On the day of their national tour announcement, San Cisco's Josh Biondillo was riding off the effects of Easter weekend indulgence – or preparing for a new kind of gig fitness, depending how you frame it.
The Fremantle band's much-anticipated 'Between You And Me' east-coast, 20-date tour will include multiple stops featuring early and late shows on the same day to allow for COVID-restricted venues to have 'full' capacity attendances.Biondillo says he hadn't yet thought far enough ahead to consider how the band might maintain their mojo for both sets. "That's an interesting question. . . Coffees, I guess?" he laughs.
"I think it's just the way it is for the time being, because the venues are half-capacity, having to play twice in a day. Obviously it's going to be very taxing on our bodies. . . But I don't know, we're just happy to be playing again in whichever format it is. We love it and we're happy to be back."
"We're working closely with some of the Tame Impala guys."
The band have kept themselves relatively gig fit, with several West Australian shows under their belts with the occasional adventure outside the border – but until now their album tour plans had fallen victim to the COVID cancellation curse. "We're very excited," Josh laughs.
"We were in a meeting the other day and our manager said this tour will kind of be the end of the album cycle, which is strange because we put out the album last year or whenever it was – yeah, last year – but we just haven't had the opportunity to see how it was properly received because so much of how you gauge the response is just from live shows, you know?
"Which tunes go off live and which ones everyone gets into to and everyone knows the words to, so we were kind of like, 'Oh. . . bugger. We didn't really get to tour the guts out of it.' One, big tour is better than none, I guess – a lot of acts haven't even had that, or they've had to cancel everything – so we're excited to play to the fans who are excited to buy tickets and stuff."
Biondillo says the band had spent their time during COVID lockdowns "tinkering away in the studio" working on live music as well as workshopping their live show.
The band also prides themselves on their merch range, and will have something special for fans on this tour.
"One of our good friends is a graphic designer and we work quite closely together to get some cool campaigns happening – one of which we've got for the tour coming up," Biondillo says.
"And I guess, it's not like we haven't been playing any shows – like, we've had a few opportunities to still get out and kind of dust off the instruments."
2021 marks ten years since the band's debut EP 'Golden Revolver', and Josh seems humbled by the number, although at this point he says they're now four albums in and working on album number five with "no real signs of slowing down".
"Ten years, yeah – that's a daunting number to be doing something. . . I don't think I've ever done anything else for ten years. Ever. I think we're starting to get the hang of it," he laughs. "Every tour, every album I'm like, 'Woah – still going. How good.'
"But obviously it doesn't happen by magic, we're not just sitting at home waiting for our songs to come on the radio; there's so much work – it has been our full-time job for ten-ish years, pretty much."
The band just released a remix of their track 'Reasons' by The Jungle Giants – a different move for San Cisco, but Biondillo says the band have enjoyed working with new collaborators and influences.
"Sam [Hales, of The Jungle Giants] is a very good friend of ours, and we were just talking about having some remixes done, which we don't usually do, but I just love his approach and his production, and I thought he would eat that song up, which he did," he says.
"I'd really like to get into the studio with him. We're also working closely with some of the Tame [Impala] guys over here, because they haven't been able to go anywhere either. . . We're enjoying bringing new people into the studio and creating new things with different people, like people that we would never usually [work with] and never have before, it just makes for a really exciting approach and keeps it fresh."
It's perhaps a safer approach to the band's recording of 'Between You And Me', where they lived in a shed in Mullumbimby for a month with all manner of creepy crawlies.
"That's another one of our tricks that we like, when we've kind of hit a wall or whatever is we put ourselves in a scenario that is very uncomfortable. You know, I don't think anything generally good comes from getting up in the morning and living a very comfortable existence. . . you've almost got to feel like you're going to get bitten by a snake sometimes," Biondillo laughs.
"Sometimes Jordi [Davieson] and I joke that we've got to let a lion into the studio sometimes so we're always, like, living on the edge."
San Cisco 2021 Tour Dates
Wed 26 May - The Cooly Hotel (Gold Coast)Thu 27 May - The Cooly Hotel (Gold Coast)
Fri 28 May - Enmore Theatre (Sydney)* early & late shows
Sat 29 May - UOW Uni Bar (Wollongong)
Fri 4 Jun - Forum Melbourne* early & late shows
Sat 5 Jun - Pier Hotel (Melbourne)
Thu 10 Jun - The Tivoli (Brisbane)* early & late shows
Sat 12 Jun - NightQuarter (Sunshine Coast)
Sun 13 Jun - The Cooly Hotel (Gold Coast)
Thu 17 Jun - The Gov (Adelaide)
Fri 18 Jun - UC Refectory (Canberra)* early & late shows
Sat 19 Jun - NEX (Newcastle)* early & late shows
Thu 1 Jul - Torquay Hotel
Fri 2 Jul - Goods Shed (Hobart)
