Brisbane band The Belligerents spent two weeks at a North Stradbroke Island farmhouse to record their debut album.
Their hit single, ‘Before, I Am’, was inspired by the unique recording environment. “We recorded in a place that was kind of like a farm," bass player and producer Konstantin Kersting says.
"It’s kind of like one of the only farms on Stradbroke. There’s not that many farms because most of it is beach houses and whatnot. We saw another friend's band went there to do a bit of demo recording and jamming and we got it for super, super cheap. [We] just hired [a lot] of gear and took it over there and had the best two weeks ever.”
While the back-to-back recording was a fairly quick process, Konstantin says spending time at the beach house was “heaps of fun”.
“There was still a little bit of party, sort of, [but] we did get a lot of stuff done. Two weeks isn’t really that long to record an album when you think about it. It’s 13 songs, and some bands take months and months to record albums, so it was pretty good.
“It was pretty quick, but it was 12-14 hours every day... [it was] fun just hanging out with your mates and drinking beer.”
‘Before, I Am’ was written for an acoustic guitar, though later morphed into something completely different. Konstantin says the beach house had a lot to do with the final product “The album has a pretty distinct sound. And I think it’s definitely influenced by where we were.
“But wherever you record it always imparts some kind of character in your recording. Even if we were recording in a different studio, we would end up with a different product. So being on this farm and being around music all day [was great], and when people weren’t making music they were around music.
“I think the main thing that happened is that we had more time than normal, more than we had in the past. It was just the five of us and then a couple of friends who came and visited. There was no real stress about anything. We definitely had enough time to get stuff done.”
Konstantin says the time at the farmhouse allowed the band the time they needed to experiment, which resulted in “different sounds” and “different things [they] hadn’t done before”.
“One of the main things was that we were all there the whole time. I had to bail for two days to do some work somewhere else, but essentially we were all in the same spot the whole time, which doesn’t happen in recording studios. Everyone just goes home at night, and [then] you come back. This didn’t feel like work. It was like a holiday and we recorded an album.”
Konstantin says the new album will be released mid-2016. “We don’t want to set a date because we’d have to stick to it. [It] should be good to take the album to all the places we haven’t been before. So there’ll be a big tour, and a bunch of festivals as well, and then [we’ll] just see how we go really.
"You never know what’s gonna happen. Sometimes you put out stuff you think won’t do too well and suddenly it blows up; and sometimes you do things people don’t really understand. We’ve never done an album before, so it’s a pretty big deal. We just have to put it out and hope it reaches as many people as possible, and hopefully people like it.”
The Belligerents Tour Dates
Fri 22 Apr - The Gum Ball (Hunter Valley)Thu 28 Apr - Rocket Bar (Adelaide)
Fri 29 Apr - Gasometer (Melbourne)
Sat 30 Apr - Brighton Up Bar (Sydney)
Fri 6 May - Elsewhere (Gold Coast)
Sat 7 May - Solbar (Sunshine Coast)
Fri 13 May - The Foundry (Brisbane)
