Touring is no new experience for THE PAPER KITES. After spending the last three years releasing two EP’S and touring nationally with the likes of Josh Pyke, Boy & Bear and Bombay Bicycle Club, the band has captured the hearts of the nation one gig at a time. Now the Melbourne-based indie folk quintet are on verge of releasing their debut album, States, on September 30, and to celebrate the much anticipated release will embark on 10 date headline tour around the nation, kicking of right here in Newcastle. CHLOE WEBB caught up with vocalist SAM BENTLEY as he prepares for the album’s release.
With the September 30 release date for States looming, what’s the vibe like for The Paper Kites?
It’s good! Everyone is excited. We finished it back around April so it’s sort of been sitting on the bookshelf so we’re keen to bring everyone up to speed with what we’ve been working on, it will be nice to just get it all out there.
This will be the debut full-length release for The Paper Kites. Is it anymore daunting in comparison to the release of the EP’S Woodlands and Young North?
There’s certainly a lot more work that goes into creating a full-length record. Prior to States, the most tracks we had recorded in one session was about five, so despite the obvious of having to record double that this time around, we really wanted to push ourselves in putting this record together. There are a lot of songs that visit styles we haven’t worked with before, and we were all a bit cautious of whether we could pull that off or not, but at the end of the day it’s still The Paper Kites and I think we have a pretty open fan-base.
There’s been a lot of talk regarding the new single ‘St Clarity’, where you can certainly hear a progression within The Paper Kites sound.
Yeah, definitely!
It wasn’t an obvious first choice for the single particularly from a commercial perspective, but that’s fine with us, we never really gear our music at being picked up on radio anyway. There were other tracks in the running but once we finished the record and listened back we felt that ‘St Clarity’ was the song that carried the vibe of the album, it said everything we wanted it to say and you don’t want to misrepresent what you’re putting out. It was the last song that was written for the album and it was a bit of a long progression in the studio. I had written it, we played with it and than I worked with a young composer in Melbourne by the name of Tim Coghill who bought in some interesting ideas. We added in a string and brass section, and he threw in lots of strange noises and textures over the top of that. The work that he did seemed to mold right into it and bought a whole new vibe to the song, one that everyone enjoyed.
The film clip that goes with the single really highlights those textures from a visual perspective starring French Bubble blowing extraordinaire Sylvain Letuvée and working with two-time ARIA award winning director Natasha Pincus. Could you tell us a little bit about its creation?
Music videos aren’t really something we want to approach from an angle where you’re just sitting in a room playing. It needs to be an extension of the song and you want to partner it visually with something that draws people in to both watch and listen. I saw Natasha speaking on a panel a while ago, and I thought she’s be great to work with! She seemed to really get the concept of what making a music video was about; she just has a great way of creating and capturing stories.
The idea of working with Sylvain came about when I found his work on the internet and sent it to Natasha who was just as amazed by his work as I was! We pondered if we could get him over but he was really onboard from the start, despite not having any acting experience, but Natasha just has this way of pulling a performance out of people and highlighting their work in the best kind of way. I’m amazed it came together the way it did, I’m really proud of that video.
The album is officially released the same day as the tour kicks off right here in Newcastle.
What can we expect from the tour?
Well, the venues that we are playing this tour are a bit bigger than the ones we’ve played in the past but the Newcastle one will still be quite intimate, which is nice.
The album in general is a lot darker and moodier than the previously releases which tends to translate really well live. We’ve pieced together a big setlist, you’ll hear some of the old stuff and some of the new stuff, plus we’ve got a great team behind us including an awesome lighting guy who’s putting together a heap of visuals for the shows, in which I am yet to see but I’m sure will be great!
I’ve seen you folks support Josh Pyke here in Newcastle on The Only Sparrows Tour back in 2011. I remember that night was your first time in Newcastle, and you’ve returned quite a few times since then.
Yeah that was our first time in Newcastle! We didn’t realise there was such a strong community of young people there with all the university students and such. I remember that first time we came and we we’re looking around thinking where are all the people!? [laughs]
Then we stumbled onto Darby St and it was just an explosion of people and culture!
We are now quite the regulars at The Three Monkey’s Café, and we love coming to Newcastle, it’s a beautiful town. But you know… There is often the temptation to just play the main cities, but Newcastle is always a place where we want to go to and people keep coming back to see us which is nice! We will definitely hitting up The Three Monkeys when we’re in town.
On top of your own tour you’ve been announced to support City & Colour on their US/Canada tour. That must be exciting!
That’s going to be great! I think we’re over there for seven or so weeks. To be honest, I was a bit confused at first as to why we were asked to do the tour, it is a little unusual for an Australian band to be opening on a tour in the US! There are some really big amazing theatres we are playing, and half of us have never been over there yet, but all of us are fans of City and Colour. We love Dallas Green’s work so we are really excited and nervous at the same time. We’ve always been really fortunate with the bands that take us on the road, we’ve learnt a lot from them through touring.
Who, what and where inspires The Paper Kites?
For me… it’s completely subjective to the song, every song is inspired by a different person or a different situation. Most the time it’s based on things that are relevant to us at that moment. I find it pretty hard to pluck a concept out of the air. In terms of where, I have a little place I like to go away to, and it’s not as if I lock myself in a cabin in the snow or anything [laughs], I just like to get away to a friend’s farm, to make time to write and that’s actually where we got most the songs for this album. So location is also an inspiration, but in saying that I have managed to write some nice songs from my room as well, so it’s about experimenting.
Lastly, who should we be listening to?
A Sydney boy by the name of Patrick James. He is so good, such a great songwriter!
We’ve taken him on tour with us before and he’s actually on tour with Josh Pyke at the moment so he’ll be in Newcastle this week! He is fantastic.
FRI 30 AUG | THE SMALL BALLROOM, NEWCASTLE, NSW
SAT 31 AUG | METRO THEATRE, SYDNEY, NSW (ALL AGES)
THU 05 SEP | THE SOUNDLOUNGE, GOLD COAST, QLD
FRI 06 SEP | THE HI-‐FI, BRISBANE, QLD
SAT 07 SEP | THE NORTHERN, BYRON BAY, NSW
SUN 15 SEP | THE HI-‐FI, MELBOURNE, VIC (U18 MATINEE)
FRI 20 SEP | JIVE, ADELAIDE, SA
SAT 21 SEP | FLY BY NIGHT, FREMANTLE, WA
FRI 27 SEP | THE WARATAH HOTEL, HOBART, TAS
SAT 28 SEP | THE FORUM, MELBOURNE, VIC