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Custom Kings.
 Nick Vorrath is a few minutes early with his call to talk about his band Custom Kings, therefore interrupting a cliff hanger $607, 692 Mega-showcase on 'The Price Is Right'. Should Estelle take the $10,000 on offer or play on to win the lot? "Yeah, I hardly ever miss the show either," he enthuses, "so I'll be interested in seeing what goes down," As it turns out she should've taken the money. "I don't like the whole, you know? $5,000 or the showcase thing, I think it ruined things a little bit," he suggests. I concur and we both agree that Larry Emdur is a legend.
Vorrath is sitting in a bustling pub in Fitzroy with friends, and he's watching the weather "...turn to shit. We've had the worst weather of all time here in Melbourne," he bemoans.
I alert Vorrath that I really don't know anything about his band except what little there is written on their website, and of course from what I've heard on their fantastic, subtley charming seven track mini-album 'Where Do They Go?' "Right, well I don't know," he considers. "I guess we didn't really feel much need to put our life story on the Internet, we thought that if people really liked the record and wanted to find out more they'd then come to our shows, or call us up or whatever. It was a funny CD to make; it is kind of unassuming and it's my first effort as a recording musician because I've never really been in a studio before so I didn't know what the hell I was doing to start with."
The Custom Kings have only really been together since March 2004 and their first show was - enviably - at the East Coast Blues and Roots Festival a month later, sharing the bill with the likes of Taj Mahal, Steve Earle, The Cat Empire, Xavier Rudd and the John Butler Trio, thus providing some indication of their sound: their swift rise initially spurred on by the strength of a publishing deal struck by Vorrath a year earlier. "Yeah, we were really lucky that we were picked up [by their label, Liberation], and that was basically from a demo of unfinished songs. I guess they saw something and they were kind enough to work and develop us as an act, which not a lot of record companies do because they sort of want the complete package. So at first it was just me and a couple of friends who were chipping in here and there, and now we've become a full band."
With not quite a year gone by and their first national tour well underway, how have the Custom Kings matured since their first live appearance at Byron Bay? "The album wasn't released but we had finished it and it was already mastered," he says of their ambitious initial submission, "so we sent [the promoters] that and they really liked it, and that was when the band had to get their act together at a rapid rate by going into a rehearsal studio. We did okay and we didn't embarrass ourselves or anything, but I feel if we did that show again today it would be an entirely different gig. It was a steep learning curve. Our shows are now getting a bit livelier because we're playing a lot of festivals and supporting acts where it may not be appropriate to sit down and play five folk songs in a row. And we're showcasing new songs and we're writing a lot more as a band. I'm still playing the acoustic guitar and singing but I've come a long way since the record was made and obviously the band are having a lot bigger input too. That would be the main difference, we're more of a band now instead of a just a band put together to play my songs."
Steve Jones
 | Custom Kings play at the Crown Hotel in Victor Harbor on Sat 26 Feb and the Governor Hindmarsh on Sun 27 Feb. 'Where Do We Go' is out now through Liberation. |
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