Two’s Company

SAM FELL talks to The Fumes’ Steve Merry about the genesis of their new LP ‘Sundancer’, touring the globe and escaping the limitations of the blues-rock duo.

Times sure are tough for two-piece rock’n’roll combos. Inevitable comparisons to The White Stripes and Black Keys aside, there’s only so much you can do with six strings and a set of tubs; only so many 12-bar tunes you can modify, only so many riffs you can lay together in the space of a song or album. If a two-piece is to survive – and indeed thrive – it must have something extra, some other source of zing and bam, something which lauds them above the rest of the pretenders.

Australian Music Prize winners The Mess Hall are in this bracket, and so are fellow Sydneysiders The Fumes. They’re a guitar-drums combo who are all about the grunt and grind, who unashamedly base themselves in the blues and draw from rock’n’roll. They’re a duo who, over the past six months, have taken leave of absence from the local live circuit to tour their second album, Sundancer, overseas. Put simply The Fumes are roaring, as frontman Steve Merry tells it – and times aren’t tough at all.

So you’ve obviously spent a fair bit of time overseas over the past few months, and before that you did a number of support runs with the Cruel Sea and Queens of the Stone Age. When was the last time you and Joel [Battersby, drums] did your own full tour of Australia?
I think extensively would have been last November with the Vasco Era. We did some major city runs over this time, but we’ve had a lot of things happen to us. We were trying to put this album [Sundancer] together, I had a kid, all these things that came into place. But right now, we’re good to go, we’ll be touring our brains out.

Your second LP Sundancer comes a good three years after Guns Of Gold. Is it true that it was two years in the writing?
Yeah, pretty much … I do all the writing, and as I said, a bunch of shit came up. During that time we were trying to find work as well, working full time for two-month blocks during which time I don’t even think about songs. But, you know, we got there – and here we are.

When you went in to make Sundancer, did you feel any pressure to live up to your debut, Guns Of Gold, which was pretty successful locally?
No, I don’t think so. I don’t think I really had time to let that get to me. I mean, sure, there’s a bit of that there like, “Fuck, we wanna make it a good one.” But, you know, if I don’t like a song, I throw it away. There are one or two parts on the album that I kinda go, “Ah, that’s shit.” But on the whole I’m pretty happy with it. And fuck it, if other people don’t like, they don’t have to listen to it [laughs].

So when you began the recording process what was your M.O? What were you looking to get out of this?
Mate, I just wanted to make an album that I was proud of and that’s that. I want to make music that I would like to listen to. It’s just as much about playing it to yourself as it is about playing it to other people. I mean, you don’t play songs you don’t like, fuck that.

I’m thinking that an evolution in sound would have been high on your agenda. Being a guitar-drums combo, your options are somewhat limited and you wouldn’t have wanted to fall into that trap of making the same record twice.
Sure, definitely. There’s so many things that I want to do musically, so many other styles of music that I love, you know? Getting pigeonholed as The Fumes – guitar swingin’ duo, blues fuckin’ delta Mississippi slide guitar wank, whatever – sure, you get a little bit restricted by that. But then people go and get scared if you make a direct u-turn in what you’re doing in style.

So what are the main evolutionary differences with Sundancer?
I think we just sorta knew a bit more what we were doing in the recording process, and that’s pretty much it. I really wanted to make sure that we did this one live, but I was talked out of it because I didn’t really know shit about recording … You do one album and so you know more to put towards the next one and so on. Plus, there’s a bit of piano there, a few acoustic things that warm the song up, maybe add to the groove of the drums … We listen to a lot of different music and get ideas from there, I suppose.

I think it’s very deep and dark sounding, from a production point of view, and also a lot heavier than your first record as well.
Yeah, in the heavier songs for sure, there’s a pretty big sound we’re going for and are very happy with [laughs]. I think Jim [Diamond, producer] enjoyed getting that guitar sound, and yeah, the drums are fuckin’ massive, which is definitely Joel’s thing. And I think Jim had fun, sonically, he definitely loves his raw, heavy rock n’ roll.

I like the piano on ‘Slay The Liar’.
Yeah, that’s one’s been a real stickler with me from the beginning. It kept getting away from me, but I threw it on there anyway. It’s pretty simple. That piano riff is just one hand, so I can play guitar at the same time. People go, “Fuck, that’s amazing”, but it’s not that hard [laughs].

Elsewhere on the record, ‘Psychedelic Warlord’ reminds me of Elvis.
Cool, yeah, it’s got that slap-back rockabilly feel to it.

And ‘Rogue River Woman’ is quite melodic; less grunt, more song, fair comment?
For sure. I wrote those lyrics about six years ago when I was driving from San Francisco up to Canada by myself, just camping and drinking heaps of piss and listening to Hank Williams … I wrote that song, it was a really good country song. Then I completely forgot about the lyrics, then started playing that riff and put those lyrics to it, and it kinda changed from Hank Williams to something different. That’s how it came out.

Back to the production side of things, you recorded with Jim Diamond [The White Stripes, Dirtbombs] straight onto 2-inch tape. What’s the appeal of a method like that?
It’s good to capture something that is what it is … It just suits the music. The stuff I love is the stuff done live, that furnace burning in the background … I love all the warmth on it. I mean, I don’t even own a computer, I’m just a little backwards I guess [laughs]. That’s just my idea of how it should be.

So the record was mixed over in Detroit, but was it recorded over there too?
No, we tracked it here, we brought Jim out here. We settled on the whole deal about two days before the stock market crashed and the Aussie dollar went down to about 45 cents, so it nearly cost us twice as much as we planned. But we brought him out and did it over about 12 days … Then, about a month later, I went over to Detroit for 10 days, slept in the studio mixing room, pretty deranged, and worked it all through, got it done and that was that.

I take it you guys are pretty happy with how Sundancer has turned out?
Yeah, I have some days where I fuckin’ hate it and want to trash every copy I have in the house, but some days I really like it, yeah.

So what’s next?
I wanna get a piano in the house, see how it goes. In the meantime, we’re hitting the road, and aside from that I really can’t tell you what’s next. We’ll see what comes out.

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‘SUNDANCER’ TOUR

Saturday, June 6
Mona Vale Hotel, Sydney, NSW

Thursday, June 11
Prince Of Wales, Bunbury, WA

Friday, June 12
Amplifier, Perth, WA

Saturday, June 13
Norfolk Basement Bar, Fremantle, WA

Wednesday, June 17
The Loft, Warrnambool, VIC

Thursday, June 18
The Pelly Bar, Frankston, VIC

Friday, June 18
East Brunswick Club, Melbourne, VIC

Thursday, June 25
Great Northern, Byron Bay, NSW

Friday, June 26
The Soundlounge, Gold Coast, QLD

Saturday, June 27
The Zoo, Brisbane, QLD

Wednesday, July 1
The Hoey Moey, Coffs Harbour, NSW

Thursday, July 2
Cambridge Hotel, Newcastle, NSW

Friday, July 3
Oxford Art Factory, Sydney, NSW

Saturday, July 4
Woodport Inn, Central Coast, NSW

Friday, July 10
Republic Bar, Hobart, TAS

Saturday, July 11
Hotel New York, Launceston, TAS