Interviews
Matthew Jenkins
Ease

Q. Ease are a very new band in Perth and are already signed to a big label in littleBigMan Records.  Can you tell us a little bit about the band and its history?

Well, the band started in December last year and it consisted of myself and Nick. I play guitar and dabble instrumentally with pretty much anything and Nick plays the drums and percussion. We started recording straight away and picked up members along the way. We knew what we wanted to achieve from the outset, and one of those goals was to get signed before playing our first gig. We also didn’t want to have to play 50 shows to get noticed. It helps to have a firm idea or vision for the band. We’re all pretty experienced musicians on the live front and the studio front.

We’ve been a five piece since about Easter time and only actually started rehearsing in early July. Since our first gig, we’ve been a little slack and rehearsed very little. Ben was the first vocalist we met and decided he was gonna be in on our first meeting. We didn’t even hear him sing until a fortnight later. It was weird. The time we met, we all just talked for about two hours. This was before Mike and Sid were members of the band. When he did get around to singing, we were like … “FUCK!!!… pass that joint!”. It’s all been very easy. We got Mike in on bass, who Sid and I have known for years and is a great groove based player who listens to all sorts of music, and Sid who was engineering the project from the beginning joined last when we were looking for a second guitarist. He’s actually a drummer.

Weird really, but he -  like Mike and I - can play pretty much anything. Mike’s good on the melodica and Sid just picked up the sitar and played like he’d spent the last ten years in Goa. Sometimes we’re a six piece. Jules from the Panics is a floating member, be came in for some of the recording sessions and rehearses with the band occasionally, it’s a fun outlet for him and he fits in well personality and musicial-wise.

Q.  Has being picked up by a bigger label increased the pressure put upon you either by the label or by yourselves?

There’s no pressure really, the songs, sound and ideology are all there. There’s plenty of songs in the cloakroom and plenty more to come. The one worry I had was being able to do it live, as this is the first time anyone in this band has reversed the situation – gone from the studio to the stage, usually it’s the other way around. Sure, we sound a little different live, a lot rougher around the edges, but that’s fine with me. We’ve only played one gig so far, that was with the Panics at their album launch and it went over really well. We had great feedback, and considering our Ben has never played a gig before, everything went down like honey. We’re looking forward to playing some more (playing at the Ampi on the 19th Sept with the Panics) and a whole bunch over summer.

The way we see it, the stage we’re at now is such a great springboard for better things to come. We use backing tracks live for some songs as the recordings are dense and layered, but we could play all those songs on acoustic guitars and they’d work just as well. We wanted to do something sounding widescreen live and the backing tracks consist of samples, loops and percussion, and occasionally keyboard lines that we’ve played - things we can’t replicate live. In our day and age where people spend good money to see someone DJ, I don’t consider it a problem, but y’know, whatever, if some people see that as cheating, so be it. I’ve no desire to expand the band to a ten piece just to accommodate our musicial vision live. We argue enough as a five piece.

Q.  What is the songwriting process for the band?  Do you write the lyrics and music together or one first and then the other?

Generally I write all the songs, although occasionally Sid (guitar, vocals, and engineer) and I will sit down with some alcohol and wind up with a song or two. I like writing with Sid, or Ben will put some lyrics to some music that hasn’t any words or even change the melody and lyrical content to a song completely.

Q.  I believe the debut EP is just about ready to come out.  Do you have a release date, venue, name for the EP?

I couldn’t confirm the venue yet, but the release is finished and we aim to release it in early November. It’s more of a single than an EP, it contains two song songs and two instrumentals, one a little sitar/tabla thingy-bob and the other a twisted dub song with cracking stab guitar from Jules from the Panics and Nick hollering like a madman over the top. The lead song is actually a cover of an old Spaceman 3 song called Hey Man, I’d love to hear the original, as I don’t have it anymore, but I know that it doesn’t sound anything like our version that’s for sure. A great song with a universal theme that sums up what Ease is about really. Our’s sounds like meatier Cornershop at a cocktail party or something… Er, very up! Very jovial. The other song is It’s All Good and is kinda a duet between Ben and Sussanah Legge from the Hampdens. It’s kinda cool, nice and loose. In fact the whole release has a nice loose feel to it.

Q. Is the name Ease suitable for the bands attitude to music? Do you guys just take things in a laid back nature or is there a big elaborate story behind the name?

It was either that or the Virginia Wolves. We may be The Ease, who knows… We don’t. I kinda put my foot down and said fuck it. When you got five people in a band, you can talk about band names for months (which we did) and in the end it came back to either one of those two, which Nick and I had when we started the band. It was like, we’re sick of this… you joined our band and we’re called either this or that… choose one now you fucks!!! So Ease it was. We are pretty laid back about things as well… but with a purpose. It also relates to how easy everything has come together for this band. Nothing has been stressed or we haven’t had to struggle… It’s just easy. God knows how. So it’s kinda fitting really. If people wanna worry about the drug reference thing, well fuck ‘em. When they see it written down they’ll get it. We intend to make sure they certainly won’t forget it.

