OMEN
06-04-2006, 10:31 AM
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Moving right along ... Wolfmother
FOR all that Wolfmother are an exciting new band, there's something decidedly old school about the Sydney trio. Not only does their music have a late 1960s-early '70s flavour but, as with many bands from that era, they built their reputation on live performances before signing a recording contract.
Eighteen months ago Wolfmother were playing Sydney pubs (albeit packing them out). Tonight they will be in Los Angeles recording for MTV and tomorrow they will perform a sold-out show at New York's 1400-capacity Webster Hall. They will also be guests on The Late Show with David Letterman.
Their rapid rise internationally since releasing their self-titled debut album last October is the latest 21st-century success story for Australian rock, a wave that began with the arrival of another Sydney outfit, the Vines, on the world stage four years ago.
"I do think the Vines opened doors and I think people forget that," the Vines' co-manager Andy Kelly says. "That's because they came out with such a fantastic set of demos and were really exciting when people first saw them. Aside from maybe Tim Rogers [of You Am I] or Tex Perkins, I don't think we'd seen a frontman [the Vines' Craig Nicholls] who was quite that exciting."
Wolfmother's manager John Watson, who also looks after Silverchair and Missy Higgins, says there is "no secret formula to Wolfmother's success. They're a great band with great songs and a strong identity that really connects with lots of people right now. They're also working incredibly hard to get their music heard and so are all the people around them. It's as simple, and as rare, as that."
Wolfmother are far from being the only Aussies selling their wares in the US. Melbourne rockers Jet, our most successful new rock export of the noughties, are in Los Angeles completing the follow-up to their multi-platinum debut album Get Born (3.5million copies sold worldwide). Silverchair (six million albums sold worldwide) are in the same city working on their comeback album, due for release in November. Perth band Little Birdy are in LA recording their second album.
Add to that list the recently released and critically welcomed albums from the Grates, the Vines, You Am I and Augie March, plus this month's much-anticipated offerings from Western Australia's the Sleepy Jackson and Eskimo Joe, and 2006 looks like being one of the most exciting, productive and landmark years for Oz rock since INXS, Midnight Oil and (adopted Aussies) Crowded House were plying their trade internationally in the '80s.
Just why this should be so is hard to pin down. It's a happy coincidence that some of our best bands should be releasing albums within months of each other. The huge demand for Oz rock may also have something to do with the global village, where music and information is much more readily available by means of the internet.
What's undeniable, however, is that Australia is enjoying a peak as a producer of high-quality rock.
"Guitar music has become so fashionable now that it goes beyond people that like music," Kelly says.
"It has become part of their lifestyle, like having a mobile phone. I liken it to the rise of dance club culture in the '90s ... when it becomes so fashionable that it has to extend beyond the people who just love music."
Following the "new rock" that came from the US in the form of the Strokes and the White Stripes, its Aussie equivalent has regenerated interest in local rock'n'roll.
However, there are some significant differences in the way local bands operate today compared with how they did things in the '70s and '80s. Back then most bands felt compelled to move overseas - to London, New York or Los Angeles - if they were to have any chance of an international career.
Similarly, groups that were not based in Sydney or Melbourne generally moved there to raise their domestic profile.
Nowadays - again partly because of modern communications technology - there isn't the same need to be overseas or in the big city all the time.
Jet, the Vines, most of Silverchair, Wolfmother, John Butler and many others who are doing well in other territories are Australia-based. Eskimo Joe's singer Kav Temperley, who lives in Fremantle, will be travelling to the US and Europe with the band next month. He says it's crucial for longevity that they at least try to extend their fan base overseas.
"You can't just expect the same people to keep buying your records in numbers at home," he says. "There's nothing wrong with being ambitious."
Temperley adds that an indie mentality in Perth and beyond at the end of the '90s has blossomed into a new confidence among Australian acts. This is particularly true of many West Australian bands that have emerged in recent years.
"All the bands that have come along since 2000 don't just assume that they are going to sell 500 CDs at the local pub to their friends. They go out there thinking that they are going to take on the world in a realistic way," he says.
"I don't think anyone knew how that was going to come about. When we started, no bands were getting played on the radio out of Perth. Now bands have a very broad view of what they can go out and do.
"They have the foundation of the indie rock thing, but they can go out and be totally individual and they can go out and write a stadium-rock record if they want to."
Time will tell whether Eskimo Joe, whose new self-produced album, Black Fingernails Red Wine, has a decidedly '80s stadium-rock feel, will fill those stadiums.
