ESKIMO JOE Tap Into America
Xpressmag.com.au
Posted on May 23, 2007 02:48 PM



Eskimo Joe perform at Metro City tonight, Thursday, May 24, before gearing up to make their mark on the USA. MIKE WAFER 
threw some questions at Joel Quartermain.

A lot of Perth punters find great joy in how successful Eskimo Joe have become. If not for basic hometown pride, then 
because of the fact that the band are, and always were, really nice guys. They were the little band that got big, which 
makes them the very embodiment of just about everyone in the world’s own rise-to-stardom fantasy.

Joel Quartermain, the band’s second guitarist and studio drummer, handles himself well as an increasingly ‘famous guy’. 
Part of him loves it, as anyone would, and another equally substantial part of him finds it all very amusing. Especially 
the side-effect of popularity that is emulation.

“When cover bands do Black Fingernails… they seem to try and make it really dark,” Quartermain laughs, “which is weird, 
because we never considered it a ‘dark’ song. They’re all like [assumes deep Andrew Eldritch-like voice] 
‘black fingernails, red wine’ (laughs) which is not like us at all. Well, I don’t think it is? So maybe people are hearing 
that like it’s this really dark song. Or maybe it is, and we just haven’t noticed,” he chuckles.

Perhaps it is, to a small degree, but it certainly isn’t the brooding anthem of doom, as performed by ‘Mutto’ on Australian 
Idol.

“Yeah, that guy,” he laughs. “You know what, we wanted to use that on a DVD, like, have the clips to the song, then Mutto’s 
version as a ‘how not to’, so we got in contact with them and it was going to cost us a stupid amount of money. Like, 
heaps. We were like ‘what the fuck… it’s our song!’.”

Indeed it is… and what a song. If From The Sea was the first true cultural connection Eskimo Joe made with Australia at 
large, then Black Fingernails… is unquestionably the first instance of the band as true rock stars. There’s no more 
‘Eskimo Joe? Yeah, I’ve heard of them’. There’s not a soul in Australia who couldn’t recognise the sound of Kav Temperly’s 
voice, or indeed the definitive tones of the Black Fingernails album.

Joel is proud of this in the way anyone who has worked for a decade to achieve it would be. “You know, we’ve been doing 
this for 10 years, and we’ve only just had our first holiday, and it wasn’t long ago we were able to give ourselves a 
salary,” he says. “It’s so hard to live off your music in Australia, and almost no one can do it. Even when you can, it’s 
not like you’re a millionaire who can sit back for nine months and do nothing. You have to keep working almost non-stop.”

So if Australia doesn’t have the most sustainable market for working musicians, then where does? The most obvious answer 
is, of course, the United States, which is where Eskimo Joe are headed next. Rather than live with his head up his arse, 
Joel Quartermain sees this as being an opportunity that is going to need some seriously hard work, rather than a golden 
ticket.

“You’re starting from the bottom again,” he says, somewhat excited by the prospect of again being the underdog. “However 
big you are in Australia doesn’t mean shit over there. Nobody owes you anything. And that’s good, I think, because it 
sets out a challenge, and keeps you thinking ahead. It gives you something to strive for.

“We’re going to go over there and play it by ear a lot,” he continues. “We’ve got a lot of stuff planned out, of course, 
but you can’t tell for sure which way things will go, so you have to be able to work with what’s going on around you. 
It’s a really expensive thing to do, so we’re basically going to go over there and work it as hard as we can until we 
run out of money.”

And, at the end of the day, even if Eskimo Joe don’t break the States on their first attempt, the experience alone would 
be one of the best of their lives.

“Exactly,” beams Quartermain. “Who wouldn’t take that opportunity even if it wasn’t the right ‘career’ move? It will be 
so much fun just to do it.”

Kicking off their US campaign with Black Fingernails… Eskimo Joe are pushing a progressive angle, rather than trying to 
buy themselves time with their back catalogue. At the time of this interview, the band’s plan was not to release A Song
 Is A City in the States, but push the new album, and then the next one, when it arrives.

“We don’t see any point in going backwards,” he says. “We’re in the middle of this album [Black Fingernails…] so it’s 
where our heads are at. There’s no point in working from further back, because we’ll have a new record to promote before 
too long.”

And what an anticipated record it will be by the time it’s released. Following up the band’s recent successes won’t be as 
hard for Eskimo Joe as it would be for many bands their stature, as (like Joel said) it’s not as is this was their first 
record, released after being together a few months. It is the end result of a decade of writing, playing, releasing music, 
and going hungry.

It is, unquestionably, a just reward.