Prepare to tremble as Brisbane rock duo, Elko Fields unleash the noise and fury of their debut EP on their upcoming tour.
With their self-titled EP, guitarist/ vocalist Kella Vee and drummer/ vocalist Tomas Stephenson prove that you don’t need a whole band to sound like one. Armed with their take-no-prisoners approach and Kella’s guitar-pedal artillery, the duo recorded the EP with Powderfinger’s Ian Haug. “When he asked if we wanted to do an EP we were keen but maybe not so ready,” Tomas says.
“But a couple of weeks later we were in the studio getting it down and somehow we managed to pull six tracks from pretty much nowhere. We punched it out in one weekend. We recorded everything pretty much live and it was exactly how we wanted it. We were just lucky Ian and the sound engineer Yanto [Browning] seemed to like the vibe.”
Less of a record and more like a swift musical kick to the head, the EP was also recorded live and in one take. Kella says she and Tomas wanted to record it this way in order to capture the essence of their live performance. “That’s always how we’ve rehearsed as well,” Kella explains.
“As a two piece we try to write our songs just off the top and a lot of our tracks come from jamming on riffs. So to be able to record at Airlock Studios in an amazing space and capture what we do live is exactly what we wanted. We wanted our EP to represent our live show and we’re stoked that we feel it does that.”
Tomas adds: “We’ve said it a few times but we want to be genuine and authentic. We’ve seen a few two-pieces and at the shows either it doesn’t sound like the record at all, or it does sound like the record but it’s not the live performer doing it. For me, if we were going to make an EP we had to be able to play it live.”
While Kella and Tomas are committed to channelling the sound of their live performance into their recordings, as Elko Fields they’ve played only a handful of shows.
For the upcoming tour, they want to make an unforgettable impact on the audience by making as much noise as two people possibly can. “We’ve probably played less than ten shows in our entire career so far, and every time we try to do something different and I suppose we want to do something really different this time around,” Tomas says.
“[At the shows] we want to do the EP, play everything off that, but we’ll be mixing it up a little bit. It’s out first ever headline shows, so we want to do a relatively short, punchy set and get our point across real quick.”
“We’ve been really taken back from the response to our live shows,” Kella adds. “We’re the sort of band where if you don’t know what to expect hopefully we surprise you in the end. We have had an amazing response from other bands and punters, and we think Brisbane is an amazing place to launch yourself. We’ve fallen in love with the music scene here and we can’t wait to do some more.”
The 'Elko Fields' EP is available now.
Elko Fields Tour Dates
Wed 16 Nov - Frankie’s Pizza (Sydney)Thu 17 Nov - The Evelyn Hotel (Melbourne)
Fri 18 Nov - Black Bear Lodge (Brisbane)
Fri 25 Nov - The Exeter Hotel (Adelaide)
Thu 1 Dec - Footstomp Music's Christmas Party @ Crowbar (Brisbane)
