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Gerling.
 The three scruffy brats with shiny spats collectively known as Gerling are gearing up once again for another Big Day Out tour. Burke Reid is, of course, excited and grateful to be appearing at his "at least fourth" BDO, but it's the line up that he's particularly chuffed about. "I'm looking forward to seeing The Stooges six times in a row. I'm a massive Stooges fan, that's going to make me complete," Reid gushes.
Big Day Out 2006 will provide an opportunity for Gerling to try out new material from their yet-to-be-titled, yet-to-be-released fourth album. The album was recorded in North Hollywood with Ethan Johns (Ben Kweller, Kings Of Leon) and adds, as Reid explains, yet another facet in Gerling's sound. "We wanted to approach it a different way this time and he [Johns] had heard our demo and was really, really into it. The way he records is all old school and all analogue 16 tracks, so for us that was really different. We stripped back a lot of things, went for a more of an organic, for want of a better word, approach. It's more like our first album ['Children Of Telepathic Experiences'], a really guitar-oriented album with not so much of the electronic stuff coming through, but still based on grooves."
Reid suggests the new album isn't as dark as 'Bad Blood!!!' and without guest vocalists ‡ lˆ 'When Young Terrorists Chase The Sun', but borne of a much more natural approach. "When writing the album we were just really into doing the guitars, we didn't really think about it too much: it's just naturally how the songs started to evolve. We tried to write kind of quickly so when we were writing we weren't adding as many layers but there are some horns and mandolin and a few samples. We basically did everything here and just went over to record with Ethan. Me and Darren [Cross] brought our guitars over and I brought my amp but Ethan had a lot of stuff which was really cool. I was tempted to buy a guitar while I was over there, they're much cheaper and you stumble across really good things everywhere. I couldn't find one that I was entirely happy with though. Ethan had a lot of really cool old guitars like original Telecasters, Paul Smiths..." Reid trails off reflectively.
Reid, born in Calgary, Canada, has mixed views of his time in America. "Everything was in such abundance. I'd, like, go to a grocery store and just stand there blinking and not knowing what to get. Food-wise I'm glad to be home because it's much better, not as greasy. I miss the cheap prices though. The cheap beer really. You can buy beer everywhere - grocery stores, even the post office pretty much." Although their time in America was largely dominated by the intensive seven week recording process and weekends usually involved 'bumming around', they did manage to squeeze in a weekend of gambling in Las Vegas. "It's outlandish! It's fun but really gaudy so I was glad I was only there for a day or two," Reid says carefully. "I'm kind of pissed off because all I did was gamble. We wondered around a little bit and I had to go to Circus Circus for the setting of 'Fear And Loathing'."
So, the question on everyone's lips: did you win? "Yeah enough; enough to walk away happy," Reid laughs. "That's how you want to keep it, because I was in the pit for a while, I was chasing my tail," he reminisces, pulse quickening at the memory. "I like cards and a good friend got me into playing Caribbean Stud," he continues. "It's a weird game like Poker. You get five cards that you can't trade in and you've got to beat the dealer but the odds are really bad. I had a few good runs on it once but haven't since. I did that then I went into a tournament of Texas Hold 'Em and I didn't really know the rules so I must admit I was freaking out and I broke into a sweat right away," Reid gasps, his gambling flash backs becoming ever more clear. "I nearly bluffed my way through one hand then screwed it up and from then on I was just an open book."
Cassie Hilditch
 | Gerling play the Big Day Out at Wayville showgrounds on Fri 3 Feb. |
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