Local indie rockers Babaganouj were recently announced to play the Sunlit Sounds festival in Brisbane.
Babaganouj, who first got together in 2011, haven’t played a gig in Australia for 12 months and are excited about their return performance. Known for their singles ‘Sh.tty Christmas’, ‘Star’ and ‘She’s So Lovely’, the group's guitarist/ singer Charles Sale says the band are looking forward to the festival.
“We haven’t played for ages, I can’t wait to get back on the horse,” he says.
“We’ve all be busy, Harriette [Pillbeam, bass-vocals] now has her own project, she’s in LA playing in some cool festival, I’m at home doing uni work and the others are all doing their own stuff too,” Charles says.
Babaganouj (how much fun is it saying their name?!) toured Japan in October last year. “The Japan tour came about after receiving an email from a guy in Japan who runs a small record label, a year later we were there, playing some shows for the first time internationally,” Charles says.
“The language barrier is sometimes enduring, but it was really cool; we're hoping to get back, we just need to record more songs.”
Charles says that this upcoming gig at Sunlit Sounds is the only one planned for the group this year. “This is probably going to be our only gig for a little while, because of the things that everyone is doing, but it’s cool to do a little thing near our houses, it’s cute,” he says.
“With Babaganouj, for me personally it’s the only thing I do now (apart from uni), so it’s based on a bit of my own personal drive. Touring is fun, we toured lots earlier on, but now we're taking it easy,” Charles says.
“I think, with Sunlit we're going to be doing a mixture of things [onstage], this [performance] is going to be a reflection of the last five years of what we have done,” he says.
But fans of the band don’t stress, new things are on the cards for Babaganouj. “There are [new] songs in the works. We all have some saved, we just now need to get together and talk about it.”
Their previous songs have shown a little bit of a dark side. “I think Babaganouj songs are super personal experiences, it can be slow going because the band's progress is democratic,” Charles says. “The gestation time can be long, but worth it.”
After being together for seven years, Babaganouj still hope to tour Australia (and Japan) sometime soon. “I feel like Babaganouj has been such an entity for such a long time now, we have reached this point that we're thinking ‘we need to do something again’, and we’re looking forward to it,” Charles says.
