dB Magazine:
Touch Me - I'm Indie
"I'd like to do a tour with Savage Garden, just to annoy all the people that say, 'No, they're indie-rock.' But I'm a shit stirrer. I shouldn't really speak for the rest of the band."
Stephanie Ashworth, bass player with Melbourne trio Sandpit, doesn't believe music should be confined within classificatory niches. With the release of their debut album On Second Thought pending, she is glad to provide an insider's perspective on some of the limitations that this approach to music imposes on the band.
"I think that kind of thinking is very destructive for music, and is responsible for the whole political shit fight that bands find themselves a part of these days. I would like to think that people can just go, music is music is music is music. In fact, Sandpit are sick to death of the kind of historical baggage that comes with what label you're on and what kind of music you play, to the point that I request, if I can, interviews and reviews by people who have never heard of the band.
"We're sick of the (band's) whole 'indie-rock' history being drudged up every time. You know: 'Oh, you guys played with Pavement. You're on the same label as Superchunk and Pavement. You're an indie rock band, and you've got to be "authentic" indie-rock'. I think we just want to be people making music, not whatever people want to categorise it as because of our (recording) label, or the way we play, what we look like, any of those factors. I think we just want to be seen as a band who are writing songs, and people can get something out of them. It sounds idealistic, but even if five minutes of their day are heightened, or whatever, then that is all we want. If people like it and they get something out of it, then we're satisfied.
"A lot of the journalists reviewing and interviewing the band over the years, while they've been really good and have been big fans of the band, have also helped create a really stifling little niche for us, that I am violently against. It's meant that if we play with a band that isn't 'indie-rock', then it's like, what the hell are we doing? 'What are Sandpit doing playing with Mansun from England, or Superjesus, or Powderfinger?'. It gets really stifling, and really political, and it becomes destructive for the band."
According to Ashworth, Sandpit maintain a fairly intense touring schedule, something she seems genuinely enthusiastic about. (And given that she has recently also signed on for bass duties with another high profile Melbourne outfit, Something For Kate, it's probably a good thing that she likes doing shows.) Sandpit have, in fact, just returned from playing the Offshore festival ("It was freezing!") and before that a 38-date tour with The Superjesus.
"That was great. Very exhausting. We were doing three shows a day in some states - two Superjesus shows and then a Sandpit headliner somewhere else, because obviously there's not much crossover between Superjesus and Sandpit fans. I think it was an interesting choice (of tour support) on Superjesus' part. Most people would think "what the hell were you doing on that tour?", but they asked us to do it because they are, strangely enough, fans of Sandpit.
"I think it was good for us to a tour that wasn't so much preaching to the converted, because Sandpit generally do every "indie-rock" support under the sun. whilst playing with Pavement and the Posies and Boss Hog and all those bands is really great for Sandpit, there comes a point in a band's career, I think, where you've got to just start playing to a lot of people. That's how we felt, and we just thought we needed to do a good, strong national tour where we play to people who haven't heard the band before and who perhaps won't like us, but maybe it will open their minds up for a couple of minutes. Maybe they'll just go to the bar and get really drunk, or go to the toilet, or go to the carpark and smoke, I don't know!
"I'd like to do more of that kind of thing, but for the album tour, we've pretty much picked what we're doing, and while that's probably preaching to the converted more, if you've got an album out, you really want to play to audiences who give a fuck."
Speaking of the album, the band, who in the past, drawn by the lull of a vintage Neve analogue mixing desk, have trekked to Sydney's Charing Cross studios, decided this time, especially given Charing Cross's imminent demise, to instead use what Ashworth describes as, "pretty much the only Neve analogue desk in the country left now" at Melbourne's Hothouse studios. Ashworth also assures me that as far as she knows, On Second Thought doesn't display any of the television-relatedness of Sandpit's earlier works, such as Wondertwins from 1996's lessons in posture EP or the title of the follow-up The Tyranny of Creeps (apparently taken from the title of an episode of Happy Days).
"With the earlier EPs there were a few references to cheesy 70's or 80's sitcomes that everyone experienced and could relate to. I think Brendan (Webb - guitar/vocals and lyricist) has a habit of using junk culture analogies in his lyrics. Maybe in a really twee sort of way he thought that some of his life situations were analogous to a cartoon strip or something, like Wondertwins.
"I think we're of that generation of seventies kids who watched a lot of TV and have fun talking about some of those crappy old sitcoms, and how they became such a big part of your life. I don't like to assume too much, but I think that it does have a subconscious effect on people. A lot of people ate their dinner to whatever sitcom happened to be big at the time".
Jeremy Reglar