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The Vasco Era.
One and a half hours out of Melbourne and through the faint
strains of The Sleepy Jackson on the car's CD player, Michael
Fitzgerald - drummer for three piece rock'n' blues powerhouse
The Vasco Era - is waxing lyrical about, among other things,
their current east coast jaunt with hip-hop outfit, TZU. Behind
the wheel is Sid O'Neil (guitar/vocals), with a temporary hired
guitar tech riding shotgun. Bassist, and Sid's brother, Ted
O'Neil is already back home, having snuck off to the airport
without the others knowing two days earlier.
"I don't know what happened to Ted," Fitzgerald laughs. "He just sent me a text saying, 'by the time you get this I'll be back in Melbourne. I've got stuff to do'. We woke up about two in the arvo because we went out the night before and when I checked my phone there was that message. I think he just couldn't be bothered waiting around for us or something."
("Oh I had some things to do," the ever-organised O'Neil explains later, "and by the look of the boys on Sunday night we weren't going to get out of Sydney until later today [Tuesday]. Because we're going to Tasmania tomorrow [with TZU] I thought I'd best get back and get some stuff done, and to have a decent sleep before we get going again," before adding, "I also thought it'd be a bit funny for when they woke up too.")
Fitzgerald, though, has a lot to say about the band's latest developments and they're newly refurbished live presentation: "We went away to Tassie for a week and just rehearsed and worked on some new material and stuff like that," he enthuses. "There's a farm down there where we can go and no one can interrupt us. If we tried to do that in Melbourne all our friends will come over, and then we'd be too lazy to put in any effort. We thought if the surroundings weren't that familiar to us then that would be a good way of getting things done. So from that we strengthened the songs we thought were a bit weak or could be helped with revamping and they're now being reflected in our shows. We've gotten a bit louder too, but I don't know if that's a good thing or not? I suppose it is."
O'Neil agrees: "I think we've got eight or nine new songs going so we're well on our way towards an album. We want to get an album out as quick as we can because I think people are starting to want to hear some new recorded stuff from us, so hopefully by the end of the year we'll start that."
As for his view on their stage act; "We want to try and make things more like a show instead of just a constant barrage of noise, which most of it is, so we're trying to add some softer parts so there's a bit lull in there and breaks things up and makes it a bit more interesting."
Speaking of interesting: The Vasco Era joining up with TZU for an extensive tour seems a stragely inspired idea. "Yeah, it is a bit," Fitzgerald agrees. "We just got along with them really well and so we thought it would be cool to try doing a tour together. They'd bring their hip-hop crowd and we'd bring our rock sort of crowd and there'd be a bit of a cross-over between us, so that was the idea. It's been interesting just seeing people's reactions to things, a lot of people who have been coming to see us have been getting into TZU."
"Everyone seems to respond well to both bands," adds O'Neil, "which is good because it means we're garnering new fans each time we play and that's one of the main reasons of touring so it's been really successful in that aspect. And because of that bit of a division between hip-hop and rock, it's also good to see that it's also working in that people can get along and enjoy each band as well."
Steve Jones
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The Vasco Era and TZU play at the Governor Hindmarsh on Sun 9 Oct.
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