Despite the success of Aussie bands, it's hard to imagine anyone matching INXS's global appeal. If anyone is to do it, however, it's the managers who will be earning the air miles more than the artists to make it happen. Kelly's company Winterman and Goldstein, which manages the Vines, Jet, the Sleepy Jackson and Youth Group, has offices in Sydney, Los Angeles and London, something that has helped maintain the profiles of their charges even when the groups are off the road.
Speaking from Los Angeles, where he has been checking on Jet's progress with their album, Kelly says it is important that he and his colleagues have a constant presence overseas. It was this view that helped the Vines establish a foothold in Britain and the US before they made it in Australia.
Kelly says that as managers they "didn't have a clue what we were doing", but their hunch about concentrating heavily on overseas has paid off.
"We're a lot more knowledgeable now about what we're doing and about how markets work," he says. "It's so easy for people to forget who you are or the band if you are on the other side of the world, so we made a conscious effort to set up offices in the US and the UK and we were lucky, because there are three of us, that we were able to do that.
"I don't think you can expect to have success in different territories unless the management is there."
Of course, it's not as if Australian rock is a new phenomenon overseas. Since the early '70s a wide range of Aussie acts have enjoyed some kind of success. In the pop world there's Olivia Newton-John, Air Supply, Savage Garden and Kylie Minogue, to name the biggest earners. In rock AC/DC, Men at Work, INXS, Little River Band, Crowded House and to a lesser extent Midnight Oil and Nick Cave - among many others - have earned international reputations.
Watson, overseeing Wolfmother's progress in the US, says the American view of Australian talent has always been twofold.
"Traditionally Australia has been viewed in the US as a great source of two kinds of music with broad appeal: intense rock (AC/DC, Midnight Oil, Silverchair, Jet) and pure pop (Air Supply, Olivia Newton-John, Savage Garden, Kylie).
"For some reason, nearly all of our big musical success stories in America over the past 40 years fall into one of those two categories. There's probably a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy thing about it these days but, whatever the reasons, there's definitely a widespread perception that Australian musicians do those two things particularly well."
Perhaps in that light the next few years could be rewarding for the likes of Higgins, Delta Goodrem and Pete Murray. As for Aussie rock'n'roll, the time is now and it's not just us: a lot of people seem to like it.
TheAustralian
Moving right along ... Wolfmother
FOR all that Wolfmother are an exciting new band, there's something decidedly old school about the Sydney trio. Not only does their music have a late 1960s-early '70s flavour but, as with many bands from that era, they built their reputation on live performances before signing a recording contract.
Eighteen months ago Wolfmother were playing Sydney pubs (albeit packing them out). Tonight they will be in Los Angeles recording for MTV and tomorrow they will perform a sold-out show at New York's 1400-capacity Webster Hall. They will also be guests on The Late Show with David Letterman.
Their rapid rise internationally since releasing their self-titled debut album last October is the latest 21st-century success story for Australian rock, a wave that began with the arrival of another Sydney outfit, the Vines, on the world stage four years ago.
"I do think the Vines opened doors and I think people forget that," the Vines' co-manager Andy Kelly says. "That's because they came out with such a fantastic set of demos and were really exciting when people first saw them. Aside from maybe Tim Rogers [of You Am I] or Tex Perkins, I don't think we'd seen a frontman [the Vines' Craig Nicholls] who was quite that exciting."
Wolfmother's manager John Watson, who also looks after Silverchair and Missy Higgins, says there is "no secret formula to Wolfmother's success. They're a great band with great songs and a strong identity that really connects with lots of people right now. They're also working incredibly hard to get their music heard and so are all the people around them. It's as simple, and as rare, as that."
Wolfmother are far from being the only Aussies selling their wares in the US. Melbourne rockers Jet, our most successful new rock export of the noughties, are in Los Angeles completing the follow-up to their multi-platinum debut album Get Born (3.5million copies sold worldwide). Silverchair (six million albums sold worldwide) are in the same city working on their comeback album, due for release in November. Perth band Little Birdy are in LA recording their second album.
Add to that list the recently released and critically welcomed albums from the Grates, the Vines, You Am I and Augie March, plus this month's much-anticipated offerings from Western Australia's the Sleepy Jackson and Eskimo Joe, and 2006 looks like being one of the most exciting, productive and landmark years for Oz rock since INXS, Midnight Oil and (adopted Aussies) Crowded House were plying their trade internationally in the '80s.
