Eskimo Joe: Wake Up Call 2001 Reuben Acciano Eskimo Joe are in the eye of the storm. Despite the release of current single ‘Wake Up’ to radio last month, the Perth trio are in that beautiful quite space just before the publicity/promotional/touring whirlwind that will kick back in again pretty soon. You see, expectations are high for the Joes to kick a goal with their full length debut LP Girl, what with their undeniable track record thus far: 1997 National Campus Band champs, JJJ success with both their Sweater and (eponymous) EPs, plus a string of typically infectious and entertaining appearances at the majority of large festivals in this country. It’s a heck of a lot of expectation (fan/record company/self) to live up to, but from talking to drummer and resident Eskimo Joe pin-up Joel Quartermain, it would seem the laid-back Fremantle boys are dealing with the situation with their usual – some might say disarming – self-confidence. “None of the waiting is bothering us (the album was recorded in Sept-Oct 2000) because the record company need time to do their thing too. They’re releasing two singles off the album before the album comes out- that’s what they do with young, up-and-coming bands,” he laughs. “Anyway, we’re back on the road again now, so time’s just flying by.” Up and coming may well be how the Joes are perceived in the wider scheme of things, but it should come as no surprise to local fans that the Eskimo Joe boys have been performing collectively, for the best part of six years – not as Eskimo Joe per se, but the experience is definitely there. And it is an experience and sensibility borne out in the way the lads conducted themselves during their protracted – and often surreally superficial – process of ‘getting signed’. One way this is reflected – and publishing companies with good cash flow take note – is in the fact that Eskimo Joe, despite consistent singles success over the past three years, has not yet inked a publishing deal. “We still hold all our publishing. It’s one of the few ways an Australian band can make some decent money. We’d like to wait ‘til the album comes out, and then once it gets shopped overseas and all that stuff, then I’d like to talk to publishing companies. It’s more to do with Renee, our manager. Pav (Modular label head) obviously has long-term plans for this band, but it’s really Renee that’s helped us out with that. She was managing this other band at the Campus Bands comp in Brisbane, and she just sort of said hello to us there and we kept in touch, and it just sort of went from there. She’s the one who ignited THAT bidding war. We had a lot of free meals that week (laughs). Like, breakfast, lunch and dinner for a whole week. We put on heaps of weight just before we came back. But that’s the thing, that’s why we signed to Modular. I mean, they took us out as much as the next guys but Pav was a lot cooler, he wasn’t brown nosing or anything. He just doesn’t put on that whole A&R pimping act, y’know?” Business acumen and pop nous in the one act? Rock stars certainly aren’t what they used to be. But the Eskimo lads haven’t had it all their way – the quirky, comedy inflected punk three-piece have drawn ‘confusing’ (Joel’s word) comparisons to another similarly numbered and focussed chart juggernaut, Blink 182. It’s been the course of some frustration for Eskimo, who seem to always have had a problem reconciling their genuine love and serious affection (not to mention formidable skill) with the whole rock song writing shtick with their equally present penchant for often endearing, occasionally puerile lyrical humour and onstage antics. Make no mistake; this is a band that mines reverent inspiration from the back catalogues of The Beatles and The Pixies over any flash-in-the-pan punk-lite sensation. And in an effort to redress the current ‘joke band’ tag that some in the music have unfeelingly lumbered them with, Joel promises Girl will surprise (and almost certainly disappoint) some so-called Eskimo fans, while attracting a range of new ones. The three core members of Eskimo are all accomplished song writers and multi-instrumentalists and have been for years – a fact possibly lost on many who have only ever experienced the band as a live three-piece. “The album is quite different. The record company were pretty…kind of shocked. The first two singles…they’re the only rock songs on the whole album, really. The rest is all, like, acoustics and piano and stuff. I actually played a lot of guitar on this album, and keyboards and things too. There’s heaps of stuff going on it. We’ve also got the whole chemistry of the writing thing down between the three of us now. The way we write now is just completely different to the way we used to. Doing the studio thing is where it’s at, for me, and for all of us, I think. I mean, playing drums can get pretty boring (laughs). But playing drums live is cool, it’s just different, like, I almost never set up my drums when I’m at home.” The studio was always going to be a bright new toy for these perpetually inquisitive and inventive musicians to exploit, fuelled doubtlessly by the presence of notable UK producer Ed Bueller (Suede, Alex Lloyd, Ben Lee, the Superjesus). “Um…he’s a PMO, so he whinges a lot,” he laughs. “Um…I think the main value that we got out of Ed was in pre-production – we did two weeks of pre-production and we had like 25 songs and bits of songs and unfinished songs and stuff. And he was very good with song structures and he’s got really good pop sensibilities. Ed was really into chopping and changing. And he actually made us write songs in the studio. We wrote two in the studio and they’re both gonna be singles. He was just pushing us, pushing us really hard. That side of his production was great.” All of which has necessitated the growth of the Joe: to recreate all the various sounds on the album, and to expand beyond the traditional power-trio line-up a fourth Joe was suddenly required. Enter Fergus. “Well, he lives with me, so we’re really good friends anyway. But he was with us for about a year or so, like, guitar-teaching and stuff. Then we decided…when we wrote the album we knew there was going to be heaps of touring and stuff and when we got back from recording it, we just started rehearsing it with Fergus because it was convenient and stuff and it just sort of worked. He’s a bit of a shredder. It was just easy.” The new live dynamic has already proven more than effective, going down a treat with audiences. As has the new material. Any scepticism about the stylistic volte-face (to avoid brainless critical labelling) perhaps making the Eskimo boys lose some of the charm that made them popular in the first place is premature and unfounded – ‘Wake Up’ is the band’s most satisfying work yet, and augurs well for Girl, if in fact the single is any portent of the album’s contents. The video is a corker, featuring the extended Eskimo family cavorting through a series of social/daily vignettes while wearing super-sized masks. The cool part is, unless you’re well-familiar with the boys themselves, it’s actually hard to guess who the band members are. Perhaps an indicator that the larger-than-life personalities involved in the whole Eskimo circus will be reeled in a bit, with the music – and only the music – doing the talking from now on? “Who knows? We didn’t do it with any huge, grand purpose or anything. We just did it at home and it was lots of fun. For us, it’s kind of been a long, long process. The next tour is going to be the big album tour. So this is kind of a good way to kick it all off. I think the album is really going to surprise a lot of people. But we’re very happy with how things are going. Everything we’ve wanted to happen has happened. It’s pretty sweet.”