How does it feel to be Australia's only folk-pop-classical trio? It's a question Melbourne's ME AND THE GROWN UPS were born to field. As Morrissey, perennial voice of those on the fringes, once intoned, "it's so lonely on a limb." So is it lonely out there for the Grown Ups? Perhaps not, when they've got each other for company.
"There were not so many Sarah Blaskos when she started," vocalist Anita Lester points out. "Now there is a whole cesspool of them. Just you wait..." she trails off, anticipating the Austral-folk-pop-classical renaissance. "It disturbs me... that being derivative musically is encouraged, if not explicitly then certainly by consumer trends," violinist Jonathan Dreyfus chimes in. "I'm not really surprised we ended up making music that no-one else is, because anything else would be a fabrication of our personalities."
As the band exists on such a precipice, teetering between genres, they do admit to feeling somewhat misunderstood.
"I don't think people get us yet," Anita admits. "It sounds wanky, but I really just want people to understand the emotional intention behind it. I often hear that people think we have a lot of pretentiousness behind our music, as if it's something we contrive, but it just is what it is. We are just smart people making interesting music."
The latest instalment of interesting music comes, somewhat startlingly, less than a year after its predecessor, the Grown Ups' debut Battling the Mountains, the Sky and the Sea. New LP Knowing Lovers, Naïve Lovers is an assured body of work, forging new ground for these prolific scamps.
"The music is far more precise," Anita explains of the record. "The dynamics are so intricate, the lyrics are more directed to a particular point - love - and we have gotten to know one another as musicians much more, which makes the world of difference."
"To be honest," Jonathan adds, "I think there's a lot of my classical taste and upbringing on Knowing Lovers. I've always dreamed of synthesising my loves of pop and classical. Having done it to my satisfaction, though, I wouldn't aim to do it again, which is incredibly exciting in terms of whatever we produce next..."
But before we get too far ahead of ourselves, there's the matter of touring Knowing Lovers... For a band so steeped in theatre, performance is key element of the group.
"Besides the fact that we are going to give a lovely wintery intimate show, I will be wearing golden underpants with little rockets attached," Anita announces. "At the end of the show it will conveniently burn off my dress only to reveal me flying in golden lingerie above the crowd."
"You can see a new type of music played by a new type of band," guitarist Adrian Sergovich says, more seriously. "Like it or hate it, at least you can say you've seen and heard something unique."
Me and the Grown Ups play at The Street Theatre on Saturday July 11 at 3.30 and 8.30pm. Tickets are $15/$12 concession on 6247 1223 or www.thestreet.org.au.
