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The Beautiful Girls
 The Beautiful Girls have been so busy that the only time drummer Bruce Braybrooke could spare for a quick chat was just before the band took the stage for this year's Homebake Festival, though he wasn't quite as excited about it as I thought he might be - "aaaw, not yet," he began, before justifying the answer - "we've just done a six week tour overseas and got back Thursday, and rehearsed yesterday, you know."
After a brief jaunt in Europe and a tour across America supporting State Radio, everything is in danger of blending together, especially at a big festival like Homebake.
"Unfortunately, the way it works is pretty much you come in a couple of hours before and often you have to get out straight away, or hang out backstage and have a beer and that's about it."
Fortunately, this won't be the case when the band comes to Adelaide in March for our very own WOMADelaide festival - something that Braybrooke is very keen on, having been unable to make the journey before, though he's surprised they were chosen - "I wouldn't have expected that we would be playing there. They must have, like every festival, expanded their definition of themselves," he observes wryly.
Before that, though, there's an Australian tour that drops by Adelaide this week, and given their busy touring schedule we can be sure that it's a pretty slick show we'll be getting, even if it won't be bursting with new songs.
"We've been kind of working on a couple of [new] songs during soundcheck whenever we can," Braybrooke says tentatively, as if they're still very much works in progress.
Unfortunately, though their latest album 'Ziggurats' has really resulted in an increased profile for the band, this makes recording a follow-up that much harder.
"We were hoping to follow it up in the next two or three months, but all of a sudden that's not going to happen. So we're probably looking at a date at least six months away by now, because we've got to get back to America and Europe and everywhere," he continues before finishing with a laugh. "So yeah, were stuffed a little bit."
The busy schedule meant that the band had to cast absentee votes in the Federal Election, but Braybrooke is as animated as he can get when the subject is broached. "On election day we were flying from London to Berlin, but of course we followed it, and we were really happy to hear that Howard is gone - it's the best news I've heard all month!" he exclaims, and after a short pause emphatically adds "all year!"
Musically, 'Ziggurats' represents a departure from the laid back surfer rock that the 'Girls started out playing, with snarling electric guitars and more forceful tunes making for a much more intense listening experience. Now that the band has had time to reflect on it, they're really happy with the direction they chose to take on the album. "It's a natural thing to progress with your music, and by progress I just mean do different styles of music and you wanna say something different, say it in a different way," Braybrooke muses philosophically. "I know for Mat [McHugh], the singer, he kind of feels that it's a new beginning and he feels that it's the first album that he was completely happy with, although he probably said that after every album."
Of course, the band hasn't turned their back on that original style - "we still do a bunch of all the old songs and everyone sings along. They're nice and mellow and happy so you get a good intimate vibe there," Braybrooke confirms, although obviously their surge in popularity means that they now play much larger venues than they used to, and it's harder to develop that rapport with the crowd. Fortunately, touring affords them the opportunity to still experience that, as "a lot of the gigs we do, especially overseas, are small, so they're like the kind of gigs the band would do 5 years ago. So it's really intimate and there's 200 people and they're right in front of you."
Alexis Buxton-Collins
'Under A Southern Sky' is out now through Die!Boredom.
The Beautiful Girls play at HQ on Sun 16 Dec and WOMADelaide from Mar 7-9.
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