THE AUDREYS
FLOOD WARNING
by Scott McLennan
Following up an ARIA winning album might be a scary situation to be in, but it’s nothing compared to waking in the night to find your homestead overrun by uninvited black trespassers. A few weeks prior to the release of their second album When The Flood Comes, Tristan Goodall and Taasha Coates of The Audreys awoke to find their Woodside home’s perimeter had been violated.
“We got attacked by cows the other week,” Tristan recounts for Rip It Up with a hint of surprise.
“A bunch of cows from the property behind ours were really hungry during that hot spell and broke into our garden,” Taasha continues. “In the middle of the night there was a cow outside my window eating the camellia bush. At first I thought it was a person and got really scared, but then when I realised it was a cow I went out to shoo it away. Once I got outside I realised there was three dozen cows! It was pitch black and they were black cows, so it was a bit scary, a bit Hitchcock.”
“The sound of them eating I’ll never forget,” Tristan notes. “They were so hungry and so determined to eat as fast as they could there was this amazing munching. They wouldn’t move because they were too busy eating.”
“We’d slap them on the arse and they wouldn’t move, so we had to call the CFS,” Taasha adds. “It was 3am in the morning and the CFS came out and helped us round them up. I was still in my pyjamas and my cowgirl boots.”
With The Audreys having already found acclaim at events such as the Gympie Muster and Tamworth’s Country Music Festival, it’s handy to have anecdotes such as this to keep their rural fans happy. The unexpected success of the Adelaide act’s 2006 debut, Between Last Night And Us, found The Audreys’ live shows moving from cosy local crowds to large festival bills around the nation. The band has tried to avoid thinking about attempting to retain the impressively diverse demographic the debut album reached.
“You just can’t think about it, as tempting as it is,” Taasha says. “We have 10 or 12-year-old girls who come up to us at festivals to get our autographs and since there’s some heavier tracks on When The Flood Comes there were times when I thought we’d be scaring them off. You just have to be honest with what you’re writing about.”
“We weren’t expecting to be a band that could play rock festivals and country festivals,” Tristan assures. “We didn’t think the album had that breadth, but it evidently did and it’s a great position to be in, although nerve-wracking at times. I think with the second album we’ve carried that across.”
Initial single, Paradise City, finds the band lyrically exploring a dark and seedy landscape. While the song appears to document a young girl’s fall from grace as she finds the exciting metropolis of her dreams is filled with despair, The Audreys prefer to let listeners take away their own meanings.
“We love it when people get there own ideas about lyrics, but there is no right,” Tristan says.
“A person quizzed me a few days ago about Paradise City and kept referring to the Axl Rose song, so I told him to imagine it for the women,” Taasha offers. “Axl’s singing that the grass is green and the girls are pretty with his misogynist ewww, so what was it like for the women in that city? Well it was probably pretty fucked. I really love people’s interpretations of our songs and they’re often more interesting than our own.”
The video features an undressed Taasha in a low-lit, grimy and sparse hotel room, with the video culminating in her body becoming an animated canvas on which celebrated local artist Emma Hack paints the creeping tendrils of a vine.
“It took hours and hours,” Taasha says. “It was full-on and very cold. Tristan was there for moral support and was plying me with whisky to keep me warm. A couple of the boys dropped in, but otherwise they went to the pub! It was filmed up Hindley Street and I got pretty sore, but between takes someone threw something over me.”
Although their 2006 ARIA success of the band hasn’t translated to royalty riches just yet, The Audreys love the opportunity to travel around Australia and playing their music to diverse crowds.
“Touring’s so great in Australia at the moment,” Taasha explains. “So many bands, so many great venues and lots of people coming out to see us. The flipside of all the talk about major record labels crumbling is the emergence of a more organic scene. We’ve made so many friends with other Australian musicians because you’re always running into them as you tour around and around.
“We’ve just played the East and West Coast Blues & Roots Festivals and it was the first time we’d played songs off the new album. There was a joy in having new stuff to play and I can see now why acts who’ve put out five or six albums play for two and a half hours! They’re probably really attached to them. You go to Elvis Costello and after a while you’re just like, ‘Fucking hell, Elvis! I need to go home’. We’re going to be that act where people are leaving before we’re finished – ‘Hang on, we’ve still got more!’.”
“We’re very keen to be playing at Her Majesty’s,” Tristan says. “It should be really good fun.”
“We’ll get some lighting and set design happening,” Taasha comments. “We’ll do something with the sets and props.”
Maybe get Emma Hack to paint you again?
“Come out nude?” Taasha asks.
Well, maybe you could get the boys to do it this time.
“Mmm,” Tristan concludes. “Pasty white guys all covered in vine leaves. Sure…”
The Audreys perform at Her Majesty’s Theatre on Fri Jun 6. When The Flood Comes is out now through ABC/Warner.