Just why this should be so is hard to pin down. It's a happy coincidence that some of our best bands should be releasing albums within months of each other. The huge demand for Oz rock may also have something to do with the global village, where music and information is much more readily available by means of the internet.
What's undeniable, however, is that Australia is enjoying a peak as a producer of high-quality rock.
"Guitar music has become so fashionable now that it goes beyond people that like music," Kelly says.
"It has become part of their lifestyle, like having a mobile phone. I liken it to the rise of dance club culture in the '90s ... when it becomes so fashionable that it has to extend beyond the people who just love music."
Following the "new rock" that came from the US in the form of the Strokes and the White Stripes, its Aussie equivalent has regenerated interest in local rock'n'roll.
However, there are some significant differences in the way local bands operate today compared with how they did things in the '70s and '80s. Back then most bands felt compelled to move overseas - to London, New York or Los Angeles - if they were to have any chance of an international career.
Similarly, groups that were not based in Sydney or Melbourne generally moved there to raise their domestic profile.
Nowadays - again partly because of modern communications technology - there isn't the same need to be overseas or in the big city all the time.
Jet, the Vines, most of Silverchair, Wolfmother, John Butler and many others who are doing well in other territories are Australia-based. Eskimo Joe's singer Kav Temperley, who lives in Fremantle, will be travelling to the US and Europe with the band next month. He says it's crucial for longevity that they at least try to extend their fan base overseas.
"You can't just expect the same people to keep buying your records in numbers at home," he says. "There's nothing wrong with being ambitious."
Temperley adds that an indie mentality in Perth and beyond at the end of the '90s has blossomed into a new confidence among Australian acts. This is particularly true of many West Australian bands that have emerged in recent years.
"All the bands that have come along since 2000 don't just assume that they are going to sell 500 CDs at the local pub to their friends. They go out there thinking that they are going to take on the world in a realistic way," he says.
"I don't think anyone knew how that was going to come about. When we started, no bands were getting played on the radio out of Perth. Now bands have a very broad view of what they can go out and do.
"They have the foundation of the indie rock thing, but they can go out and be totally individual and they can go out and write a stadium-rock record if they want to."
Time will tell whether Eskimo Joe, whose new self-produced album, Black Fingernails Red Wine, has a decidedly '80s stadium-rock feel, will fill those stadiums.
Despite the success of Aussie bands, it's hard to imagine anyone matching INXS's global appeal. If anyone is to do it, however, it's the managers who will be earning the air miles more than the artists to make it happen. Kelly's company Winterman and Goldstein, which manages the Vines, Jet, the Sleepy Jackson and Youth Group, has offices in Sydney, Los Angeles and London, something that has helped maintain the profiles of their charges even when the groups are off the road.
Speaking from Los Angeles, where he has been checking on Jet's progress with their album, Kelly says it is important that he and his colleagues have a constant presence overseas. It was this view that helped the Vines establish a foothold in Britain and the US before they made it in Australia.
Kelly says that as managers they "didn't have a clue what we were doing", but their hunch about concentrating heavily on overseas has paid off.
"We're a lot more knowledgeable now about what we're doing and about how markets work," he says. "It's so easy for people to forget who you are or the band if you are on the other side of the world, so we made a conscious effort to set up offices in the US and the UK and we were lucky, because there are three of us, that we were able to do that.
"I don't think you can expect to have success in different territories unless the management is there."
Of course, it's not as if Australian rock is a new phenomenon overseas. Since the early '70s a wide range of Aussie acts have enjoyed some kind of success. In the pop world there's Olivia Newton-John, Air Supply, Savage Garden and Kylie Minogue, to name the biggest earners. In rock AC/DC, Men at Work, INXS, Little River Band, Crowded House and to a lesser extent Midnight Oil and Nick Cave - among many others - have earned international reputations.
Watson, overseeing Wolfmother's progress in the US, says the American view of Australian talent has always been twofold.
"Traditionally Australia has been viewed in the US as a great source of two kinds of music with broad appeal: intense rock (AC/DC, Midnight Oil, Silverchair, Jet) and pure pop (Air Supply, Olivia Newton-John, Savage Garden, Kylie).
"For some reason, nearly all of our big musical success stories in America over the past 40 years fall into one of those two categories. There's probably a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy thing about it these days but, whatever the reasons, there's definitely a widespread perception that Australian musicians do those two things particularly well."
Perhaps in that light the next few years could be rewarding for the likes of Higgins, Delta Goodrem and Pete Murray. As for Aussie rock'n'roll, the time is now and it's not just us: a lot of people seem to like it.
TheAustralian