Melbourne band Underground Lovers have been taking their sweet time since reuniting.
Releasing several acclaimed albums throughout the '90s, the band called it a day in 2002, reuniting in 2009. After their 2013 comeback album, the band returned last year with ‘Staring At You Staring At Me’, which they are touring in support of.
“They tend to take a bit of time in between,” vocalist and guitarist Vincent Giarrusso acknowledges of the time between albums. “The hard part is getting us all together in the room to record. Once we’re all together we’re very productive and go fast.”
Much like their previous albums, ‘Staring At You Staring At Me’ stays true to their sound, mixing melodic electronic pop with the psychedelic sounds featured on their latest single ‘Every Sign’, but with a slight twist.
“We write albums thinking about how they work as a whole and try to mix it up and juxtapose different feels, so they build in different ways. ‘Staring At You Staring At Me’ was a bit different in that we bunched up a whole lot of poppy songs at the start and then by the end got a bit more psychedelic. We’ve always had that tension in our records; they’d be poppy, but we’d also wig out and go off on tangents. We like that because it’s true to us as individuals.”
Along with the new album, this is also be the band’s first Australian tour for some time.
“It’s nerve-racking because they’re such different feels, but they cross over and it sort of makes sense,” he says. “The rock songs get primal and have the potential for falling over because it’s humans bashing away. We try to set up our electronic act so that the potential for disaster is at its maximum, and we kind of like that tension. We came through the '90s and our big cultural reference was ‘Seinfeld’. We loved the awkwardness and the potential for disaster that ‘Seinfeld’ embodies. We look for that in our live act,” Vincent laughs.
Members are incredibly busy outside of music. Vincent is a filmmaker and lecturer in film, having recently received a Doctorate of Philosophy. He’s also preparing for his next film, his first after his 2001 debut ‘Mallboy’. Bassist Maurice Argiro is an animator, working on the upcoming Channel Seven series ‘Kitty Is Not A Cat’, while second bassist Emma Bortignon has wrapped sound-design work on the new series ‘Picnic At Hanging Rock’. Even with busy schedules, Underground Lovers won’t be disappearing for long as they’re preparing for another album.
“We’re thinking for the next record we’ll finish it by the end of the year and get it out next year. We want it to sound like when we first started and make it rawer, a bit more post-punk and aggressive. We just want to get that energy. We’re just wondering whether we can because we’re all getting old.”
