Brisbane band The Stress Of Leisure have created “irreverent” music about today's “absurd” society for more than ten years and are now experimenting with new sounds.
The Stress Of Leisure's guitarist, vocalist and songwriter Ian Powne believes Brisbane's music scene is more organic than other Australian cities.
“What happens in Brisbane is that scenes come up, they rise, they go through their gestation and particular bands from that scene will graduate to a different level and some of those bands have finished and they'll move on to different projects. They become the people who adopt the next scene; it's a continuing wave of music in Brisbane.
“The great thing that has never changed in Brisbane is that people are still willing to try stuff, they're willing to get together and rehearse. You don't have to diarise anything. There's a real organic movement in Brisbane and that's really healthy in comparison to scenes such as Sydney or Melbourne. Here it really feels a bit more natural.
“One of the real strengths of Brisbane is we say 'let's just try this', 'let's get a whole group of bands who don't sound like each other together' or 'let's just try this type of song'. That's one of the real strengths of being in Brisbane,” Ian says. Ian is also influenced by Brisbane's subtropical climate and defines the city's unique, music culture by its weather.
“I think a lot of music is defined in a geographical sense. We're in a subtropical climate and there are so many competing factors for people in entertainment in this type of climate.
“We tend to be, as a result, possibly a bit more relaxed. Not always, but there's that vibe of party and kind of irreverence. In the Australian scene it sort of changes depending on how far south you go, not to say that there isn't that all the way through. There is commonality, but I think climate really dictates what type of bands you're going to get.”
The Stress Of Leisure take from rock & roll's classic discontent, amplifying the “absurdity” of the social climate. “We live in absurdity. More and more the absurdity grows, especially 2016. It all exists in these big, theoretical concepts: the manufacturing of consent, Noam Chomsky, all that sort of stuff.
“The hilarity is in the realness. We live in these very hyper-real times where you just go, 'I can't believe this is happening'. That absurdity is what comedians pick up on a lot of the time, some of the real stuff is quite hilarious.”
The band tinker their performance for a crowd, so they can play to all audiences. “We read the audience as it comes. It's what you do in between songs, which is pretty important as well. I think we're pretty good with interacting with audiences. We're really happy to play to anyone. It's always a chance to play to different people. We don't judge an audience until we get a whiff of them. We may not play certain songs, may not swear or anything like that but it doesn't tone back our irreverence.”
The Stress Of Leisure play The Gap Farmers' Market's Twilight Music Festival 23 December.
