Today (15 June), Melbourne band Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever release their debut album 'Hope Downs'.
At the start of this year, 'Mainland' was the first track released from their debut album. “'Mainland' was written last year, after I took a trip with my partner to my grandparent's homeland, an island off the coast of Sicily in Italy,” singer-guitarist Tom Russo says.
“It was a pretty beautiful time, but at the same time it was when lots of intense things were happening in the news. There was a refugee crisis unfolding a few kilometres away, but I just felt so detached from that. And I was reflecting on our privilege and trying to hold on to good things in the face of bad things happening.”
'Mainland' is a solid representation of the rest of the album according to the group's other singer-guitarist Fran Keaney.
“The themes for the rest of the album are pretty similar to 'Mainland', and that's the reason that we led with it as the first song of the album.
“'Hope Downs' comes from Gina Rinehart's biggest mine, which is just a big, empty pit. We thought that was a nice summation of the idea of the album.
"A lot of the songs are about coming to terms with the bigness of the horrible things that are happening in the world, the bigness of life itself and also finding what's important around you.
“The first song, 'An Air Conditioned Man', is about a businessman who's becoming more and more detached from reality and living in this faker and faker corporate world. At the end, he has this realisation of what he's lost.”
Rolling Blackouts C.F. released EPs 'Talk Tight' in 2016 and 'The French Press' in 2017. “The production is a little bit different [for ‘Hope Downs], we did our previous two EPs in our rehearsal place,” Fran says.
“For this one we went up to our drummer's home town in NSW. And we set up in a house there, but we used some nice mics so it's got a more hi-fi sort of a sound. We still use the same approach, which is that we record the songs live together all standing in the one room. Then we do vocals and overdubs a bit later.”
We spoke to Rolling Blackouts C.F. in April, ahead of a string of overseas shows and festival appearances they had. The band's first appearance was at Coachella. “Beyoncé’s playing which is cool,” Fran says.
The band then played Shaky Knees in Georgia, before heading over to The Great Escape in the UK and Primavera Festival in Spain. “I went [to Primavera] a few years ago just as a punter with Tom. It's such an incredible location and always such a bumper line-up. It's more a case of who isn't there.”
While overseas, Rolling Blackouts C.F. also played headlining shows across the US, Canada, the UK and Europe. “This time we're getting off the beaten track and getting to see a few of the [US] states in the middle. And we'll be driving around the whole time which is the dream,” Fran says.
“There's something about pub shows that I really like, like 300 to 400 capacity venues. It just seems to be the right ratio. There's different atmospheres and tones at different venues. It's fun to be a fly on the wall or maybe more of a fly in the spotlight for a little while.”
'Hope Downs' is available now.
Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever Tour Dates
Sun 22 Jul - Splendour In The Grass (Byron Bay)Thu 27 Sep - The Courier-Mail Spiegeltent @ Brisbane Festival
Fri 28 Sep - Factory Theatre (Sydney)
Sat 29 Sep - Yours & Owls Festival (Wollongong)
Fri 5 Oct - Rosemount Hotel (Perth)
Sat 6 Oct - Jive (Adelaide)
Fri 12 Oct - Geelong Workers Club
Sat 13 Oct - Corner Hotel (Melbourne)
