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The Redsunband.
 "We had a party at our place last night quite by accident. We went down to our local pub and brought all these people back to our place," explains The Redsunband's singer, guitarist and musical genius Sarah Kelly.
She's actually trying to justify having just gotten out of bed at four-thirty in the afternoon. However, a little while later, when I quip about musicians living off the welfare system, she enthusiastically retorts, "No, no, we make money from the band!" So don't complain, you uppity nine-to-five types: as keen, constructive citizens, these three Sydneysiders have earned their right to sleep all day.
"Touring is paying off," she declares. "We have steady crowds in most of the cities on the east coast, particularly Brisbane, I don't know why. And we also get to play with all of our favourite overseas acts. We've played with The Shins, and we've played with Grandaddy, and last week we actually got to play with Cat Power! Cat Power is like my hero, and that was just the best!"
And yes, she is still pinching herself. "It's been quite a natural progression; it hasn't suddenly got bigger, it's been really quite slow. With the Cat Power thing, it was booked in, and I was sitting there thinking, this is Cat Power, we're playing with Cat Power! It took so long for it to filter through. We're very, very lucky. It's amazing how good everything has gone."
Lucky? Hell, no.
She just happens to be playing guitar in easily the best, most inspiring band in the country. And what's more, the dark, sincere and quite loud sounds of The Redsunband are quite different to a lot of what you'll hear around this country.
"I think there's a pretty wide variety of bands at the moment. When we tour I think we never really feel like we're like the other band, but I guess that's just us, I guess you always think your band was quite unique. I think that the more we play with other bands the more we've started to sound like other people, but it seems that's not the case at all!"
Apart from the impending tour (with commercial favourites Evermore, indie darlings The Panda Band and upcoming guitar heroes The Vasco Era), The Redsunband have been laying demos for their eagerly-awaited second album. Apparently they feature a more proactive vocal role from drummer John Matthews.
"I might have to keep an eye on that one," Kelly chuckles. "We've been doing it for ages. It's been very, very good. We did a bunch of songs at our friend's house, he has a home studio set up, in amongst couches and coffee tables and ashtrays and stuff, and it's called 'The People's Republic!' And that was fun, we did five songs there, and four of those turned out really well. And now we've almost completed another batch, and they were mostly songs that we don't play live yet, so they've been a little more experimental and interesting."
And when can we expect to see the finished product? Maybe by the end of the year? "This tour doesn't finish until right at the end of July, so I think it's pretty unlikely that we'll be able to record and release an album before the end of the year. Also, and I don't know why, but no label releases albums between December and January." I posit that indie labels like Slanted may not wish to compete for space in record stores with the Christmas rush on the latest Australian Idol single. "I'm sure there's a fine art to marketing, but I don't know much about it. It takes a lot of time."
Finally, once the record's out there, there may be talk of the band spreading their love across the world. "I think the main thing about going overseas is, it doesn't really matter whether you become really, really successful. The subculture is huger because the population's bigger anyway, so if you get on the college radios and stuff, touring there is a massive deal. I think it could be really good for us, it would be fun anyway... I know a lot of bands who do five dates in the US and five dates in the UK, and we don't want to do that. If we're going to go over there, we're really going to go over there."
Ben Revi
 | The Redsunband play at the Governor Hindmarsh on Sat 11 June and Sun 12 June. |
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