Young Men Go West

Rip It Up, Issue 69, 1 April 1983, Page 10

Young Men Go West

Russell Brown

AN C E EXPONENTS

There's not much room left in the ) little lounge of the Dance Exponents' 'motel the band, Donna who does the lights, a couple of Dabs, some girls. No one's over 23. Cans (of Australian beer, an old movie on the telly. Beats working ... Singer Jordan Luck lights up a cigarette and gets told off. He shouldn't smoke, it's bad for his voice. The . rest of the band | have j been 1 teasing him, telling him he's getting like Rod Stewart. Luck, guitarist Brian Jones and drummer Michael' Haralambi retire to the. bedroom to do the interview. Outside, the fun continues. The band is planning the national tour to promote the new single 'All I Can Do'. They're not expecting to make a lot of money, but what they do get will be useful to help them in Australia. They plan . to head across the Tasman at the end of May. They'll have the support of Mushroom Records over there but little else is planned. They're confident about the venture. They're planning on being there '{for, a year or so,. before, hopefully, moving on to bigger and better things. . "If we do well, I think it will be a rapid rise, like it always has been for us. But if we don't do well it'll be a hard slog, which were not really accustomed to. If we've got'to slog for years I think we'd just try. and go somewhere else," Jones says. • "I think with some 'bands there must be something missing in the suss department'," Luck adds. "They must realise when they're barking up the wrong tree. For some reason they just keep on slogging. I mean, why they don't move or split up is beyond'meJjjßM "Still, Jones muses. "It's better than working." •- Luck says he's keen to go because he feels Australia is central to international music at the moment, there is a.lot of attention paid to it. He feels New Zealand bands are quite capable of becoming part 4 of a \ new "second division" coming through, bands like Hunters

and Collectors and the'GhurclvHMMHH "New Zealand is a good place, but it's slack; And Jl think the only way you can get on in New Zealand is to be slack. I think that's why we've achieved so much because we're slack.'' GeneralJ^augl^^MHjMH|p^Hjpßßpp^| . "It's true you work really hard in this country, and you'll work hard for about three months, but then all ft h™ h r d, work will come to I nothing." iPliWilpiißilWlPP l Jones agrees: "Bands like 1 the Narcs worked their arses off and just got themselves further into debt. "We've done about everything we can do. If. we do another tour we just going to fizz. You [can'tlj tl keep touring I think DD Smash have proved that. Their last. tour wasn't as successful. as their]firstTfewjTißWlßpP| No one seems to be worrying about the venture. "If it bums out, it bums out," Haralambi shrugsvHßMßßßlMp^^^^H "We've had a holiday," says Jones. They don't consider themselves up to international standard either live or in the studio

at the moment, but they have faith in Luck's songs. "If you write a good song it'll sell because people want to hear songs," Luck explains. He's happy with his writing at the moment. The band's relatively light workload has given him a chance to come out of the dry spell he encountered last year. Are his new songs different from the old? "Yeah, they're changing all the time. It's not so much that the songs are different because I'm not a very good guitarist, but the guys are all fresh, they go in and they've got heaps of ideas when I play them to therft." Unlike the band's previous two singles, the latest one was done in the small, eight-track Azimuth studios. It was produced by the band and soundman/manager-by-default Ben Free. They're happy with it. "Neither of the other singles really sounded like us, but this one does," Haralambi says. "It's probably more the feel, but the sound is good too," Jones explains. "It's very crisp. "The other two were sort of flat sounding. Everything was there, but it wasn't. There was

no character." . . So why did the small studio stuff turn out better than the 24-track recordings? "I think a lot of it is just experience," Luck says. All .I Gan Do'; took three days on ! eighttrack, but the others were just one take stuff," ■ Haralambi explains. "When they mixed down 'Victoria' we went. to the pub and • saw the Meemees!" They're not in any position to confirm the theory that the Airway Spies' single was deliberately mixed for radio either. It certainly sounds much better on radio than on my home stereo. "We've noticed it," Jones says. "It was intentionally done I suppose not by us." Despite being pleased with the new single, they have no thoughts of releasing it overseas - eight-track recording won't do for the world market. The recording was paid for by Mushroom Records after, plans to record an album fell through when the producer wasn't available. The new plan is to do a single as soon as they reach Australia and later, an album. . The album will be composed of the best of their live material. They'd like to re-record 'Victoria' and 'Poland'. ' -They don't know who'll be producing it yet, but, Jones says,, they're confident of "getting someone reasonably good". The band's confidence at the outset of such a major venture is only natural. Since they began, penniless in Christchurch, they simply haven't had i the usual knockbacks that make bands cynical. j But by the} same token!that] same confidence has been responsible in no small part:- for their, rapid rigeflppHpßH| Sure,- almost every New Zealand band that has r crossed the Tasman has died in Australia's cultural quicksand but this one may be a little different. They're, not rock stars (the kind who are rock stars ■ because ■ they don't know how to be anything else), they're not going to get trapped in the booze/drugs spiral they don't do any drugs. .•. They're at once woefully naive and charmingly fresh. They're in it for the fun, not the money. "But I think long-term we could earn heaps I hope we do. I think I'll be a millionaire by the time I'm ... 23. I think things happen fast," Jordan pronouncesVH|Hp®p^ffl Everybody laughs. But he's not really joking.