Umpire: Less Is More

Limiting their live appearances has opened up a world of possibilities for Perth quartet Umpire, singer Geoff Symons tells JOSH JENNINGS. Photography by MARIANNE SYMONS.

[Historical image is withheld pending rights review.] Here’s a novel way to avoid irking the punters: don’t play any gigs. It seems to be paying dividends for Perth’s Umpire, anyway. The quartet spent more than two years in their hermitage – aka “the studio” – prior to showing their faces at an RTR FM benefit show late last year. That coming-out moment yielded a turnout of a couple hundred. The next one, at Amplifier in April, was sold out.

Don’t expect Umpire to get hooked on the adrenalin buzz of seas of sozzled mugs ogling them though. With their members cutting their teeth in other stalwart Perth groups Mukaizake and Adam Said Galore, urges to gig for gigging sake are well and truly out of their systems, says vocalist Geoff Symons.

“We’d sort of rather play a little bit less so it seems a little bit special,” he says. “You’re not playing all the time and people don’t always have the attitude of, ‘I can’t be bothered seeing them this week. I can always go and see them next week.’

“We’ve done the other way around so often and for so long and you start seeing numbers of people dropping off. You play a great CD launch to 400 or 500 people and then you find that six months to a year down the track you start playing every week at smaller venues and there’s only 20 people turning up. You’re just like, ‘Is there really any point to this?’”

There’s no chance they’ll run Pink-eque risks of over-exposure when they head east to pimp their debut release, a seven-track self-titled mini-album. The micro-tour is restricted to two dates: Sydney’s Oxford Art Factory tonight (June 12) and The Tote in Melbourne on Saturday. It’s about the right amount, says Symons, who adds that gigging less has allowed the band to focus their energies elsewhere too.

“We’ve always rehearsed once a week and we’ve found that when we were playing gigs all the time the rehearsals were just that - just rehearsals,” he says. “We weren’t writing any new staff or recording anything. Our bassist Simon has a really really good set up and we just weren’t using it.

“We’ll still be going down once a week but instead of just rehearsing for a gig on the weekend we’re going to be going down and writing and recording new stuff. When you’re just going down to the rehearsal room to rehearse for a gig it becomes more like a job just doing the same old bloody thing again.”

“Maybe it’s just easier to write about stuff that’s troubling you than stuff that’s actually going well.”

Production duties for the mini-album took place in-house, with bassist Simon Struthers getting the nod on the back of a resume that includes Bob Evans, The Tucker B’s and a Best Record Producer/Engineer nomination at the 2005 WAMi Awards.

Symons says the band doesn’t consciously aspire to nudge benchmarks set by any other acts specifically, but concedes a few others have referenced Band of Horses as a kindred group: “I can see a bit of that in there, I guess.” And while the band never consciously aspires to drain the listener’s head dry of any capacity to produce serotonin, they tend to find themselves treading darker emotional waters nevertheless.

“[The album] was definitely inspired by melancholy kinds of things,” says Symons, as heavy rain becomes audible from his end of the phone. “I don’t know why that stuff always comes out – it’s hard to explain.

“We have a new song and there’s no way you could see any melancholy in there whatsoever – it’s just a big dumb happy rock song. Maybe it’s just easier to write about stuff that’s troubling you than stuff that’s actually going well. When things are going well you sort of just sit back and you’re happy, whereas if something’s troubling you, you really need to get it off your chest. That’s possibly why they’re like that.”

With band members dividing their time between parenthood, employment and other domestic matters, there’s a wellspring of lyrical material. But does it ball-and-chain the band’s movements?

“God knows if it would ever get to this stage, but if anybody wanted to put up enough money to go on a big tour overseas for a month or so, Lakey [guitarist Michael Lake] always said he’d be absolutely fine doing that as long as he could bring his wife and kids along. And I’d want to bring my wife as well,” says Symons.

“Josh, our drummer, he’s married too, and he’d probably want to bring his wife, so there’s never anything stopping you doing that. There’s just things making it more difficult.”

Speaking to Symons, you get the feeling Umpire will make thoroughly polite house or hotel guests when they check in for their east-coast dates.

“We’re not exactly the big rock star types,” says Symons. “You’re just going to have to come and close your eyes and enjoy the songs rather than be witness to any crazy stage diving or biting the heads off any chickens.”

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