The Brag

Ask anyone you know who’s in a band, and they’ll tell you how much those national tours can stretch even the strongest of friendships. One van, five musos, way too much gear and a dodgy A/C? Shit gets intimate. To sign yourself up for ten days and seven cities spent with near-strangers would be even scarier. It’s with understandably sweaty palms, nervous glances and awkward pauses that New Zealand’s Opossom, Los Angeles’ White Arrows and Aussies Jinja Safari embarked on their Blind Date Tour last Wednesday – but we’re betting that by the time they reach Sydney this Friday, they’ll all be best friends…

OPOSSOM
Possom Magic
By Krissi Weiss

Kody Nielson’s former band, The Mint Chicks, push a violent and chaotic energy through both their music and their performances, but Nielson himself is hesitant to the point of complete nervousness when we chat. Maybe he’s having a bad day, but he chooses his words with absolute trepidation and stutters his way through most sentences. His new, softer project, Opossom, may be a more accurate representation of his personality than the bedlam of Mint Chicks. “It’s been more free,” Nielson says of the new project. “I didn’t really have a picture of what I wanted to do with the music; it was more that I would keep the recordings that I liked. I think Mint Chicks wrote a lot together, and this style isn’t really what we would’ve done… It was good to not have to work everything out with someone else, you know? There are pros and cons to doing it on your own, but because I was just going with the flow it was all easier.”

Producing and co-writing such diverse projects as King Kapisi, The Adults and He Will Have His Way (the Finn brothers tribute), Nielson has also been busy writing and playing with Bic Runga, who has now lent her skills to the Opossom project – all while crafting the Opossom sound. Ex-Mint Chicks bassist, Michael Logie (who was also in Runga’s live band) rounds out the lineup. “I showed the record to Bic and Michael,” he explains. “I was already playing music with both of them in Bic’s band. I started taking the songs to them, and we just started rehearsing during sound checks.” With so many different creative outlets and musical pursuits, it’d be easy to assume that Opossom could become Nielson’s sidelined side-project, rather than a fully-fledged focus. Even he seems unsure, at this stage, about how far he would like to take these new songs. “I just want to go with the flow with it,” he says. “I’ve been focusing a little bit more on getting by. It’s more just a chance to do what I want without having to sign off to anyone. I take it seriously, but it’s not as serious as when I am producing or collaborating with other people.”

With Opossom marking the beginning of a new musical era for Nielson, it is hard to ignore that he has taken Logie with him for the ride. Were there any hard feelings at the end of The Mint Chicks? “No, everyone just needed their own space to do their own thing and just chill out,” he says. “We were so busy doing that for about eight years, and everyone was kind of just a bit spent. I think after we finished the last record we knew it was time to have a break. There were no hard feelings though. I’ve been working with Ruban [Nielson, Kody’s brother and ex-Mint Chicks bandmate] lately doing some producing for [his band] Unknown Mortal Orchestra. It’s still all good.”

Lyrically, Nielson wrote the album swiftly, but says he was far more specific in his content than he has been in the past. Still, he adds, he really didn’t know exactly what a lot of the songs were about until after they were recorded. “It’s mostly about drug experiences and falling in love and things like that,” he explains, stumbling a little on his words. “A lot from knowing addicts and, yeah, that. I’m not championing drugs or anything, but it’s hard to avoid knowing people who have been affected by it in a big way. I guess when I was writing about relationships ending, I was writing a lot about what happened at the end of The Mint Chicks as well, and the way I was feeling. It wasn’t all bad or anything; I was actually trying to write really quickly and not think about it too much. It’s only when I look back on it now that I can figure out exactly what everything was about. At the time, I was just getting it done. Now it makes more sense.”

Who: White Arrows, Jinja Safari and Opossom
What: The Blind Date Tour EP is available with every ticket purchase
Where: The Blind Date Tour @ The Metro Theatre (lic. all-ages)
When: Friday August 17

JINJA SAFARI
Poppin’ Fresh
By Benjamin Cooper

It’s the afternoon following Jinja Safari’s appearance on triple j’s ‘Like A Version’ segment, and frontman Marcus Azon is still justifiably pumped. They managed to bust out a killer version of R. Kelly’s ‘Ignition’, and even included a sneaky Kanye West lyrical cameo.

“I feel like nothing patently declares how white we are like dropping both R. Kelly and Kanye on national radio,” Azon laughs down the line. “We didn’t drop the N-bomb, for obvious reasons, and then we managed to bust some sweet rap moves! Both Pepa [Knight] and I are huge fans of rap and consumerism, so it was awesome to throw down some cheeky Yeezy, particularly after our first choice got knocked back.” So what were they hoping to play? “‘The King Of Wishful Thinking’ by Go West. To be honest we actually all hate that song, but we practiced it and I reckon we could have done a brilliant job… They didn’t want us to do Destiny’s Child, either.”

