Sodastream

"Hello, [commercial landlord company] Consortium, Pete speaking. He's not in at the moment...Can I take a message?”

Sure, this call interrupts our interview, but I can't really complain – he is calling me from work. "Sorry about that. This is Karl's [Smith, guitar] old job, which is, you know, facilities guy. Every problem in the whole three buildings comes through. Anyway...It's been a bit all over the place," decries Sodastream double-bassist Pete Cohen, momentarily abandoning his post, "[since] we did a lot of touring in July-time. Now Karl's studying full time this year, and I'm just working odd jobs. So I'm running around like a lunatic and gearing up to go away. It's a weird in-between time, but lots to look forward to. We've had a good run with the album [‘Reservations’] as well, it's been lots of fun being on the road here. So it's all good.”

Part of the concern is a rather frightening impeding trip to Adelaide, "I think we came at the end of last year, I think we were there for the 'Take Me With You When You Go' [2005 EP] tour. The album came out in May, so it has been a while. We were actually a bit demoralised after that show, couldn't believe it, we had the guy from Crooked Fingers coming across and we had less than 20 payers. Adelaide's crazy. We were there the same time the year before with Mike Noga, and we stayed on Rundle Street – the mall that turns into the street – and we stayed on the street just beyond that and it was like bloody New Year's Eve out there, but I swear it was the middle of August. It was like bloody party time. Then we went back a year later and it was like tumbleweeds blowing down the street. So I'm confused.”

Although Sodastream is an expandable animal, this tour will give us a chance to see them in their natural two-person environment.

"That's how we're going to tour Europe, as a two-piece. We did some shows, all of our last shows in Melbourne, with our friends, but no, this is going to be the stripped-back version."

The biggest difference for Cohen, so he says, is in the pre-tour preparation, "We've been doing this for so long as a two-piece that when we do have to prepare all the extra musos, it's heaps of fun having extra people and a different energy around...but we almost don't need to discuss anything like that. We know what we're doing. We rehearse to write new songs and just to keep fit. When you're trying to explain to eight people where to come in – come in louder there, or more quietly here – it's a very different preparation experience. And so many phone calls, you know? Being a duo is much more straightforward, much easier on the phone bill.

“And we've been really lucky that we've had fairly aligned lives and responsibilities.”

There are fringe benefits to having just two people, "You can fit in a car, which is beautiful. Even with the double-bass, as much of a drag as it is. [It fits into] a Commodore station wagon, which has been around this great country many times. An extra person is still a whole lot more of a pain in the arse than a shitload of gear, I reckon, because it's another space on the floor to sleep on...People are high-maintenance.”

Back to that fateful previous night at the ‘Jade, I wonder whether there would be a sharp tinge of disappointment, after relatively successful overseas jaunts, to face such an empty crowd in your own country.

"Yeah, but not necessarily because we've been successful. The Jade Monkey situation's really hard to take when, especially at that time when we were both working full-time, we jumped in the car on the Friday night, drove all Saturday morning to the gig, to only be driving back the next day. And then it's a really hard show and losing money and all of that. I think we've been lucky that we've had opportunities overseas and we still do and that's great, but the reality is that we're still broke and we subsidise the band, really. We don't have to put much money into it, but we don't get paid by it. So in that way, we just want the shows to go really well and for everything to flow and it can be demoralising when it doesn't.

"Our crowds overseas aren't usually all that big, but we just play more often. We can play every night to a hundred people, which you can't really do [logistically] in Australia.”

Still, they're coming back. And for this, we should all thank them at the Jade Monkey, personally.

Ben Revi

Sodastream play at the Jade Monkey on Sat 23 September with Aviator Lane and Oliver Mann. ‘Reservations’ is out now through Trifekta