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The News.
 The first CD from The News was originally meant only as a demo, so for this one they decided to do things properly. This involved heading to Melbourne to record in the salubrious confines of Hothouse Studios.
"Kinda for a bit of fun, for one reason," explains bassist Simon Amber when I ask what inspired the trip east. "And our lead singer Sanjay, his cousin is in a band called Offcuts so they hooked us up in the studio where they'd done most of their stuff. He also did a bit of producing for us, on a couple of tracks."
Of course, making a record is serious work, as they soon learned. "Well, we thought it would be a bit of fun, but we realised after our third trip back there that it was costing a bit much, so we decided to just finish it off in Adelaide [at Broadcast Studios]. I mean, it was good - we did a week [at Hothouse], then we had some shows in Melbourne later on, so we'd go over and then just do a day or so in the studio. We definitely wanted something a bit more professional than the last effort. I didn't actually play on the last EP, but it was more of a resume than a sale-point CD, if you know what I mean. I know Sanjay for one was..." he pauses, thinking, "well, not unhappy, but he definitely wanted something more from this CD."
Amber's the new boy of the band, having been a fan before getting the call to join up. "They were good friends of mine before I joined - I'd been going to gigs for a fair while and got to know them all pretty well. I'm not really a bassist by nature, but they knew I played a bit of guitar so when they asked me to play bass I thought I'd just give it a shot."
Well, there's only four strings - how hard can it be?
"Yeah, that's it: it's a lot easier than guitar, no chords or anything, just hit one note at a time," he chuckles. "It's pretty simple."
The CD launch is happening at the Governor Hindmarsh, which I politely suggest is a heck of a big room for a local band to fill on its own. "Yeah, but we've played at the Gov a couple of times and we just really like it there," Amber counters. "The sound's great, the stage is a nice size and it's just a nice atmosphere. And we're hoping our friends will fill it."
Which is not to say that the band hasn't been building their own audience up over the past couple of years: for one thing, they were selected for this year's Big Day Out. "And we've done a few good supports lately, which has been our main effort lately: get outside our circle a bit, play a few bigger venues where we might get a bit more exposure."
In fact, they're also already looking to the next record. "We've invested in a bit of our own recording gear - we're pretty keen to do our next EP on our own, so we've been a lot of tinkering with that at the moment."
I'm intrigued by the fact that the band would want to record at home after recording at Hothouse. "Well, being in the studio we realised how hard it was to record an EP, but also realised you can do it on your own, it's easy enough once you get your head around the gear.
"When we were at Hothouse... it wasn't daunting, but we did get the sense that we were in a bit over our heads - you could tell the engineers in there had had a lot better talent come through," he says with a self-depreciating laugh. "Sanjay found doing the vocal takes a lot easier here in Adelaide where it was a bit more chilled out. So we're hoping to go for an even more relaxed atmosphere next time, in our own homes."
Andrew P Street
 | The News launch their self-titled CD-EP at the Governor Hindmarsh on Thurs 15 Sept with Kermis, Poly & Statics and DJ Demise. |
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