Azon and Knight’s upbringings were a world away from questionable 1980s pop and bootylicious anthems. Through their strict Christian childhoods in Tasmania, the pair were only exposed to “stuff related to religion or religious teachings,” Azon says. “Seriously, when we were kids our mums were against us being around anything that wasn’t Pentecostal Christian music or books.” But he doesn’t take any particular issue with religion now, noting that one benefit of being raised with such an emphasis on respect and kindness is that sometimes it rubs off… “Lately I seem to be constantly visited by Jehovah’s Witnesses, which is fine because I’m a pretty happy guy and I don’t mind hearing them out. But they honestly seem to think I’m this lost little man, purely because I’m being really polite and trying not to be argumentative. I just don’t know how to tell them that this is only slightly different from the teachings in my childhood. ‘Thanks for having a cup of tea, though!’”

There will be little chance for relaxed cuppas on the Sydneysiders’ upcoming Blind Date tour. The merry pop of Jinja Safari will be joined by the spaced-garage rock of LA’s White Arrows and the washed-out summer pop of New Zealand’s Opossom, the relatively new project from ex-Mint Chicks maestro Kody Nielson. “I’m gunna ham this up, but we actually came up with the name for the tour while we were cruising around Malibu in the States with the top down in a convertible. It was pretty bad-ass,” Azon laughs.

“But in all seriousness, we’re really psyched for the tour because we’re all such huge fans of both bands. We’re really excited about going on tour with Kody, and we met the White Arrows guys earlier too. It’s going to be a pretty ridiculous and fun time. Actually, did you know that Opossom’s drummer is Bic Runga, who is Kody’s partner? Weird stuff, hey?”

The tour will certainly involve equal parts chaos and good times, but it will also be approached with consideration by Azon, following some lessons learnt. “A little while back I kind of did that classic thing, where I was trying to hang with the cool dudes … and I had this reflective moment in LA where I realised that wasn’t me. I was acting like a leech around the perimeter of that little world, so I decided to focus up and start writing music. Now, to borrow a phrase from R. Kelly, I’m thuggin’ it out.”

WHITE ARROWS
Taking Aim
By Benjamin Cooper

When not fronting Los Angeles’ rockers White Arrows, Mickey Church could have another career as a ghostbuster. “There are literally proton packs everywhere, man! I really want to try one on…” he says in hushed tones. “They’re probably all just vacuum cleaners, but this janitorial closet I’ve jumped into is stacked with equipment. Any ghosts come along, we are seriously armed here.”

Church issues another warning, this time to those expecting only raucous rock at White Arrows’ upcoming shows: the Californians may be touring off the back of their debut album Dry Land Is Not A Myth, which was released in June, but when they join locals Jinja Safari and New Zealanders Opossom as part of The Blind Date tour, they will quite likely sneak a bit of New Jersey balladry into their setlist, courtesy of Bruce Springsteen. “‘I’m On Fire’ is one of my favourite tracks ever, and we’ve been performing it for a while, so we decided to put it up online too. I don’t really intellectualise performing it, because it’s just a favourite track. It’s got to be an homage, because to approach something that in your eyes is already perfect is only going to make something less perfect. People seem to enjoy it, and recently at one of our shows a member of The E Street Band’s son was there and came up afterwards to say he really got into it. That was cool.”

When The Boss’ influence on our Deputy Prime Minister is mentioned, Church is frank. “I s’pose Bruce is just a dude who speaks for the people, whether they’re politicians or not,” he says. “He’s very relatable yet meaningful in the way he communicates with people. There’s so much in his lyrics, so whatever people feel is fine, as long as there is some relevance and poignancy.”

Church tells me White Arrows are looking forward to the upcoming Australian tour, despite dreading getting on that plane. “It’s a ridiculously long flight,” he protests. “It’s like fourteen hours or some bullshit, right? It doesn’t matter though – we’ve been waiting for this for ages.

“We’ve toured with Kody [Nielson, Opossom] before. We’ve got a lot to catch up with him about,” he continues. “And then the Jinja Safari guys we’ve met before too, but in a bit more of a weird way. We had just played Great Escape festival in Brighton in the UK and were standing around in the hotel lobby. We saw these guys, and both our groups cautiously approached each other, until someone said something about how we looked like musicians. Then we start talking and they say, ‘Wow, you guys are White Arrows? We’ve just suggested having you on tour with us back in Australia… It’d be awesome if it came through!’

“And, in the ways of the weird kindred universe, it did. I’d love to take the credit for this all coming together, but we literally did nothing except turn up.”