RÜFÜS have made the world their back garden and plan on exploring as many of its curiosities as they can.
With a new album, ‘Bloom’, out tomorrow (22 January), and whisperings of a substantial tour to follow, it seems the surreal life of this musical triptych will only continue to grow weirder and wilder.
The boys spent two months in Berlin last year writing the music for ‘Bloom’, with the remainder written on the road and back home in Australia. The group's drummer, James, felt their constantly shifting backdrop, while sometimes a distraction, added a unique quality to the album they might otherwise never have achieved. “We only finished it a few weeks ago, in a hotel room in Montreal,” he reveals.
“We were kind of down to the wire on that one. There definitely was a healthy amount of procrastination [in the past] year. And we wanted to keep tweaking things. But I think that was for the betterment of the record.”
Their life in Berlin was pretty hectic. So hectic, in fact, they started running out of animals. “We were titling our projects in alphabetical order with animal names – so we started with aardvark, then beluga whale, then crab – and we wound up going through the alphabet like three times. We were writing a lot.
“We would smash these ideas out during the day and then at night we were spoiled for choice with all the live music that was there. If we hit a creative block, we’d walk down to Watergate and come back at 3am and maybe keep writing until 6am. It was definitely an inspiring time, and we weren’t working normal hours, but we were discovering, and hearing, and channelling that Berlin vibe.”
The album born of that time is surreal and dreamy with a quality that is instantly recognisable as RÜFÜS, but transcends their previous work. James is proud of the album as a complete, musical expression. But admits to having a secret soft-spot for one song in particular. “Picking a favourite track is like picking your favourite child. One song, though, that is a bit special to me is ‘Innerbloom’, which we released a few weeks ago.
“For me, that song totally represents our time in Berlin and the music we heard there that would take you on a journey and require you to be patient and just go with it. ‘Innerbloom’ feels like the heart of the record to me.”
It’s fitting then, that the heart of the album, as James puts it, would have such a profound effect on the future of the band. “We’ve been blown away with how well it’s been received, because it’s a nine-minute track.
“We’re not going to radicalise what we do or anything, but seeing that response has really opened us up to playing with structure and journey. In our live show, we’ve started toying with the idea of things interconnecting and not necessarily having to be song by song – taking the audience on a little bit more of a sonic expedition. That’s really fun for us and it’s going to keep the show fresh, even if we’re touring for the next year or year and a half.”
In contrast to the Berlin-ness of ‘Innerbloom’, ‘You Were Right’ reflects how the boys felt to come home to the familiarity of Australia. “It was one of the first songs we wrote when we came back and it was probably one of the quickest.
"We’d hit a sort of creative block that day, so we decided to try just one more idea and it came out in like ten minutes; the feeling in those chords, the beat, and even that bass, just kind of came out really organically. We knew that meant there was something special about it.”
That ‘special something’ the boys are able to create has the power to translate into more than just an enchanting aural experience. Music can be a game-changer and RÜFÜS have been fortunate enough to see the difference their music has made in the lives of some of their fans. James was humbled to read the words of a particular fan who has an autistic son. She explained how he always calms down the instant she puts on one of their albums. “It was really nice to see that we’re serving a purpose, to help someone feel calm, feel normal.
“We get stories quite a lot, actually, of how our music has helped people get through something in their life, a break up, a rough stage. It’s really nice for us to hear, anecdotally, how people are responding to it.”
It’s not just the hard times RÜFÜS help people through. Two of their best friends recently got engaged at one of their concerts and the boys were beyond honoured to have their music chosen in that moment. “That was our friend Marcus. He always said he wanted to propose to his girlfriend in some grand way. He planned it with us for about six months. It was really nice 'cause you could feel, everyone in the room, their hearts just melting. And we were like ‘oh yeah’. Pretty good feels.”
Fans display their affection in all sorts of ways, not always so gooey and heart-melting. “People stage dive sometimes and run up on stage. It’s not as sentimental but it’s a spectacle at least.”
James was surprised the first time it happened, but has since worked out its mostly one town in particular where the fans are a touch more out-there than the rest. The culprit? Wollongong. “I think every time we’ve played there at least two people have scaled the wall, bypassed security and landed on the stage. It’s pretty wild.”
While they’ve had their share of wild celebrations, James admits their recent ARIA win (Best Dance Release for ‘You Were Right’) was remarkably subdued. “We were in London at the time and we celebrated by having beers at 10am.
“It was pretty surreal doing that live cross in the studio, hearing the applause of the whole audience in Australia in our earpieces and then walking out and there was just a cold, English morning, people rugged up and going to work. It was a weird anti-climax. And then we fell asleep 'cause we were pretty jet lagged. It was probably the least rockstar ARIA celebration of all time."
It seems jetlag is going to become a regular sensation for RÜFÜS. “Nothing’s really been announced yet but it feels like 2016 is going to be pretty crazy for us. There’ll be a lot of coming and going, which is cool because that sense of travelling out into the unknown is what inspired the record. So it’s kinda fitting that it’s going to be amplified.”
While there are no dates as yet, it seems an album tour is imminent and the visual journey will continue to be an integral part of their shows. “Every time we do a big tour we find a way to have a visual element. It’s like having a fourth band member up there. It has life to it, responds to the music, and embellishes the journey.
“It’s exciting that we can play with that visual focus and there’s huge developments in creative and interactive content. Like the Tupac hologram, that’s pretty sick. Maybe we could do a tour with the Tupac hologram.”
‘Bloom’ is released on 22 January.
