One billion. That’s one thousand million, and that’s how many streams Melbourne band The Paper Kites have received online. Fair effort guys.
While all this has been going on, The Paper Kites have also been busy making a new album and touring America.
Released late September, 'On The Corner Where You Live' is a follow-up from their surprise 2018 album 'On The Train Ride Home', which was released in April. “'On The Train Ride Home' was a kind of stripped-back version… they are albums in their own right, but also a kind of Part A and Part B,” the group's bass player, Sam Rasmussen says.
“Part A ('On The Train Ride Home') is the stripped-back version and then Part B ('On The Corner Where You Live') is back to our old sound, the stuff that we really like playing live.”
The new album was co-produced by Peter Katis (who has also worked with Gang Of Youths, Kurt Vile and The National) in his house in America. “It was cool. Peter owns this massive Victorian mansion in a crappy suburb in Connecticut. The top storey is a studio, then six beds and baths, we all lived there,” Sam says about his time recording with Peter.
“He is a pro at what he does because he enables you to work and get the best out of you without any perceived pressure or stress. It was a really good experience and I think that listeners are going to find performance-wise it's a massive step up. Sonically there are similarities, but we are hoping people will hear it’s freer and has a lot of expression to it.”
The real journey for The Paper Kites started after they had massive success in Europe. “It was all pretty cool. We released 'twelvefour' [album] late 2015 and basically straight away off we went. It was brutally hard, 2016 was exciting but our first time to Europe and those tours were especially trying,” Sam says.
“The first time we went to Amsterdam, the first European tour, and it had been a hard flog. We were there for like 25 days with 24 shows, we had 1 day off and even on that day we ended up doing a couple of radio shows.
“We’d come off the back of some small shows, feeling tired and then we got to Amsterdam. The capacity of the place we were going was 2,000, so we added more tickets, and then it sold out in 2 days. We’d gone from playing to 200 or 300 people to this massive theatre and it was just incredible.”
The future is looking bright for the band with more touring on the cards. “We’re back in North America for the whole of November. From there nothing is announced yet, but next year will be jam-packed with a lot more touring.”
Australian fans can get excited too. “It’s been a long time since we’ve played in Australia, but we are in the final stages of getting some Australian stuff organised.”
