Sparkadia call on Australians to procreate for the benefit of Australian music

For over a year and a half, Sydney-based foursome turned threesome Sparkadia have been sharing their music through live gigs and rough songs in the form of internet downloads and demo CDs. It’s no wonder that after all this time they’re excited to finally be releasing an EP. Lead singer and guitarist Alex Burnett talked to The Dwarf about the soon-to-be-released Things Behind the Sun EP, and where the band will go from there.

“The EP originally began as a series of demos, however upon second listen we thought that it was time that we made an EP. So we chose the 5 best recordings and re-mixed them and it was finished before we even had time to think about it,” Burnett reveals.

For those that have never heard of Sparkadia, Burnett describes their sound as “Bittersweet music that you can dance to. There seems to be a sense of nostalgia and even though we sing about heartbreak, we seem to sound like an old summer holiday.”

The band’s material is written mainly by Burnett, but the whole band has to see the “magic” in a song before it becomes official Sparkadia material. In the future though, Burnett foresees that the other band members will be “handing out demos of songs which will make it onto the next set of recordings.”

In just a couple of months, Sparkadia will join the increasing amount of Australian bands seeking musical opportunities overseas when they head to London to record their debut album. “The album will be similar to the EP, however more developed and it will be a different snapshot of the band. I think that we will have more crazy backing vocals, slide guitar sounds and better sounding guitars. Sonically it will be a giant leap as we will be recording and mixing in some of the studios where some of the best sounding records have been made in the last fifteen years. We have decided upon eleven of the fifteen tracks we will record. All we can do now is work hard at delivering great performances and then we'll leave the finer details to chance.”

When questioned about this recent trend for Aussie musicians to head overseas, Burnett gave his insight into some possible causes. “Australia's population is so small compared to the UK, Europe and US that it is very difficult for musicians to make enough (if any) money from their craft.. I do believe that pokies are a pretty evil concept and it disappoints me greatly that they have eaten up live entertainment at most pubs. I used to work next door to a pub and every Thursday, there would be a massive influx of people who would spend their wages on ‘getting lucky’. They never walked out with a smile on their face.” In response to this exposition, The Dwarf asks, "So what's the solution? “Maybe we should all have more babies?” Burnett offers.

After recording the album, the band will return to Australia for a series of shows that will mark the beginning of an eighteen month long touring period. Currently, you can catch the band on the road where they are performing gigs ranging from support slots to full-on festival shows. With this range of activity, The Dwarf asked Burnett about his live experience “I actually don't get nervous playing live. When we played a show in Brisbane supporting Ben Lee, we were running so late that we didn't have time to check out the venue. Since it was our first time driving from Sydney, we weren't aware how long the journey would take. So when we arrived at the venue we quickly set up and then had about ten minutes to relax before we were onstage. We were all joking about the venue's name ‘The Arena’ as it sounded pretty full-on and we were joking about the ridiculousness of stadium rock in the seventies and eighties. When the tour manager called us onto stage we looked into the audience there were about three thousand more people than we were expecting. Really, there was no time to get nervous.”

Things Behind the Sun EP will be available in stores from February 17th, with a limited numbered edition also being made available.

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