Things have been a little quiet for Augie March since the release of their most recent album, 'Bootikins', last year.
Twelve months on from the album release and songwriter Glenn Richards says he's very happy with what the band achieved on 'Bootikins', despite not touring it extensively enough. “I still like the album,” Glenn says.
“As far as actually being active on it I'd say we probably haven't done as much as would have liked.
“There's practical issues, like I don't live in Melbourne anymore but that's pretty easily overcome; it's more just not finding the right gigs to do and everybody having kids and that sort of thing makes it more difficult.
“Like most bands that have been around for a while are finding, it's pretty much impossible to do a decent tour unless you're on top of the world, so we've got a few good shows in early and that's about it really these days.”
Now living in Tasmania, Glenn says there was a looseness to the way 'Bootikins' was written and recorded that allowed him to explore deeper, perhaps even darker, aspects of his personality.
“I did have a liberating sense of trying to explore the worst possibilities of my own character, but without drowning in that at all,” he says.
“I wanted there to be a kind of self-mockery at work and that's where a few of the tunes came from. I think there's a humour there as well as a fair bit of honesty.”
The members of Augie March will finally be on same stage again when they perform at Dashville in the Hunter Valley as part of The Gum Ball this year.
“I'm not familiar with probably nine out of ten festivals these days, they pop up every year. But I did have look and [The Gum Ball] looks like a really nice one, so we're happy to be doing it,” Glenn says.
“Actually fronting the band is always a nervous thing for me, so that will be different. From the sounds of it it's a really nice, low-level [festival] taking a leaf out of the book of Meredith: keep it cool and a no-idiots policy, which has always worked well.”
Along with a good chunk of songs from 'Bootikins', Glenn and the band plan on dipping into their back catalogue for some of their lesser-known songs to play live in a special treat for long-time fans.
“The most recent shows we did were just a little while ago in Melbourne and it was actually a nice mix, so I made a point of writing a set list that included a hell of a lot of stuff from all the records that we traditionally haven't played because maybe we found them too difficult, but that turned out beautifully and it worked well with the 'Bootikins' tracks as well, so we'll probably do something along those lines, just for our own sake.”
