From causing a ruckus and busking on the streets of Newtown, Sydney, to selling out unannounced shows (twice) and reaching ARIA chart heights, debauched Aussie favourites Sticky Fingers aren’t slowing down any time soon.
Off the back of almost three years of touring their critically-acclaimed albums 'Caress Your Soul' and 'Land Of Pleasure' to sold-out national and international audiences, you could easily assume that Australian psych-bourbon-pop-reggae frontrunners Sticky Fingers are at the end of their energetic and hypnotising tether.
But your assumption would be as off-the-mark as the security systems for the recent census. Get yourselves ready as they are about to smack us in the face with yet another highly-anticipated record, 'Westaway (The Glitter & The Slums)', in late September.
Prior to recording 'Westaway…', and amid Sticky Fingers’ relentless tours, lead guitarist Seamus Coyle explains that it wasn’t always smooth sailing. “I think there are always moments in our band [where we] are near breaking point. We actually ended up doing a sober stint on the last US tour because we came off the back of [an] Australian [tour] and went straight into the US.
“It was about a week in when everybody was kind of like ‘alright guys you need to fucking chill out or you’re not going to be able to finish the tour’, so we had a six-day sobriety stint and that’s as long as we lasted,” he laughs. “That was interesting, we were in bed by [midnight] watching a movie and eating popcorn. We didn’t know what to do with ourselves.”
Sticky Fingers are renowned for their don’t-give-a-damn attitude and despite the tremendous success of 'Land Of Pleasure', it’s no surprise that minimal pressure was felt with the making of 'Westaway'.
“We’d never release anything that we weren’t proud of or didn’t think was better than our last record,” Seamus says. “We don’t really ever feel… the pressure of topping ourselves. [We] kind of write and whatever comes out comes out. We never plan to make anything for anyone except for ourselves, that’s what people want to hear is real stuff.”
The band's keys and synth player, Freddy Crabs, describes the album as “lyrically darker than both previous albums. It deals with rehab, break-ups, and loneliness… mixed with the transient nature of [life on the road].”
Seamus says the band writes songs about particular moments in their lives. “['Westaway' is] a coming of age album compared to the other ones. The first one is 'Caress Your Soul' and it’s all kind of light and we’re young. The second one is welcome to the 'Land Of Pleasure' and ['Westaway'] is more coming of age… We’re all older and we realise everything is fucked,” he laughs, “nah it’s still good though, we’re happy boys.”
The recording of 'Westaway' saw the band try some new collaborations. “We [recorded one song with Remi] in Melbourne when we got back [from Thailand] because Dann Hume our producer lives down there. Paddy [Cornwall] and Remi and Dann sat around all day writing the verse. Sounds fucking great, can’t wait to release it. [Remi’s] a cool dude, a cool cat.”
Seamus explains that it came about when “[they] had this song with a verse sitting there… and wanted to get someone in to rap over [the verse] and thought we’d do something different and new.”
Remi isn’t the only guest featured on the album. “Jimmy who tour manages for us and plays with Bootleg Rascal, he did a bit of guitar as well with me on a couple of tracks which was fun. He always gets on stage with us: he’s the big, hairy bastard.”
The album, produced by Dann Hume (from Evermore who has also worked with Matt Corby and Alpine and produced Sticky Finger’s two previous albums) was recorded at Karma Sounds Studio in Thailand.
The band originally laughed at the idea of recording the album in Thailand. “[It] came up at the start of the year as a joke of where to record and we were like that’s ridiculous… [but] we kind of needed [a place like Thailand as] I felt like we had been touring so much last year that we needed a little break.
“Then towards the end of the year we were like ‘you know what, that sounds pretty fucking good’: let’s go to Thailand. It was really nice and chill place to record, great staff. We had chefs and crap and maids,” Seamus laughs, “it was full tilt.”
'Westaway (The Glitter & The Slums)' is released 30 September.
Written by Keara Forde
Sticky Fingers Shows
Fri 28 Oct - Enmore Theatre (Sydney)3-4 Nov - The Tivoli Theatre (Brisbane)
Sat 5 Nov - NightQuarter (Gold Coast)
Fri 11 Nov - Odeon Theatre (Hobart)
Sat 12 Nov - Festival Hall (Melbourne)
Fri 18 Nov - Metro City (Perth)
19-20 Nov - Thebarton Theatre (Adelaide)
