Idols, Footy and Junk: The Gin Club

The Gin Club have a reputation of being one of the hardest working bands in Australia. A look at the touring schedule indicates as much. Consisting of a group of songwriting troubadours, they find themselves in the graduating class of bands that have been firmly schooled in the entrepreneurial discipline of carving out strong fan base all over the country with consistent touring. And now, as they’re about to release their fifth album, it seems The Gin Club are in the business of creating the best music they can possibly make, as Ben Salter told The Dwarf’s Chris Wood.

Although it can be hard to co-ordinate a band that doesn’t all live in the same state, this appears to be the only trouble they experience. From the confines of a modest Brisbane pub at a songwriter’s night, The Gin Club is now ready for the next step of the journey.

Is being on the road the most exciting part of being in band for you?

I guess I probably enjoy being in the studio a little more. But they’re just different facets. Sometimes being on the road can just be a drag, and I guess being in the studio can be a drag too. But I suppose just having something new out to play and performing new songs; I guess that is the most exciting part.

Is that across the board?

Oh yeah. You’ve been workshopping stuff, and you’re not sure whether people are going to like it. That’s the hardest thing to gauge. You really just want to see what people think.

How do you see the Australian music scene?

I think the main thing that has changed is the whole Australian Idol thing. Already when I was playing, it was the death of live music scene. It was hard to get people to your shows, but people were still buying albums. Nowadays, no-one really buys albums anymore. And you really have to make your money, one way or another, playing live. There are more and more festivals now, which is great because it gives you more opportunities to earn a decent wage.

The whole Australian Idol thing has created this attitude of record companies channeling their money that way. It just kind of stinks a bit. I shouldn’t be so cynical. But it tells people you can leap-frog your way to the top without doing all the stuff which we think is important, which is touring around and paying your dues. The culture I come from that’s a really important part of being in a band. Having to play live doesn’t bother me, but the whole downloading thing bothers me. They reckon eighty percent of downloads are illegal. If one eighth of those people paid for it instead, bands would be making a lot more money…or at least some money money.

Is this the kind of thinking that prompts bands like The Gin Club to get out on the road and tour a lot more and build a fan base the ‘old fashioned way’?

Yeah, absolutely. You kind of have to. People want a unique experience. They want something that not everyone else has. And you can only really get that from a live performance. I guess that’s what we try and do. And what a lot of other bands try and do is just build up a rapport with fans and hope that they keep coming back.

Now you’ve just started a fan club?

Yeah, we’re trying to promote it heaps that has a newsletter that we send out to people. And you get a membership card, and a C.D and you pay a membership fee. Like an old-fashioned thing. Anyone can have a MySpace or Facebook. To actually have a proper fan club where you get something in the mail is really special. We’ve sent out the first one already. It’s called the Gin Club Club (GCC). If you go to the website, there’ll be some link to it.

Great name…

We’ve also got the GCC RAD…The Gin Club Club Regional Agitators Division. It’s basically our street team. We didn’t really want to call it a street team because that’s a bit boring.

Does the Gin Club find it difficult for the individuals of the band to leave their creative mark?

No, because everyone writes songs. Even Bridgette who didn’t write songs to start with has written a few. It’s one of the reasons we came together in the first place. Because I was running this open-mic night and I was encouraging everyone to write their own songs. Now a whole band has come of it. But there’s no difficultly with the creative aspect of the band. Everyone is really good mates. There are no issues with egos. The only problems come logistically with two people living in Melbourne. Also, the fact that there are seven people in the band makes it a little tricky. But it’s worth it in the end when you roll into town and there’s seven of you. It’s like having your own gang.

Did having all that songwriting potential inspire the double-album?

Well, that’s kind of why we did it. We only have to write two songs each and there’s fourteen right there. We had this massive backlog of songs for Junk. It wasn’t as though we said, “Let’s try and write as many as we can”. Those songs were already there. It was really just a matter of doing them all. This time around we’ve just limited it to the number that we have. We demoed thirty songs for this album so we’ve definitely got a whole bunch up our sleeves. But we thought we’ll polish about sixteen of them and pick the best twelve to put on the album.

Where are you at with the current album?

Before Ola [Karlsson, various instruments] had to go back to Sweden last winter we went up to my sisters cattle property just outside Rockhampton where we did Junk. We just kind of stayed up there for ten days and have a fire going. We set up a studio in one of the workers cottage and just record songs all day. We weren’t sure whether they’d be demos or what, but we came away with so much good material. All the songs in place for the album, some of them might need to be recorded and worked on a little bit more before its released next year. But we pretty much know which ones are going to be on it. It’s nearly there.

What can we expect from the album and the tour?

We’ll have a seven-piece band for pretty much the whole tour which is great. With the album, the stuff on Junk that was kind of pop-rock is even more so this time around. We’ve been trying to write some stuff like Tom Petty and Split Enz and that kind of stuff. The rock songs are even more rock. The folk songs are even more folky. There a really great one of Ola’s with just banjo. You can hear the birds in the background while we were recording it. It’s pretty much the same stuff on Junk, just a little more condensed.

Would you say that you’re trying to broaden your sound? Are you going in a new direction at all?

Not so much a new direction. With Junk we kind of went every single direction you can imagine. For us it’s a pretty broad pallet that we work with. We’re not about to do a metal song or anything, but we kind of do everything from straight country to pretty heavy psychedelic a rock stuff. Dan Mansfield started writing a few songs as well. He’s got one on the new album. I guess we are expanding.

Everything is becoming a bit more extreme in which ever direction we’re going in. I definitely think we’re maturing as songwriter. You’d hope that we were. But I think this is one of the strongest bunches of songs we’ve had. But I think that about all of the albums. I suppose that’s why we release them…[Laughs]

This album marks the comeback of Ola, who has been labeled as the multi-insturmentalist of the band. Is this the equivalent of being known as the weird one of Devo?

I guess it’s a bit of a silly tag in our band. We all swap around quite a bit. Unfortunately we won’t have Ola for the tour because he had to go back after we recorded. One of the songs we might release is one of his, so if it takes off then we might have to get him back out here.

What song in history that you wish you could have written?

Either for the one that made the most money? Or the one that’s the most awesome?

Interpret it how you wish…

Well I’ll go for the most awesome, in my opinion. And the first one that springs to mind at the moment Long Long Long by George Harrison off the White Album, just because it’s fucking awesome, basically.

What do you think of a Brisbane forward line that includes Jonothan Brown?

I’m a Saints fan so I’m not really into talking about footy at the moment…[Laughs] It’s going to be fairly strong. I’ll generally go for Brisbane if it’s not a St Kilda game because I live in Brisbane. But I’ve got no love for Fev, that’s for sure…[Laughs]. But he is a bloody good player. I guess they’re going to be pretty hard to beat next year.

Gin Club play:

20 Dec- Ben Salter solo @ The Gem Xmas Bash - Melbourne
21 Dec- Ben Salter solo @ The Old Bar- Melbourne
22 Dec- Ben Salter solo @ Labour In Vain - Melbourne
23 Dec- Ben Salter solo @ The Standard - Melbourne
24 Dec- Ben Salter solo @ Northcote Social Club - Melbourne
30 Dec- Ben Salter solo @ The Drunken Poet - Melbourne
31 Dec- The Espy - Melbourne
1 Jan- YAH YAH`S - Melbourne

The Gin Club's new album is due out early 2010; singles Rain and Chopping Wood out now.

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