Five years is a long time to wait for anything, so needless to say fans of Aussie rock favourites, Thirsty Merc, are beside themselves with the prospect of a new album and massive national tour.
After enjoying years of success through major record labels, Thirsty Merc have produced their new album, ‘Shifting Gears’, entirely independently. Frontman, Rai Thistlethwayte says the title reflects a shift in how the band produces and releases their music. “Really, personally, it’s bit of a shift in terms of the way that we’re releasing this stuff,” says Rai. “Obviously it’s 2015, the band’s enjoyed some great releases through major record labels and we’ve gone through some of those structures.
“This is a shift in the way that we’re driving manual; we’re actually shifting the gears ourselves now. We’re coming up with all the internal stuff and not really relying on any of those business decisions to be made by a record label. So it was actually more of a manual thing and that’s really where the album title comes from.”
Last year, Thirsty Merc celebrated the ten-year anniversary of their debut album by re-recording it as an acoustic record. The ‘Acoustic Anniversary Album’ was also produced independently and Rai says the success of the approach inspired the band to pursue the model. “We had a really successful experience with doing our last acoustic album 100 per cent independently and it was a lesser outlay of energy because it was a re-recording of old songs, so we knew what the songs were. We spent less time in the studio and it was just a three-piece acoustic tour, so there were less of us on the road and it was all about the one tour really.”
After the acoustic tour, the members of Thirsty Merc pooled their collective knowledge and experience of the music industry in order to construct a crowd-funding campaign that would allow them to retain complete creative control with their music. “We had such a good time doing it in terms of being able to drive our own affairs that we figured, ‘you know what, we’ve got a lot of experience here’. I had a bit of experience doing some crowd-funding campaigns through my solo releases and, being over in Los Angeles and learning about the independent scene there, I’d picked up a few other tips on how this might work.”
Crowd-funding has become a popular way for bands of all statuses to tap directly into their fan-base to fund projects without corporate interference from record labels. However, it also presents challenges in terms of achieving quality results in recording and production. “The biggest part of the challenge was not just ‘let’s do crowd-funding’ and ‘let’s do an independent release’, because it’s a lot of work to do but it becomes a lot more of a challenge when you also want to keep everything sounding, looking, creatively feeling exactly as good production value, if not better, than any of the things you’ve done with a record company being able to fund that.
“So that’s where the biggest challenges have been. I’m proud to say we’ve sonically done it, I think things are turning out almost like they’ve got more heart and soul to be honest and that’s one of the upsides.”
With ‘Shifting Gears’ complete, set for release in early September, and new single ‘The Good Life’ hitting the airwaves, Rai and the band are now preparing for their massive three-month national tour in support of the album. “It’s definitely going to be one of the highlights of the whole recent shift. The touring’s the best way to take in a band I think. I grew up with the guys actually listening to live bands; it’s the most tactile way to enjoy any music in my experience. So it’s going to be fun, we’re gearing up and getting ready for it, we’re working out all the ins and outs now.”
Thirsty Merc’s ‘The Good Life’ tour starts on September 14.
