ESKIMO JOE - The Red Wine Connection
Posted on June 7, 2006 

Eskimo Joe release their third album, Black Fingernails Red Wine, on Saturday, June 10. BOB GORDON reports.

There's these four words coming out of your radio speakers. All the time. They're colourful and oddly evocative, 'Black 
fingernails… red wine'. The visual evoked by the four words is rather striking, but the origins of the single that has 
lent its title to Eskimo Joe's third album are quite humble.

"In all honesty I was playing a solo show and I went to take a wee," laughs Eskimo Joe's vocalist/bassist Kav Temperley. 
"That's where my best ideas come from, because I'm totally stuck in that one moment in time and can't run away and write 
it down.

"So, I'd painted my fingernails black and was drinking red wine, I went for a wee and was just humming along in my head, 
all tipsy, (sings, in a more rock fashion) 'black fingernails… red wine… I wanna make you… all mine' (laughs). Then the 
next day I sat down and got serious about it and wrote a proper song."

And continued to do so, it would seem, as the Black Fingernails Red Wine album is the band's most cohesive yet, even if 
it does tread on darker ground. It seems a simple aim to get 12 songs to sound as though they come from the same album, 
it's just that it's a harder thing to achieve.

"That's something we're quite proud of this time around because we're shockers for being overly influenced by everything 
around us," Temperley offers. "Maybe that's just what happens when you do your first and second record, you overly want 
to show everyone you were influenced by this, this, this and this. Whereas this time around we'd done that, so we felt 
more comfortable picking a bunch of songs that were on the same line. Maybe we're just getting better at writing a bunch 
of songs that fit into a theme.

"But that is one of the things I'm most proud of, you could play any track and know what album it comes from. Even on A 
Song Is A City (the band's platinum selling 2004 LP) you could have a song like Life Is Better With You next to From The 
Sea. They were both lovely songs, but they didn't somehow sound like they were from the same record, it all sounded like 
it was feeling itself a little bit still. We were still finding our feet… maybe we're just continuously finding our feet."

A fair bit has been made so far of the band's new stadium rock sound and Temperley's rock star role-playing along the way 
to attaining it. Even so, a band on that track would normally do so in a more overt, rousing chorus kind of way. If there's 
a theory at large it seems they may have acted in spite of it.

"I guess that was the whole kind of point," Temperley considers. "I have been on record a lot about this album going 'yes, 
we wanted to make this a stadium rock star record and put up smoke and mirrors' and it does completely go against the idea 
of putting up smoke and mirrors. I don't know if that's me having that Australian cringe factor and being like 'is it okay 
guys, if we be a stadium rock band?', but it is kind of fun sabotaging yourself. If anyone should sabotage yourself it 
should be you (laughs).

"At the end of the day, it's fun to come up with concept albums, but where I come from, personally, is that I just 
'cathart' whatever's going on for me and try make it not too overly self indulgent, so that I'm not just talking about 
my problems. Really, that's what all the Eskimo Joe albums have come from so far. This one has too, but this time around 
it's more stories about myself, Joel (Quartermain) and Stu (MacLeod). They're not so much about me and my relationship 
issues."

Which, frankly, probably comes as a great relief for Temperley's loved ones. The new album seems to pit the protagonist 
in each song in the context of a larger world rather than a smaller space, more scenario than circumstance.

"Or scenarios placed against the backdrop of circumstance," Temperley counters. "A song like London Bombs is personal, 
but it's set against a much more political, worldly backdrop. I'm not actually talking about the London bombs, but the 
distraction at that particular moment in time.

"Stuff like Black Fingernails Red Wine is a song about religion and the absurdity of it all. At the same time it's not 
really about religion, it's about a particular night I went to the Rosemount Hotel and was thinking about this whole 
metaphor between these little sub-cultures and how similar they are to the worlds of politics and religion. So they're 
normal, personal stories, but set to a backdrop.

"We were travelling when I was experiencing a lot of these things, as opposed to the last two records which were written 
solely as me hanging out, experiencing my life in Fremantle. It's a bit more looking back at Fremantle as opposed to 
looking out from it."

Once the album is released nationally on Saturday, Eskimo Joe will dutifully head to the music-biz capitals of Los Angeles, 
New York and London. They've tasted disappointment in these places before, but this time around it's more of an "organised 
assault," somewhat backed up by the band's own ability, wait for it, not to take everything so seriously.

"We're confident in our abilities," Temperley says, "but we don't get so worked up about things anymore. We're happy to 
go along for the journey a bit more now. I think it comes from the fact that the three of us are very close and enjoy 
each other's company still. If that wasn't there we'd probably hate the journey (laughs), but we don't. We have a great
time and we're all very aware of each other's idiosyncracies."

Even so, are you ready to rock the stadium arcadium?

"As far as the whole stadium rock thing goes… I mean, the title of the album is Black Fingernails Red Wine, it's a bit 
silly. And I like that in some ways because the more we go down that line and the more serious and dark our songs get 
and the whole thing of posturing rock star-ness, I mean there's got to be a little bit of fun there too.

"Everyone will probably laugh at me for saying this but I reckon this is the closest thing we've made to a party album," 
he concludes. "It's a straight out rock'n'roll record."

Eskimo Joe's national tour starts on July 27 and winds up in Perth on September 7 at Club Capitol and September 8 at 
Metropolis Fremantle.
Posted on June 7, 2006 06:33 PM