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George.
 George's
brand new 'Unity' is the sort of album that grows on you after
a number of listens. Don't expect an immediate love affair to
begin - some of the best things in life take time.
"I think we feel that we've all matured as songwriters and also the ability to be able to interact with everybody in the studio," Tyrone Noonan explains. "On our last album I think we were still learning the ropes, because we'd only spent a maximum of a week in a big studio up until that time. I think generally, the aim this time was to make a better album than the last one, and we're confident we've achieved that."
As a band, George are overjoyed with their place in the Australian music psyche. "Absolutely. We never expected to have a number one album, or win an ARIA, or any of that stuff in the first place. We've managed to get to this position without compromising even a single note of our music integrity. In these days, it's quite a difficult thing to achieve."
When a band releases a well-received first album, as George did, the expectations of the follow up can often be restrictive and un-nerving. Not so for George: Noonan believes "We've been very lucky, in that after the craziness of the last album, we kinda got back together and reconnected with each other, and made sure we were still in this for all the right reasons and that the success we had wasn't going to change our musical direction. Once we all felt confident that that was the case we got into it with gusto.
"Somehow we managed to avoid that kind of pressure. The record company just let us go and make the kind of record we wanted to make and didn't have any influence on songs or the style that would be commercially viable. We just went ahead and made the best album we could."
An overbearing record company is never a good thing when a new band is trying to make their way in the world. "If an artist gets themselves in that sort of position, it can be daunting," Noonan agrees. "The moment we start focussing on record company doctrine and that sort of stuff, then it's time we call it a day. Obviously we all need to pay the bills and make our way in the world, but I think when you're an artist you're kind of giving up on a comfortable life in a financial sense anyway. It's a lifestyle. If we had a clocking-in machine marking every hour we all worked on this band, it would be ridiculous what we are getting paid - we'd be better off working as chippieS at McDonalds. But that's not what it's about."
With the success of the first album, George could have done the rock star thing and added more musicians to the recording of 'Unity.' Instead, they made a concerted effort to try and get back to the sound of the band just playing together. "This album we really wanted to bring it back to just the five of us. Some of the songs are stripped back in a way, than anything we've done before. With the last album, we tried this and that, and had a big studio, and we tried all sorts of overdubbing and tricks. 'Unity' is more just us playing live in the studio, just with some orchestral arrangements added by Paul Grabowski. We had some arrangements done by Paul, the orchestral and horn stuff. So, some of the tunes were added to, but a lot were fairly stripped back."
"Hopefully 'Unity' isn't the sort of album where all is revealed on the first listen, or first few listens. There's depth there."
Chris Niehus
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'Unity' is out now on FMR. See Prize Frenzy™ for giveaways.
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