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Youth Group.
This is how I picture it: a lonely stretch of featureless highway illuminated only by the headlights of the small van weighed low with instruments, equipment and several musicians either asleep in their seats or arguing about what CD to put on next. The road stretches out before them towards another city, another gig, another leg in yet another tour for another hard-working but little-known Aussie band. One of the band member's mobile rings. He answers, and dB Magazine's time with Youth Group begins.
In the back of the moving van, singer and guitarist Toby Martin is suitably relaxed. "At the moment we're on the way to Melbourne," he says, "and we were about to listen to a CD by Scout Nibblett, who I've never heard before." Talk soon turns to the reason behind the tour; the band's new album, 'Skeleton Jar.'
"This is our second album," says Toby Martin, "although it feels like our first in some ways. 'Urban & Eastern' feels like it was from a different band. I mean if we changed the name of the band after that and released another album, it could've been like another debut."
It's obvious a lot has changed since Youth Group's wonderful alt-pop debut delighted my ears three years ago. A few line-up changes and a long time off between recordings are but a few of the things that give the band the feeling they're starting out fresh again. This new start is complete with a tour and a chance to bring their live set to Adelaide in August.
So what will audiences get from Youth Group live on stage that they won't hear on 'Skeleton Jar'? "We actually change quite a lot of the songs live," Martin explains. "A few of them have got different endings and different parts. That's kind of been the most enjoyable part of playing live, changing the songs around and generally just making them more dynamic and more rock and roll."
As static sparks on our line, a question about the band's current influences gets misinterpreted by Toby Martin as a request for the inventory of the tour van's music collection, but as his response is quite amusing, I'm happy to let him go on.
"I can go through the CDs we have in the van," he says, rummaging. "I'm not sure what we've got. I think there's some Grandaddy and The Smiths, and...?"
"Scout Nibblett!" says a voice from the background.
Martin laughs. "Scout Nibblett. What else did I bring? Yes, I think I brought Swine, Will Oldham and Interpol. We definitely don't have any one thing in particular, although the last couple of tours we seem to have been fairly obsessed with listening to Guided By Voices in the car. That's been a real favourite."
Finally I've got to ask the question that's been bugging me since the album was released: the bizarre title, where did it come from? Is it perhaps a reference to the human body?
"Is the human body a 'Skeleton Jar'?" Martin paraphrases with obvious excitement. "That's good, yeah, I can see that, because the skin is the glass of the jar and there are human bones inside. I'm just gonna say that's it, because it's much better than anything I've come up with.
"To be honest," he confides later, "The song Skeleton Jar
came together first and we named the album after that. The lyric
to that song was originally "Specimen Jar" but I thought that
sounded a bit naff so I started singing "Skeleton Jar" by mistake,
and although it didn't make sense, it sounded better. So that's
what we kept."
When dB's time is up, I imagine the mobile phone zipped into the pocket of a crowded rucksack, whilst outside the headlights of the tour van continue to cut a path through the night towards the next gig. And Scout Niblett plays on.
Steven Hocking
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Youth Group play Sat 7 Aug at Fowlers Live. 'Skeleton Jar' is out now through Ivy League.
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