The Thousands

It’s been a pretty great year for the John Steel Singers. After In Colour came out towards the end of last year, the sextet went from Laneway Festival to the UK in a few short months. Their new single is ‘The Masochist’, a sunny, multi-harmony pop masterpiece. If it’s any indication, their Robert Forster-produced album is going to blow minds.

Keyboardist Pete Bernoth – one of the "dudes in the background" – is understandably frustrated: South Brisbane should have decent mobile phone reception. Nevertheless, while we can still hear each other, we cover recording, day jobs and 2010 for the John Steel Singers.

Paul Donoughue: First of all, how does the songwriting work for you guys?

Pete: It started off with like Scott [Bromiley, vocals, guitar] and Tim [Morrissey, vocals, guitar] writing most of the songs and coming with the parts set out, but with the record that we have just recorded it’s been a lot more of collaborative process. We just bring in parts of songs and jam them out. So it’s changed so everyone has their own influence.

PD: You worked with Robert Forster (The Go-Betweens) on this new record. What was that like?
P: It was fucking brilliant. It was so good. He’s just an awesome guy. He just knew what sounds [we were after] and was so switched on. He was just so energetic for – I think he’s 50 – he’s just so energetic. It was a joy.

PD: How did that relationship come about?
P: We played as his backing band. We’ve always loved the Go-Betweens and I think Tim got in contact with him, and he chatted to him. And [Robert] said he knew us and had been listening to us and liked it. And then when we were playing the Fire & Flood benefit with Powderfinger at the Tivoli in March, he asked if we wanted to play as his backing band, because he was on [the bill] too. So we did that, and from there asked him to produce.

PD: There’s a rumour that Grant McLennan approached you guys after a show a few years ago; he liked your sound. Is that right?
P: Yeah, it was Tim, and it was in the bathroom of Ric’s. It was just after our sound check and he was just having a scotch and coke or something and talked to Timmy in the bathroom. It was pretty weird.

PD: So, you went to New York to mix the record, right?
P: Yeah, Tim and Scott did, those lucky bastards. We only had enough money to send two of us. So they got to go to New York for two weeks and we were stuck at home like chumps. I still get a little bit jealous sometimes.

PD: Why did they get to go and not you?
P: Well, Scott’s the musical genius of the group, so he had to go, and since they were the main songwriters of the band from the beginning they are probably more important than us. We are just replaceable; we are just the dudes in the background.

PD: Why choose Nicolas Vernhes (Animal Collective, Deerhunter)?
P: After the latest Dirty Projectors album [Bitte Orce] I think – we just fucking loved the shit out of that. He did that. We loved that and all the stuff that he’s done. We just made a wish list of all the people that we would like to have mix and he was on it. We contacted him and he liked the stuff. It was great.

PD: Did you have to save up to go over there?
P: We had accumulated a bit of money, because everything that we make goes back into the band kitty. [We] sold a song to an add, and that paid for the recording. Now we are broke again, but still, we have sweet album behind us. Or will. I hate having a fully mixed and mastered album and still having to wait. We’ve had it since September or some shit. We are not sure how we are releasing it yet. We are taking our sweet ass time, like we do with everything.

PD: What’s the situation with working? Can you be full-time musicians or do you need to hold down jobs?
P: We have all got jobs. We can’t afford to live off the band. Everyone has managed to luck into fairly understanding jobs with the whole touring thing. It’s just part time, casual, but we do have to work unfortunately.

PD: Obviously you are big Go-Betweens fans – a band that had to move away from Brisbane to find its audience. Is moving interstate or overseas something you’ve considered?
P: We are hoping to get overseas, like Europe or New York, or something like that. We’d like to go to Germany – Robert Forster said that we should go there. Anything that that guy says we take really seriously. Hopefully late next year we should be over for at least a month or two. I think most of us are thinking the same thing [about moving]. A couple of the guys have girlfriends or whatever so that makes it a bit harder but I’m pretty sure everyone’s pretty keen to move overseas at some point. I think any Australian band needs to at least try [to] get over there and see what they can do.