Veterans of the east-coast music scene for the better part of the past three decades, The Genes are back with a new album, 'Dead Street Light'.
Written and recorded in Cabarita Beach during a time when lead singer-songwriter Nolan Angell had become reclusive following two life-threatening surfing accidents, 'Dead Street Light' was inspired by difficult but also happy times spent with his wife and two daughters.
The first single lifted from the album is 'Godfathers Lament', which will be available from Monday (5 February). But the band have offered scenestr the opportunity to premiere the video to 'Godfathers Lament' today.
The song is a tribute to Francis Ford Coppola, inspired by Nolan’s deep love for the 'Godfather' movies. "I'm a big fan of the 'Godfather' movies and I had a riff that sounded like it was right out of those films," Nolan says.
"At some point I had the idea to write a song composed entirely of iconic lines from movies that everyone already knew. I already had the Godfather-sounding riff, so I wrote out a list of random lines from the 'Godfather' trilogy and arranged them into a song and it just seemed to come together.
"We were a bit concerned that Francis Ford Coppola or Paramount Pictures would come down on us pretty hard, but so far they’ve been ok with it. We put together a film clip made entirely of scenes from the movies and Paramount Pictures have so far allowed us to use it.
"We're stoked to have Brando, Pacino and James Caan in a clip for one of our songs. It's pretty epic for us."
The Genes will embark on a busking tour from Noosa to Bells Beach and anywhere in between this February through March. They will document their tour on camera and upload footage along the way as daily webisodes.
"We played a few songs down by the beach one day and it was heaps of fun," Nolan says.
"We just had a few guitars and the beach was totally deserted and there was no wind and it had a good sound and was really interesting to hear music there, where you wouldn't normally expect to hear music.
"We thought: 'Let's get a campervan, put the boards and guitars in and drive wherever we want and do some busking and play some songs out in the bush or at the beach. We had the idea to film it and put up webisodes online.
"What is really exciting to us is finding amazing Australian scenery, with no one around for miles, and setting up and playing a song and filming it. Driving from Noosa to Bells, surfing, playing music and just hanging out! I can't believe it took us so long to come up with this idea."
