Gideon of The Preatures feels comfortable with all of his eggs in one basket as the band release their new EP, Is This How You Feel?
“Now it's kind of at a point where [the music career] has to work,” he says. “I had one guitar lesson in my whole life but he didn't teach me what I wanted to learn. I went on and picked up the guitar again later down the track. I went away overseas and travelled for a bit and came back. I dropped out of university numerous times. So I've put all of my eggs in one basket.”
It's just as well, then, that the band is poised for the sort of success that would support such a life choice. 'Is This How You Feel?', the lead single from the eponymous EP, dropped earlier this year, and to say that audiences embraced the band's poppier direction would be an understatement.
“I think people have warmed to it more than anything else we've ever done,” Gideon says. “These new tracks, people are getting it, singing along and really connecting to it. I think people are going to really like it. It's danceable, there are moods to it and it's like what we had before, where there are down points and there are uplifting points. In that way it's a bit like a journey. As a whole, sonically, it's going to make sense to people about how the feel fits into it all.
“People understand that this was a decision that the band made. We haven't changed. If we were to have put out an independent record, we would have put out the same record. We did it all ourselves and in our own space and the label were really good and gave us our own space and place to develop, do what we needed to do and write what we needed to write.”
Among their influences, The Preatures would name Prince, Fleetwood Mac and Roxy Music — while you might not have felt their presence on the band's first EP, Shaking Hands, they're all over 'Is This How You Feel?' and new single 'Manic Baby'.
“I guess at heart, as a band, we're built for classics. We look to the past for inspiration. We do like a lot of sounds that people are using at the moment and we thought we could incorporate that as well this time.”
In fact, if Gideon could be reborn into another decade, it would be the '70s: “I'm a secret fan of disco and the whole culture.”
The Preatures Tour Dates:
Oxford Art Factory (Sydney) – Fri Sep 6Northcote Social Club (Melbourne) – Fri Sep 13
Korova Louge (Ballarat) – Sat Sept 14
Jive (Adelaide) – Thu Sept 19
Flyrite (Perth) – Fri Sep 20
Mojo's (Fremantle) – Sat Sep 21
Transit Bar (Canberra) – Thur Sep 26
Black Bear Lodge (Brisbane) – Fri Sep 27
