Bands

The Jezabels

 

From Sydney indie venues to selling out theatres, the Jezabels’ time is now – assuming that it’s all not some sort of impossibly elaborate hoax. By Andrew P Street.

The Jezabels are big. Really big. You may not realise how big they are, but allow me to clarify: they’re proper big these days. They drew one of the largest crowds at Splendour in the Grass earlier this year. They’ve already been forced to add shows on their album tour of the biggest venues they’ve ever played. And this is all before they’ve actually, you know, released an album.

That sort of response must be very reassuring to drummer Nik Kaloper. That, or downright daunting.

Both, I suppose,” he replies, “because with every sign that you’re doing something right comes this added sense of pressure and responsibility so you never get some sort of sign that says you’re on the right course, with it also meaning that you have to try a little bit harder, and try to step up your game as well, I guess.

“I think we’re pretty used to it now, just knuckling down and doing everything that needs to be done. It keeps me busy, obviously, but I like being busy. It’s better than not doing anything at all. Much better.”

Of course, making an album is a long and drawn out process. Bands spend years crafting their songs, working up their set, getting to the point where they can make their masterpiece. Or, alternatively, turning up with barely anything written and an insane deadline, which is what the Sydney quartet did with their forthcoming full-length debut, Prisoner.

“It was pretty full on,” Kaloper laughs. “We had about four ideas, not even full songs, at the very beginning of 2011, so we started to demo in January, and then we were demoing and recording at the same time. Then we had a month-long tour in March for SXSW in North America, and then we did another month in May through Europe and then we finished it by June. So what, that’s about four months?”

So the album, from writing the songs to the final mix, was done in four months, with two international tours
in between?

“Um, yes.”

That’s fucking ludicrous.

 

“I agree: actually, it is fucking ludicrous,” he laughs. “The last month was hilarious: we did about 25 fourteen-hour days in a row just to finish the album, just to make that deadline.”

He laughs, sounding incredulous at his own explanation. “Our mixer had to start another project by a certain date so we were literally sending in songs that we just finished for him to start mixing, while we were finishing tracking other songs.”

And this is where being the drummer has certain advantages. “Yeah, we record the drums first so by that stage I was just there for moral support, and any last minute arrangement ideas. It certainly got a bit hectic at the end there.

“I was surprised when I realised it was done in four months, I’m surprised we came out with anything because we’re really slow writers as well,” he laughs. “Something came out in the pressure-cooker environment, I guess.”

It’s a story reminiscent of US band the Cloud Room, who found themselves with a surprise hit on their hands in 2005 with Hey Now Now and a very short window to make an album – and listening to their self-titled album one can literally hear them running out of inspiration as the disc progresses: first song’s great, second one’s good, third’s OK, fourth’s a bit sub par…

“Unfortunately I actually really sympathise with any band that ends up in that position,” Kaloper sighs. “They probably have their manager barking down their throat saying, ‘We can’t release this album any later than September otherwise we have to compete with the majors’ and all that kind of industry stuff.’

“It always seems like on one hand you have artistic integrity and then there’s the needs of the industry that need to be met on the other hand. We’ve come to realise it’s this very weird juggling act where you try to get everything to meet in the middle. And I think it worked – well, we’ll see if it works…”

So given the lack of songs and the crazy deadlines, why did the band not harvest their three previous EPs? After all, it’s not like the band don’t have plenty of hits they could whack on there: “Mace Spray”, “She’s So Hard”, “Easy to Love”…

“No. No, not at all,” he insists, with unexpected vehemence. “There was never any question in our mind that we would include any EP tracks on this album. The whole reason we did the EPs was because we were slow at writing songs so we thought it would be better to sort of release songs as we had them instead of disappear off the face of the earth for two years to make an album.”

Understood, but with such a tight turnaround…

“No. The band and me, we regard the EPs as a unit in themselves,” he insists. “It would be like releasing tracks from your first album tracks on the second one. We didn’t want to touch or mess with any of those songs, so we started completely new.”

That high-pressure environment is going to persist for the rest of the year with national and international touring commitments.

“My life is pretty much planned until 2012 which I don’t mind. It’s actually pretty funny, you know: we have the band calendar and you can say in no uncertain terms exactly what you’ll be doing every day for the rest of the year.”
And aside from the physical pressure, it also requires a willingness to spend that time in the pockets of three other people, 24 hours a day.

“Oh, exactly. It’s a skill, as much as learning how to play your instrument or write songs. You need to learn what’s important and what’s not worth making an issue about, and I think we’re good at that… to an extent,” he chuckles. “It’s even good when we blow up: we’re well versed in how to drop it by the following day.”

It helps that everyone’s doing what they want to be doing, though.

“We’re really excited at the moment: I mean,it’s incredible the opportunities we have and, just to put it bluntly we’re just all so grateful to be doing this.

“You know, it all seemed to come to a head with the whole Splendour thing. It blew our minds, the positive reception we got. Everything that’s happened to us, month after month, has just been so incredible and so surreal it just seems like you’re in a little bit of a daze, like it’s not actually happening.”

Funny Kaloper should mention that: now that it’s been brought up, we should confess that this interview was arranged purely to reveal that the staggering success of the Jezabels – the Hottest 100 spots, the sold-out tours, the devoted fanbase – has all been an incredibly elaborate prank. Surprise!

“And starting tomorrow, nobody’s going to give a shit about us!” he laughs. “I would have to go start teaching, I guess. God, that’d be funny – oh man.”

Prisoners is out now. Buy it online here. http://www.thejezabels.com