Icy Cool Eskies Sunday Times 09.05.04 Jay Hanna Having learnt to weather the rock ‘n’ roll storms, Eskimo Joe are playing it cool about their hot new album. Arriving fashionably late and looking calm and relaxed, singer and bassist Kav Temperley and guitarist Joel Quartermain and Stu MacLeod are quietly confident that their CD ‘A Song Is a City’ , will be worth the three-year wait since their first album ‘Girl’. For the Perth trio, who are in their mid-20s, it’s been a wild ride since their debut in 1997 at the National Campus Bands Competition. At the time Joel and Kav were playing in Freud’s Pillow while Kav wrote songs with his pal Stu MacLeod. “Freud’s Pillow had come second the year before, so we wanted to win and settle the score,” Joel says “It was all very cold and calculated.” And they did. According to Joel, the gig was more like Kav and Stu’s comedy hour. Still, it worked. “We were laughing all the way home after we won Campus Bands because we weren’t even a band,” he says. After the local triumph, the trio headed interstate to battle the best young bands from around the country. Having already witnessed the near impossible, Perth fans were less shocked and more overjoyed when the local lads romped home to win the national title. Still together and growing a strong national reputation, the youthful exuberance has transformed to quiet confidence. Or maybe it’s the hangovers they’re nursing. “I left my exuberance in all the beer I drank last night,” Stu says with his trademark wit. Joel on the other hand is in a surprisingly good mood, despite running out of petrol on the freeway on his way to our meeting. “We are really excited about the album but we are too cool to show it now,” he explains. “We used to get so excited but we were wide eyed and cheeky back then and now we know how it works.” “We’ve learnt not to get too excited about things because invariably they will go wrong,” Stu adds. “Or at least they won’t go according to plan.” Their reservations are warranted. Despite ‘Girl’ receiving critical and public acclaim, the album never reached the sales highs many expected. However, rather than buckling under second album pressures, the band have refined and defined their sound. This time around they are more comfortable with the direction their music is taking. “When you go into the studio you never know if the vibe will be right but it was definitely there this time,” Kav says. “The new album is the most hones thing we have done to date and as a consequence it is really enjoyable to play.” That honestly permeates through the punchy rhythm section, atmospheric strings, layered guitars and Kav’s extraordinary soulful vocals. ‘A Song Is a City’ is the album that finally realises Eskimo Joe’s full potential. The first album was about setting the boundaries as wide as we could, so then with out later albums we could go in any direction we wanted,” Joel says. Drawing inspiration from the likes of Wilco, PJ Harvey and David Bowie, as well as The Beatles and Police, the new album blends infectious pop melodies with a murkier rock and deeper, emotive themes. “The new album focuses more on the other side of relationships. The dark side. It’s the break up album, basically,” Kav says. The teaser single, ‘From the Sea’, may have shocked many with its darker, broodier theme and atmospheric rock vibe, but that is exactly what the band wanted. “ ‘From the Sea’ was the unanimous choice because we all thought it was quite indicative of the rest of the album and of the direction our music was taking,” Stu says. “It is quite dark and mysterious as well so people are getting curious about what is to come,” Kav adds. As the main lyric writer, Kav says he looks for inspiration everywhere and he certainly has plenty of experiences to choose from. Brought up as a Sunyassen, he spent a good part of his early years overseas developing a sense of worldly wisdom which belies his 26 years. In many ways he mapped his own future when, at the age of seven, he decided to change his name to Kavyen, meaning truth poet. He says his past and his relationships with family, friends, lovers and his home town of Fremantle all contribute to his sometimes optimistic, sometimes melancholy and, more often than not, romantic lyrics. “For me, Fremantle is a very important place. It is a large part pf what I love about life and being alive,” he says. “I find it very grounding living in Fremantle and it is always good to come home.” This time around the band will be touring as a five-piece after varying and expanding its line-up. In the new-look band, Joel has swapped his drumsticks for a guitar – an instrument he’s far more at home with. “I only started playing drums when Eskimo Joe started,” he says. “Up until then I played guitar and keyboards. The only drumming experience I had was air-drumming.” The band have also brought in keyboardist Dan Bull and drummer Paul Keenan to help fill out the on-stage sound. “The group we have got together is a really good mix of personalities,” Kav says. “They’re not just faceless session musos, they are friends, so that made things easier.” With a hectic touring schedule already well underway, the pressure is on the newcomers, but luckily Dr Kav us on hand with some touring tips. “Touring is great fun, but it can be really fatiguing as well,” he says. “You have to learn techniques to look after yourself and be aware of when your body is going down. People like Mick Jagger are still around because they jog everyday and are incredibly fit and healthy. So what about the beer the band devoured last night? Silence. Avoiding incrimination, Kav returns to his touring tips, the theme this time: relationships and touring. “It is hard to have a girlfriend when you are on the road,” he says. “Stu’s doing all right, but Joel and I are single. I must admit I am looking forward to being on the road and being completely present in heart and mind and body and not thinking about someone at home. It will be quite refreshing but if it trails on too long, we might have to get ourselves some trophy wives.” Like Jerry Hall? “No, not quite,” Kav says with a laugh. “I think we will start with B-grade and work our way up to the A-list. We have thought long and hard about this – like we said, we are cold and calculating.” “Well, we are Eskimos,” Joel adds.