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 You can bet THE FUMES have felt the stinging impact of the global financial crisis, says guitarist and mighty-bearded vocalist STEVE MERRY as the band prepare to tour sophomore release Sundancer.
“It was kind of typical,” he laughs. “We locked in Jim Diamond to be the producer because I’d really liked his earlier work with The White Stripes. Then, like, the day after we all agreed to do to the album together and bring Jim out from the ‘States to Australia, the Aussie dollar changed! And, yeah, we were paying him in U.S. dollars. So two days later, the album went from costing us whatever it was originally plus half.”
While financially the situation was a bit of a bummer, Merry insists he and musical partner Joel Battersby [drums] couldn’t be happier with the end result – a bluesy, rock & roll affair that sees Merry occasionally swap the guitar for the piano.
“I just really wanted to get a few different shades across the album,” he explains. “I got a piano last year sometime in July because it’s an instrument I’ve always loved. I actually ended up having to pretty much teach myself to play it and I’ve been playing it a lot. So the way it works is that I’ll play a bit of piano and then go back straight onto the guitar. When you’re a two-piece band your options can be a little bit limited so you have to do what you can in terms of instruments to add as many different textures and I think we’ve done that on ‘Sundance’.”
And pretty much anyone who witnessed The Fumes at this year’s South By South West would probably agree that album number two sees the duo step up to a whole new level.
“I personally thought The Drones absolutely killed it, they’re such a great band,” enthuses Merry. “Our own shows were featured exclusively for the Australian showcases so we only really got to see other home-grown bands. Austin is this little rural city with a main street that’s filled with bars and bands playing all over the joint, it was wild. We also went to Canada and got some late dates there, which was fun. Oh, and we stayed in Hollywood, which was killer. I actually lived in San Francisco for a while, but Los Angeles is always pretty fun because it’s so sketchy and seedy, but it’s so interesting. We also ended up going to New York and then Japan, which was really awesome because we were staying in Mount Fuji where they had this hot spring and the food was unbelievable.”
Following on from their clearly triumphant international tour, Merry announces The Fumes are about to take on Australia with a national tour that will see the boys on the road throughout June and July.
“I think we’ll be sticking to just being a duo for a little while,” Merry says. “Maybe we’ll get someone on keys for the live shows at some stage but I don’t think that’s something we can do right now money-wise. Besides, cheap and easy travel is always an advantage, though we’ll see what happens on our next tour.”
THE FUMES play the Great Northern Thursday Jun 25, The SoundLounge Friday Jun 26, and The Zoo Saturday Jun 27, all shows supported by The Protectors. SUNDANCER is out now through MGM. www.myspace.com/thefumesoz
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