Features
Immigrant Union: ‘We’re Six-Sevenths Australian’
By Andrew McMillen
Dandy Warhol Brent DeBoer has made a fresh start in Melbourne with a new seven-piece band Immigrant Union and a down-home country-rock sound. Ahead of a residency at The Tote, he talks to ANDREW MCMILLEN about the farmhouse jam that started it all, the status of the Dandy’s new album and whether his residency claim is legit. Photos by CARLIN SUNDELL.
[Historical image is withheld pending rights review.] Take one part Dandy Warhol, one part Lazy Son and one part Galvatron and you’ve got Immigrant Union, a new Melbourne-based act that more readily adheres to the Dylan/Young model of country-folk songwriting than any of those aforementioned acts. After meeting at Melbourne’s Cherry Bar and discovering their mutual appreciation for strumming classic country on acoustic guitars, the Dandy Warhols’ drummer Brent DeBoer and The Lazy Sons’ singer Bob Harrow recruited keyboardist Peter ‘Gamma’ Lubulwa of The Galvatrons to record together.
Between each band member’s touring commitments, DeBoer – who now lives in Melbourne, and last performed in Australia with the Dandys in September 2010 as part of the Parklife Festival tour – brought Harrow and Lubulwa across to his hometown of Portland, Oregon, in March 2010 to record with producer Gregg Williams (The Dandy Warhols). Though the results of their sessions haven’t yet been released, Immigrant Union are set to play a Thursday night Tote residency alongside Stonefield throughout February.
I want to clarify a few things in the band's bio. It says that 24 hours after first meeting, Bob and yourself “ended up on a farm outside Nagambie [in Victoria] drinking VB and strumming classic country rock‘n’roll”. Is this a euphemism for something else?
No, no! We met that night at Cherry Bar. Matt Hollywood from the Brian Jonestown Massacre and I were hanging out there, and Bob came up and said, “Are you guys playing a gig? What’s going on?” He thought that maybe Jonestown and Dandys were on tour together, or something. We talked to him for a while, and hung out at Cherry all night. The next day, we were going on a road trip to a family friend’s farm, and we asked if Bob wanted to go. He rode along, and we just sat on the porch and did what dudes like us do, which is sit around and strum guitar.
That sounds like a pretty organic way to start a band.
Oh, hell yeah. It was just so fun. That night, Bob played a couple of the songs he’d written, and they sounded really cool. I did the same, and Matt did the same. Of course, Hollywood was really busy in a couple of other bands. But when I started dating Sarah – who is now my wife – I was here [in Australia] quite a bit, so I’d always call up Bob and we’d always end up doing the same thing, strumming guitars. Sooner or later, we started to realise we had quite a few songs going, and started recruited more members.
And it just so happened that you and Bob were fond of the same specific genre of music, which you now play.
At the time, Bob was in The Lazy Sons. He was the lead singer, and they’re pretty hard-rocking. He sings really high and loud. It’s kind of in that AC/DC, almost Axl Rose style. Real extreme. It’s really impressive, but he also has a thing for Dylan, Neil Young, and stuff like that. He’s getting his ya-yas out at that side of the spectrum at the moment.
The bio says that yourself, Bob and Gamma make up “the core” of Immigrant Union. Are there other collaborators involved?
Yeah. We have a seven-piece group, but the three of us do all the singing and arrange the music. Those two guys flew out to Portland to record the album, which is not quite done yet. We’re going to finish it up in a studio here in Melbourne, and then have Gregg [Williams, The Dandy Warhols’ producer] work on it again in Portland. As far as travelling and stuff at the moment, we can’t really afford to have a seven-piece [on the road]. Especially if we wanted to go over and play in the States. Our first four shows were in Portland, with an eight-piece. And if and when we ever get to run around the West Coast [of the US] and play some shows with friends’ bands, the only way we could financially do it is if we recruited those guys from Portland and they came along. So we have a band here, and a band there, and for the time being we’re just splitting whatever they can pay us at the shows.
[Historical image is withheld pending rights review.]
What's with the photo on your MySpace page?
That’s me, Bob and Gamma. It was shot by Carlin Sundell, he’s a photographer in Portland. He’s a vintage camera nut. He had a camera from the 1920s, and one from the mid-1800s, and that [photo] was shot with the really old one. It takes almost a half-hour to set up to take the shot, because they have to do all the processing right there on the spot, in their miniature dark room. We got about 12 shots over the course of the entire day. That was one of ‘em. It was in a chicken coop.
It looks like it was taken 150 years ago.
That’s what we were looking for! That’s why we used the 150 year-old camera. There’s no way you can Photoshop that. It just looks ancient, doesn’t it?
Totally. So what's the band's game plan? What do you want to achieve with Immigrant Union?
Well, we’re just going one step at a time. This will be our sixth show, and our third show with these guys here in Australia. We’re just going one show at a time, and trying to get better and better. We’ve got a decent set going. The players in the group are really good. We’re hoping to finish up the album; hopefully it’ll sound really cool, and put that out somehow. We’re not exactly sure who we’re going to work with, or how we’re going to put the record out. But once that’s done, we’ll tour on it in around June or July, and then make another album.
