When Lime Cordiale last toured Australia, they were selling out massive venues with an elaborate set featuring all the bells and whistles.
The band returned to the UK and Europe for the northern hemisphere summer, playing headline shows to rooms of 250 to 1,500 people with a stripped-back stage show. For Oli Leimbach, it was a refreshing change. "At 1,500 you can point out someone in the crowd and be like, 'Oi, what are you doing?' and everyone knows who you're talking to, because everyone can see," he laughs.
"And you can hear people heckling or yelling things out, and you can respond to them, so there's more room for spontaneity, which is nice."
The band has been mixing up their set to keep things fresh while playing multiple shows back to back, which includes some brotherly feuds on stage. "For some reason we started wrestling," Oli laughs.
"There's one section of a song called 'Ticks Me Off' where Louis just started pushing me around, and he'd occasionally get me in a headlock.
"It's kind of embarrassing – we're on stage and I'm in a headlock. So I just decided, 'right, I'm fighting back then!'"
Idris Elba joined the band on stage in London, and was keen to get 'Cordi Elba' back together for another album. "He was kind of like, 'Hey, I'm taking some time off films at the moment, so I might come out to Australia and we can do Cordi Elba no. 2,'" Oli says.
"I was thinking about it last night, it would actually be pretty mad – I feel like it's almost it's own band then; if we did a second one it's not really a collaboration any more, it's like a separate side project."
Lime Cordiale is about "70 to 80 per cent" done with the production of their third studio album, but now they're up to the hard part – polishing the songs they've recorded.
"It takes us a long time to make sure the arrangement is right, and I guess texturally it's right, and then we start wigging out about lyrics and melodies and want to redo something here or there," he laughs.
"It's the time when; I don't know how our producer holds it together, because we just go nuts."
The band's schedule for the next year is looking pretty solid, as well. "We've got this draft timeline of our live shows, for next year, which is looking quite overwhelming already," Oli says.
"We were kind of thinking we'd be in Europe for as long as possible, but it's nice coming back for the summer, then it's looking like we're going to be home until Europe's next summer."
Having played some bigger shows this time around in the UK and Europe, Oli has noticed where the similarities and differences lie with Australian festival audiences and the rest of the world.
"In Germany, everyone is listening intently, and they're really good with their nightlife – they can be out all night, probably go to a club after the show and then get up to go to work in the morning," he laughs.
"But Australians, the English and the Irish, the Scottish – they're very rowdy, very drunk. I mean it's pretty beautiful."
Coming back to play Wine Machine for the second time, Oli recalls the crowd's enthusiasm caused headaches for both artists and organisers at the height of COVID restrictions.
"We played it just outside of Canberra, and it was mid-COVID and it was meant to be this sit-down festival, but everyone was just standing and running down to the front, so every band had to stop their set about, I don't know, like five times," he says.
"It was just one of those weird ones where they did a good job putting a festival together with all the regulations, but it was strange. . . and I was surprised how little it had to do with wine – I thought it was a wine festival."
It will be a far cry, then, from the gin festival the band played in Darwin earlier this year. "It was the hardest show we've ever done," Oli recalls.
"I think we were on at like 11pm, at a gin festival – it was boiling hot, and everyone was too far gone; like people with their backs to you and you're like, I can't win these people over. They're not even going to remember this in the morning."
Lime Cordiale shared a line-up with fellow Wine Machine performer Masked Wolf earlier this year, and Oli says he is hilarious but a handful backstage.
"Nick [Polovineo] our trombone player was on the phone to his girlfriend at Groovin The Moo and Masked Wolf comes up and goes, 'Yo, who are you talking to?'" Oli says.
"Nick goes, 'Oh sorry, I'm just on the phone to my girlfriend,' and he grabs the phone off him and goes, 'What you know about rolling down in the deep,' on the phone. Nick grabs his phone back and was like, 'Yeah. . . that was the guy that sings that song."
The band would have caught up with Masked Wolf in Greece for a writing session had their hectic tour schedule allowed for it.
"He's quite open-minded with who he wants to collaborate with, you know, you'd think he'd just be writing with hip hop artists, but like he just did that Bring Me The Horizon collab," Oli says, "which is pretty cool, pushing the boundaries in different ways."
Oli says he's keen to see if Wine Machine headliners Flight Facilities recognise the Leimbach brothers now, who used to pop their heads in to say hello during FF sessions at a friend's dilapidated studio in Potts Point (in Sydney).
"I mean, we were absolutely no one musicians; I think we probably had one or two songs out," he explains. "So it would be kind of interesting to see if they remember that at all."
Lime Cordiale join Flight Facilities, Cut Copy, San Cisco and a host more acts at 2022-2023 Wine Machine in WA, SA, and TAS. Lime Cordiale also play Adelaide 500 at the Adelaide Parklands 2 December, Beyond The Valley (Hesse, VIC) 30 December and NYE In The Park at Victoria Park (Sydney) 31 December.
Wine Machine 2022-2023 Tour Dates
Sat 26 Nov - Oakover Grounds (Swan Valley, WA)Sat 17 Dec - Serafino Wines (McLaren Vale, SA)
Sat 14 Jan - Home Hill Winery (Huon Valley, TAS)
