Earlier this year, Adelaide rockers The Superjesus were singing about 'Money', but now the subject matter has taken a more serious turn with their latest single 'Lights Out' – a tribute to a longtime fan who won't make it to their upcoming run of tour dates.
During the band's time off, while vocalist Sarah McLeod and bassist Stu Rudd were working on new music, the pair received some devastating news which inspired the direction of the track they were working on."When we were writing music and the band wasn't performing, a fan – Rita is her name – who was at all of our shows and was a huge fan of the band, lost her battle with mental health," Rudd explains.
"I'd written a title for the music 'Lights Out', and McLeod took that in a totally different, unique way, and she started writing a song and the next minute we put it together and that was it."
The duo sent the track to Rita's family, who were the first to hear the song when it was complete.
"It hit us pretty hard, and it's recognising that it is out there, and it touches everybody," Stu says. "It was just our way of acknowledging mental health and everyone goes through battles and stuff like that."
After releasing 'Money' earlier this year, touring it and then following with 'Lights Out', The Superjesus is getting back into the groove of a write/ record/ release/ tour cycle – and there is certainly more where that came from.
"We've always kind of kept writing songs: we put out an EP prior, so that was a couple of years ago, and then we did something prior to that, again, which was a couple of years before that, so we've just been sort of chugging along," Rudd says.
"But this was more of an effort to really write towards an album – which we're still writing now, actually. We've recorded about half of it."
The band plans to return to the studio in early December to hopefully complete the forthcoming album. But for now, they are grateful for the support for the singles, particularly the continuing radio airplay.
"It just validates, you know – when you're sitting in your room or drinking coffee late at night and penning stuff down and playing guitar chords and the candle is burning, you don't expect it to be perhaps, sometimes, acknowledged at all – it could just be an idea," Stu laughs.
"But we're fortunate that people have picked it up and have played it, and we're incredibly grateful."
To still be performing together almost 30 years after the band got together is not something Rudd ever expected – let alone enjoying life as a full-time musician.
"It was quite a compressed band that was always on the edge of exploding; I guess part of that was always being in each other's pocket all the time," he says.
"We're incredibly blessed to still be doing it – and enjoying it, that's the main thing – we're still loving it."
The Superjesus did take an extended hiatus between 2004 and 2013, but Rudd explains there was never any animosity behind it. "Do you know, that hiatus was literally, we finished a show, and walked away," he says.
"We didn't say anything, we didn't ring each other and say 'hey, we should play again'. . . we didn't do anything: we just walked away. It was bizarre."
Rudd says getting the band back together happened in its own time as well. "I had breakfast with McLeod in 2010, and we talking about doing the band again and getting a show together, and it took three years for that to come to fruition," he explains.
"So we did take a while. But it was good, because everyone sort of grew and did what they had to do, I guess."
Part of the band's current enthusiasm to record and tour new music is the recent addition of lead guitarist Cam Blokland and drummer Murray Sheridan. "Cam's actually an Adelaide-based guy – I'm still in Adelaide, McLeod's up in Brisbane, Murray's over in NSW," Rudd explains.
"So it just came to that point of writing new material and the direction of the band that we felt it was time, and Cam's services became available and we said, 'hey, let's get into this'; he came over to my place and we started playing some stuff together and it just felt great.
"And Murray was playing with some friends of ours, and we flew him down to Adelaide and I got in the rehearsal room with Murray and we just started to write, and it was just one of those instant click chemistry sort of things, and it just felt really good."
Stu says the band has been pumping and firing on all cylinders. "That Money tour was really good," he says. "So if you haven't seen us since the Sumo tour, or whatever, come along – you won't be disappointed."
The Superjesus 2023 Tour Dates
Sat 26 Aug - Wallaby Hotel (Gold Coast)Sun 27 Aug - The Zoo (Brisbane)
Fri 15 Sep - Croxton Bandroom (Melbourne)
Sat 16 Sep - Barwon Club Hotel (Geelong)
Fri 22 Sep - Bridgway Hotel (Adelaide)
Fri 6 Oct - C. Ex Coffs (Coffs Harbour)
Sat 7 Oct - Laurieton Ex-Services (Mid North Coast)
Fri 13 Oct - Tilly's (Wagga Wagga)
Sat 14 Oct - The Victoria Hotel (Bathurst)
Fri 17 Nov - Volta (Ballarat)
Sat 18 Nov - Golden Vine Hotel (Bendigo)
Fri 8 Dec - Port Beach Brewery (Fremantle)
Sat 9 Dec - Ravenswood Hotel (Perth)
Sun 10 Dec - Albies Bar (Busselton)
