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 KAV TEMPERLEY is reinvigorated on ESKIMO JOE’s new album, but also concerned about the nation’s shortage of all things tuna-related. MITCH ALEXANDER lied about watching Degrassi Junior High.
Of all the possible ways to introduce a new song, Eskimo Joe really outdid themselves with Foreign Land, the first single off their latest album, Inshalla. Oh sure, you could invite a select group of the musical elite to a listening party, or promote it with a gimmicky product tie-in, or even accidentally leak it online, so you can get indignant and gain some extra publicity mileage when launching a diatribe about digital piracy. But the three lads from Fremantle – who have evolved from the upbeat popsters of Ruby Wednesday and Turn Up Your Stereo to mature songwriters – went for the opposite approach, launching the track at the Sydney Sound Relief concert in March this year. In front of a crowd that easily topped 50,000, running through the thick grooves and tight harmonies was an experience that main songwriter Kav Temperley won’t forget any time soon.
“It was like our first gig back in about a year, and it was the first gig with the guy who plays drums with us now, Nick Johnson,” recalls an excited Temperley. “I think he was a bit like ‘fuckin’ hell!’ and I felt like saying ‘sorry buddy, it’s all downhill from here!’” he continues with a laugh.
“But it was amazing, we played Foreign Land for the first time. I don’t think the kids really noticed, but it was a pretty awesome experience. We’ve never really had a riff rock song before, you know with the dun nuh nuh nuh nuh nahhh bit,” he says, making reference to the song’s outro, reminiscent of ‘70s hard rock. “So we got to do that big stadium thing, it was every childhood dream come true basically.”
Inshalla marks a further progression of sound and notoriety for the band, who enlisted the production skills of Gil Norton, the Briton whose previous credits include The Foo Fighters, Gomez and, most importantly for Kav, The Pixies. The three-piece have never found themselves in short supply of catchy choruses and memorable lyrics, but Inshalla provides a refreshing contrast to the darker overtones of 2004’s A Song Is A City or the politically charged Black Fingernails, Red Wine. The genesis of Foreign Land is indicative of the band’s overarching shift in songwriting … especially the increase of conversations about Canadian teen dramas.
“The song flowed really naturally, I was sitting there jamming along, because I had this idea of playing along to this Eastern chord progression and the single,” says Temperley. “I was trying to play these different drum beats and then I just did my best John Bonham impersonation and suddenly it came to life!
“… I just did my best John Bonham impersonation and suddenly it came to life!”
“We wrote it backwards, wrote the vocal melody last, so by the time we needed a bridge we were like ‘oh, we HAVE to do a Led Zeppelin rock out! Come on, we’ve gotta be fair to ourselves!’ So we wrote it and it was like … you know Degrassi Junior High with the band Zit Remedy that Joey was in? They played this one song and he says (cue cheesy Canadian accent) ‘that was great! Let’s play it again!’ That’s what it was like when we wrote the riff to Foreign Land, we would play it for 45 minutes and say ‘ahhh (in contented tones), that was so much fun … let’s play it again!’”
I had to congratulate Kav at this point, because it marks the first interview I’ve ever had where Degrassi Junior High has been mentioned. “Well, people should be referencing that shit more!” was his animated first response. “Actually not really, I’m pretty happy that everyone doesn’t.”
Kav is ever the affable conversationalist, comfortable to talk about anything from his professional crush on Gil Norton to the continued success of bands like Little Birdy, End Of Fashion and The Sleepy Jackson – bands that Eskimo Joe remain close with after many years of friendship in Fremantle. Kav is proud to consider his band as the slightly older brothers of a generation of West Australian bands that all rose to prominence around the same time. But he’s equally comfortable talking about complete bollocks, such as the Western Australian referendum in May to consider using daylight savings. On the day the voters rejected the option, so I felt obliged to share Queensland’s own heated longstanding debate
“It seems to be a big deal over here, I kinda don’t mind the idea, with the idea of working families wanting to get home and play with their kids or whatever,” he considers. I noted that Queensland would seem like country bumpkins if we were the only state that didn’t use it, but Kav lacked sympathy. “That’s all right, we’ve been country bumpkins for so long, it’ll be nice to pass it on.”
Oh, very clever Mr. Temperley. What about overcoming the banal arguments against daylight savings that pop up sporadically? My favourite is the one about how the change in times would cause havoc to farmers, and would most importantly confuse livestock. “Oh!” bellows Kav, as I relay this factoid. “I didn’t realise there were some pretty smart cows in Queensland, if they can obviously read clocks.”
Harbouring some strong feelings towards Gil Norton for many years, Kav still fondly recalls time spent in the producer’s presence. It’s possible that Norton was not accustomed to Australian culture and humour, particularly the finer points of what Kav describes as “taking the piss and giving him endless amounts of shit”. But once more, the relaxed mood of the recording sessions show how the band have changed.
“He came over to our place in Freo in our little studio and hung for two weeks, met our family and we had beers, just relaxed and did a bit of pre-production and it was just a really great place to start,” he says. “He’s one of our producing idols and Doolittle is one of my classic all time favourite albums, but by the time we got into the studio I wasn’t too starstruck.
“He’s so funny, this English guy, always whinging about something. He was really upset at the fact that we didn’t have proper, strict tuners, we just used these stage stomp boxes. So we were trying to get these tuners, it just happened that there was an Australian shortage of these particular tuners, he was going insane! We went to dinner that night and we ordered food, he ordered the tuna, and of course they came back saying ‘sorry, we’re out of tuna’. Everyone just laughed and he didn’t bitch anymore.”
Ok, confused cows, fictional high school bands and shit puns … I think it’s fair to say that the deep, dark and mysterious Eskimo Joe of recent history has been superceded for the moment. It may not last forever, but Temperley and co. seem happy to dust off their old jokester personalities at least one more time.
ESKIMO JOE play The Riverstage on Saturday Aug 22, supported by Bob Evans. INSHALLA is out now through Warner Music. www.eskimojoe.net
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