time will tell. Supporting us in the main tour is a band called DZ … I think they write great songs and I like what they’re all about."

Catching up with Patience at the opening of the UnderExposed Exhibition (where The Grates feature prominently), we get talking about immune systems and flu recovery (as you do). When talk swings to her now healed foot, she confides "You know, I kinda stuffed up the other one after placing all my weight on it when balancing during The Big Days Out’".

Broke foot. Damaged lung. Bung ankle. You get sick. You get better. And the shows always go on.

THE GRATES play The Hi-Fi on Friday May 1 (sold out) with DZ and Children Collide. They’ll be taking a well-earned break from touring once this national run is over. TEETH LOST HEARTS WON is out through Dew Process. www.thegrates.com.

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