ROOT!: Never Out of the Question, Part Deux

“Aren’t they supposed to...think about the world, and stuff?”

DC Root and I are talking emos. This is because we pass about 78 of them huddling at the Flinders Street Station steps, like rats near a fire. I mention I have spoken to the odd emo every now and again, attempting to penetrate the psyche of Melbourne's resident pest. I mention I found them dense and inarticulate. Apparently DC's view on the emo community is one of poetic suffering and deep thought. I am quick to correct him.

We talk about Australia, considering the poignancy of conducting this interview beside one of its most famous landmarks. For what reasons, I am not sure, since the Yarra is as brown as a bad apple and quick to attract rats. But, it does look nice in the setting sun.

“I like to sing about Australia, I've always liked people who drop a little "place" into their work. It's the thing I like about certain kinds of Aussie hip hop, say Butterfingers or TZU; I really like it when they sing about everyday things, going to the milk bar, and conversely one of the things that riles me most heinously is when Australians try on that "gangsta" shit. I find it tedious when US rappers do it, let alone someone who lives in our comfortable, relatively middle-class society”

“At the Falls Festival in Tasmania - I've heard this on a bootleg recording - where Tim Rogers can't play or even speak properly because he's paralytic, and you can just barely hear someone in the crowd call out "You're not Jim Morrison."” DC laughs. “Is it OK to yearn for this kind of persona in our national psyche? You can't imagine a gangsta or diva type coming out with an understated gem like that. That's why the Americanisation of our country shits me; some dickhead calls the new Perth-based football team "The West Coast Eagles" and now every sporting team in the land is called the "Victory" or "The Heat" or whatever. Why not call us the Melbourne Yankees? That's got a nice marketable quality to it, don't you think? Anyway, why America? Why can't we have an Icelandisation of our country? They've probably got a better society”

I mention that Iceland is scenic and beautiful but in no way has the trend-pulling power of America, nor the marketable-ness that inevitably is attached. My euphemism of America being the James Dean type in the schoolyard that is this Earth (ie; cooly unapproachable, highly admired, but a total douche) gives us a laugh break and we decide to talk the dreaded 'b' word: Business. I sing Business Time by Flight of the Conchords and laugh to myself.

“Basically, I wanted to play music but I thought, because of my age, I’m consigned to Old Fuckerdom" DC begins, laying the foundation for the thrilling swashbuckling tale that is the Creation of Root! "Then my friend Henri came along and Henri is the whole reason ROOT! started. Henry is the Renaissance Man. He is an absolute legend. I am not fit to untie the straps of Henri’s sandals. Henri studied jazz improvisation- he was a Coltrane-like sax player in his youth- but when you play jazz in Melbourne you don’t make any money. So he was also a studio engineer, worked on albums, a soundtrack composer, guitarist. Then he decided, ‘this is all fucked, I’m gonna go to Carpentry school’. It was a romantic story; he came around to build some shelves and said, ‘yeah, I’ll be in a band with you’. He’s fabulous”

ROOT! may not have the same mileage under their belt as their peers, but this is about to change. There's a plan, people.

“Our quest this year is a quest for the impossible, Lisa. We’re setting out this year to defy categorization. What does that mean? It means a forty year old lead singer and a bunch of thirty-somethings playing angry young men’s music. It means a band of guys who wear cowboy hats who don’t play country. That is the Don Quixote-like quest that I am setting out on. There’s that assumption that older people bring in a slightly older crowd...the people who are going to see Birds of Tokyo...I want them to see ROOT! and say [to them], “Except for my looks, where’s the difference?” I mean, there are differences but, really, apart our appearance, how are Birds of Tokyo more angry, more spiky, more interesting than me?””

“I don’t wish to be hugely popular or anything, but...this album that’s coming out this year is going to be really good and I want people to hear it. I think we’re unusual" DC offers, and I vouch happily. "I also think we’re quite a gripping experience in the live sense. I’m not so stupid as to assume that we will necessarily get the credit we deserve, I’m not complaining or anything, I’m just saying, I am aiming for that this year; I’m gonna make a big bad fool of myself this year. I’m not going to act my age”

ROOT! play the Northcote Social Club in Melbourne tonight (Feb 6) and the Brisbane Hotel in Hobart on Feb 14.

http://www.myspace.com/rootthemusic

Share this article on Facebook