Q.  When playing live shows, is it important to make every show a spectacle or does it just happen naturally.  Do you feed off the crowd's reaction or do you try to create a reaction?

Rule one for aspiring original musicians: Don’t get on stage until you’re sure you’re ready and play every gig as if it really counts (as if Lucifer is waiting in the wings). Bands like U2 and REM didn’t get where they are by playing lacklustre shows. Being able to play live is the cornerstone for every band’s longevity, they didn’t have Video Hits in the 60s and 70s. You don’t have to make every show a spectacle, just make it entertaining and one way of doing that is by playing short sets (8-9 songs max), because realistically bands get boring. Hell I wouldn’t want to see us play for more than 45 minutes, I’d be eyeing the bar going …”Just going for a pint”. You gotta have fun and enjoy being on stage, at our first gig we were all smiling like idiots and having a ball, really giving 110 per cent. If you wanna entertain people you can’t be looking at your shoes, you gotta connect with the audience, this is something we intend to do and build upon. It doesn’t have to be arrogance and people may misinterpret it as such, but it’s just sincerity coming from us really.

We believe and we want people to see that we believe so they can believe. We’re certainly not shy put it that way, but most local bands have an introverted persona, and it’s easy to see how people can perceive outwardness as arrogance. The one task we have is to find an audience, which is gonna be interesting because I don’t think we’re what you’d call an indie band at all. We’re not mainstream either. I think we will polarize a lot of the ‘too cool for school’ indie kids, coz we simply don’t wanna be an indie band. Plus, we have a real singer, who can sing, and isn’t trying to be Thom Yorke or whoever indie kids wanna hear these days, and we can all actually play our instruments really well.  We aim to entertain, and that extends to the tone of this interview, it’s a positive belief y’hear! I can be arrogant too believe me, but we’ll not go there.

Q.  There is a lot of interest in Perth bands and Perth music at the moment, do you think there is a particular Perth sound and is it very different from bands from the Eastern States?

There is no particular Perth sound as such although we do have a significant power pop history. Good bands come from here because of the boredom factor, the isolation and all that LSD that goes into the water supply. We have quite a number of studios and engineers over here who actually enjoy the recording process and music, and make things easier for the bands. The band scene is quite large for our size, and the main problem is that there’s probably more musicians totaled together than punters who regularly go to original gigs. That’s because bands need to learn the art of performance and connecting with the audience, besides learning how to be tight and write good songs. That is the single reason why crowds at most original gigs are sparse, it’s often not the quality of the music, but the quality of the entertainment. The scene in Perth is better than it has been for a while. I was in a band in Melbourne for a while and the scene over there is quite fucked, full of arty-wank heads who either a: haven’t got over fucking Mr Excitement Nick Cave or the Birthday Party or b: are in some pretty shitty garage band with art-wank pretensions. End of story next question.

Q. What bands have had the greatest influence on you and who are your favourite bands at the moment both from Perth and from elsewhere?

I could fill this page with influences and we all listen to a lot of different stuff, but the Beatles would be the meeting point. I used to be one of those vinyl obsessed types outta a Nick Hornsby novel. I can actually go into the city now without buying vinyl. It’s like leaving behind a smack habit. Stones, The Clash, De La Soul, Public Enemy The Beta Band, King Tubby, Marley, Miles Davis, Velvets, The Mary Chain… I need not go on. Perth bands: The Panics, Sleepies, The Hampdens and the new Pure Phase stuff (still in production) is sounding great. I was impressed by Headshot recently, who’re pretty heavy for my usual liking. I wanna know why there’s no young soul bands or young reggae or dub bands anymore. Kids need to listen to people like Otis and Marvin, Stax and Motown. Fuck the world’s fucked. Death to the Americanized K-Mart Punk Rock. Good Charlotte! We’ll give them a bloody good thrashing. Just unleash our Mike after a few pints and they’ll go crying back to Mummy and Daddy. Tossers!

Q. What is your favourite live music venue in Perth?  Do you prefer small pub shows with a small audience or bigger shows with lots of people cheering you on?

Anywhere with an adequate PA that will accommodate Ease at a loud rocking volume (not many of those around). Ultimately we want what every musician wants – a load of people cheering and digging it. But to answer your question, the Ampi or Rosemount, I guess, but we’re cooking on a scheme to get another venue with great potential pumping through summer-time. We wanna do a summer residency with guest DJs, although the regular clientele at this place is a bit iffy, I reckon we could make a regular night happen that people would dig. It’s in the cards, or stars I guess. We’ll see and I’ll keep you posted.

Interview by Justin