Why the big gap between recording it in March 2010, and releasing it in mid-2011?
I’ve been pretty busy. I toured half the globe with the Dandys during that time. I had to do a bunch of touring for the summer festivals, so I had three-and-a-half months away from Australia. When I got back, we knew we needed a bit of time to learn the songs. There’s quite a few band members, so it’s not the easiest thing in the world to get everybody together. All of our musicians are in quite a few different groups. They’re real busy. But we’re getting it together.
Are you thinking about labels at this stage, or given the Dandys' experiences in recent years, are you looking to stay independent? [The Dandy Warhols were dropped by Capitol Records in 2005, and went on to establish their own label, Beat The World.]
I don’t think so. The Dandys, we’ve struggled being independent. You just don’t realise, until you’re off a machine like EMI, just how much work there is to do. We’re quite the experts at playing shows, and touring, and writing songs and making records, but everything else, we struggle with a bit. I mean, we can design a concert poster here and there, but even that’s outsourced. We just had no idea how difficult it is. So I think even the Dandys right now are looking to sign up with an indie label, or a major label. I’m not exactly sure, but I know that’s in the works at the moment. We’re talking to some people. Ideally, for Immigrant Union, we definitely need management, and a label would be nice, to have some extra to have all the right phone numbers and connections. At the end of the day, we just play music, you know?
“I never boast about my work with the Dandys – that’s not my style – but if you’re wanting to remind somebody, and you want them to check out your music, it’s good to let them know a little bit about your resume.”
What's the latest with the Dandys?
We’re maybe a little over halfway with our record. All of February is dedicated to recording. I recorded a ton when I was there [in Portland], so the rest of the band is going to continue, and as it progresses, they’ll be sending me rough mixes and I’ll figure out with them what needs to be done. Nowadays, you can send the whole mix [to Australia], and we can bring it up my studio here and track what I need to do, then send it back to our engineers and producers in Portland. The downtime between those Tote gigs in February, I’ll probably pop into the studios and do a bit of recording, and probably in March as well. And then the Dandys are coming here in May. That’s being worked on. That’s not a guarantee, but I think they’ll be here at the end of May.
I've seen the band billed as “Immigrant Union, featuring Brent from the Dandy Warhols”. Are you looking to take advantage of your international superstardom?
[Laughs] I don’t think there’s such thing as an “international superstar drummer”. But the name of The Dandy Warhols carries a bit of weight, and … in this business it’s all who you know. I’m very fortunate to have been in this group [The Dandy Warhols] and travelled the world for the past 13 years, or whatever it’s been, and met a lot of great musicians and people that can help us out, as far as labels and whatnot go. After being in lots of bands since I was 18 years old, it’s a fair bet that in a way, I’ve got a bit of an advantage because I do know a little bit about this whole thing.
If you go up to someone and say, “Hey, I’m in a band”, it doesn’t matter that much, especially to a guy who manages a few groups that are on Parlophone [Records], or something. But if you remind him that you drum for the Dandys, he might be a little more interested in what you have to offer. There’s that curiosity element. I never boast about my work with the Dandys – that’s not my style – but if you’re wanting to remind somebody, and you want them to check out your music, it’s good to let them know a little bit about your resume. Anybody in any vocation would do the same.
You moved to Australia because you married an Australian. Have you applied for a citizenship yet?
That’s all in the works. I have what’s called a [permanent] residency, so I can work and play taxes, and all that jazz. As far as getting an Australian passport, that’s quite a few years off in a distance. I’m not sure exactly how it all works. But I guess it’s one of those, “we’ll contact you”-type scenarios. But Sarah and I have done both of that. She lived in the United States for a few years. She wanted to work, and go to school there, and I’m in the same boat here. So yeah – we’re legal! [Laughs]
Speaking of residencies, you’re playing every Thursday at The Tote with Stonefield this month. What do you know about them?
I looked ‘em up on the internet. They seem pretty cool, I like their songs. They’re pretty different to our style – they’re pretty hard rockin’ – but it should be cool. I’m really looking forward to checking them out.
What do you have planned for the Tote shows?
I think we’ll mix it up week-to-week. We’ll start out with one set, and if there are certain songs that didn’t seem to work so well, we’ll kick ‘em out and try a few other ones. That’s the rough plan. I think we’ll definitely swap it around, because we only play for an hour and 10 minutes, and we have probably one hour, 45 [minutes] worth of material. But there’s a handful that we really like a lot, so we’ll play them all four nights.
Finally - do you think that this can be classed as an Australian band?
Well, it’s six-sevenths Australian! The reason we named the band Immigrant Union was because Gamma is Ugandan, and Bob immigrated to America when he was a kid and lived in New Hampshire for quite a few years, and then immigrated back to Australia. And obviously I’ve immigrated to Australia recently. So we were looking at each other, and just went with Immigrant Union. [Laughs]
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