LAUGHING OUTLAW RECORDS & MANAGEMENT


		INTO THE ANTIPODES SUN The Leisure Suit $24.95 AUD Customers outside Australia don't pay GST You can also buy online from CDBaby

The band is primarily a vehicle for the songwriting of Grant Shanahan. The album is a hook-laden, mostly guitar based retro-pop album mixed with melodic dollops of rock, country and occasional lounge-like schmaltz. It was recorded at his own studio (Leisure Suit Studio) on the Hawkesbury River near the town of Spencer. This is also where all three much lauded albums by Perry Keyes were recorded. Perry’s most recent and highly acclaimed album ‘Johnny Ray’s Downtown’ was also produced by Grant.

Grant has been a part of the Sydney music scene since the late 80’s when he moved from Perth with the alt-country/folk/pop band The Honeys. Fronted by Andrea Croft, they were briefly the darlings of the Sydney indie music scene before self imploding 18 months later. Grant is perhaps best known as a founding member of Eva Trout who released three albums, and got signed to a US label along the way. They had a semi-hit there in the late 90’s with the song Beautiful South.

The Leisure Suit also includes fellow Eva Trout members Bek-Jean Stewart (on drums and backing vocals) and Matthew Galvin (guitar). Special mention should also go to keyboardist John Gauci who’s piano and Hammond playing is all over the album.

Grant says there is a “deliberately naive quality” that he sought with this album. “Although I’ve played in a lot of bands, I wanted this to sound fresh and loose - getting Bek-Jean to drum was great - she is a hugely talented vocalist but a new-comer to drumming. The simplicity of her style keeps the sound real innocent-like”. In keeping with this quest to be fresh, Grant set aside strictly one month to write all the songs for the record. “There’s nothing worse than procrastinating about songs and having them fester for months on end before getting around to record them”. Similarly, the recording process was done as rapidly as possible. “Matt turned up at my house for a day and a half and added multi-guitar tracks to over 20 songs. He’d stand outside the studio door on a big rock with a beer and a cigarette while listening for the first time to the song we were about to record. An hour later the guitar parts would be down and he’d be back on the rock listening to the next track. We drank a lot of beer this way!”

These are a quirky batch of songs that cover a wide terrain. There is a darkly humorous and somewhat ironic song about a Japanese submariner invading Sydney Harbour during World War 2 ‘Periscope in Peril’, which strangely evokes the spirit of David Bowie’s ‘Space Oddity’. In ‘Reels of Rhyme’, a callous midnight to dawn radio announcer with an equally callous audience is sacked for conducting a listener’s poll on what advice to give a suicidal caller. While in ‘Forbidden Love’ a farm lad from a remote and rusting part of Australia struggles to deal with the racism directed towards his secret aboriginal girlfriend. Grant says he admires the likes of Perry Keyes who can write big thematic albums of inter-linking songs that make a broad point about something. “However, in my case, these songs basically spewed chaotically from my sub-conscious. In many cases I’d sing spur of the moment lyrics into a microphone and then keep as much of what came forth as possible. This keeps the lyrics quite unpredictable, unrestrained and sometimes offbeat. If there is a thread running here I’d say it was to kinda reflect on how love and honour intersect with ruthless self interest...”

This is an album of great infectious pop. It borrows playfully from the likes of classic bands such as T-Rex, The Kinks, and XTC.