Meanwell College

There's a certain attraction to the two-piece. There's the cool factor afforded to two-pieces thanks to The White Stripes and The Black Keys and the fact that the money only has to be split two ways. But for Ben Revi and Benn Hansen of Adelaide two-piece Meanwell College, it's far more academic.

"From my point of view," says Hansen, the group's drummer and resident geophysicist, "I've played in a bunch of different bands, but I've never played in a two-piece."

Revi and Hansen previously played in People Before Structures, prior to half the band heading in different directions.

"It didn't dissolve so much as transform," muses singer, pianist and guitarist Revi, "Benn and I ended up sitting there thinking, 'what are we going to do now?'"

Thus, the idea of a two-piece was born, "I thought it would be something different and fun to try and a bit of a challenge to see if we could make it without a bass," enthuses Hansen, "we've played a few gigs and have had pretty good feedback..."

"Except from bass players saying we need a bass," Revi laughs.

The band take their name from Louis-Ferdinand CŽline's 1936 existential novel 'Mort ˆ CrŽdit', better known as 'Death On The Instalment Plan' to English readers, with the college in question particularly unstable and financially insecure. It's an intriguing namesake for a band that pride themselves on dependability and familiarity, especially in the creative process.

"Benn and I trust each other, as friends and as musicians," says Revi, "I really like playing my guitar in a relatively abrasive and angular way and I really like '60s pop music, but the thing that influences me more than anything else is Benn."

"I think the advantage of staying with just the two of us is that we know how we work," Hansen explains. "I find it speeds up the process of writing, of rehearsing. You can write a song and perfect it and have it ready for a show in two rehearsals. You can't do that with a four-piece - it takes too long. Usually, Revi will bring the melody, or the pieces. Together, we'll arrange it."

"That's not necessarily what happens!" Revi hoots, and begins talking directly into the tape recorder determinedly. "I'll bring in a song and Benn will say he doesn't like it and then Benn changes it in front of me and then it ends up much better."

September 8th will see the band releasing their debut EP 'Downshifting/Like Mushrooms' both on CD and 7".

When asked about the songs on the record, Revi is quick to point out that while the songs might be from previous bands, they're not taking the easy way out."We wanted to record songs that we were really confident in. Both of those songs are from past bands and had extra instrumentation originally, but we went into a rehearsal room and we rearranged both of those songs to fit the sound of two people.

"We wanted to have something that people would want," Revi says of the decision to go with vinyl, "to have people think, 'that's something that I might want to have'. Having it on record just makes it that bit more special."

Unfortunately, producing a piece of vinyl is far from as easy as it once was, but Hansen maintains you've just got to know your options, "It's not as hard as it sounds. We've done it overseas because we think that the product we get back will be better and price-wise it's comparable to getting it done at the one and only place that does it in Australia."

"It depends on how much money you want to lose," Revi adds, "I have to give a shout out to the guys from The Bad Girls Of The Bible who went through this about a year ago and told me exactly how to do it."

With the CD launch coming up soon, I asked whether the band had many expectations of the show, "We're just looking forward to headlining a show," says Hansen, "I'm looking forward to seeing people's reactions to us playing a full set and to the product, the designs and to the selling of vinyl. We put this thing together and I want to see if anyone cares apart from us."

Alistair Wallis

Meanwell College launch 'Downshifting/Like Mushrooms' at the Jade Monkey on Fri 8 September. 'Downshifting/Like Mushrooms' is out now independently.