You never really know what type of response you're going to get from an artist when your interview takes place with a severe time difference. Luckily for me Kris Schroeder of THE BASICS is, while struggling with eloquence at one stage, remarkably awake considering it's not even 9am where he's calling from. "We're in London, it's week two and part of five weeks we've got over here. I've snuck out of the room to come and talk while the others are all sleeping still."
Kicking off the touring with what's set to be several months of it after the recent release of their third album, Keep Your Friends Close, Kris admits that getting from the initial point of writing the album to performing on the other side of the world was a long time in the making, taking two and a half years to reach a release point. "There have been a lot of changes with it, it started out as a different album," he says. "It was originally a lot more poppy but, like everything, it just evolved naturally into what it is now." Written in the outback of Australia, recorded in their Melbourne studio and mastered in London's Abbey Road studios, the album is certainly well travelled.
One major stop they're looking forward to making in the next year with the new album is revealed with a chuckle, "Tamworth." Like the Tamworth Country Music Festival? "Yeah!" he beams enthusiastically. "We're like the alternative to country music there. Every second year we do it and say we're never going to do it again, but this will be our fourth time there. We could never do it every year - the sheer size of it is too much as is, but our sets end up going for three hours and we're playing every day; this time we'll be doing nine shows in nine days." The Basics have the tendency to make a small mountain of fans wherever they go, with their cross-genre style and classic stage manner being a hit with people from all ends of the music spectrum. So I'm curious to know if the reaction at the nation's biggest country music festival is the same. "Well, we know all the right Creedence covers and a bit of AC/DC, so we do pretty well. But, we always walk away from there having met some new people and made some new fans, it's good fun."
Before they pack their finest flannel and head up north they're making a stop at the Trackside Festival for their second visit since its inception. At this stage I remind Kris of their last visit to the festival, and a round of Podwarz which saw the Basics fail to win the crowd. "That was rigged! I was playing Ghostbusters! There's no way we should have lost. We'll see what happens this year. Maybe I'll stand a chance?" A moment later he mumbles, "definitely rigged."
You can catch The Basics at the Trackside Festival on Saturday November 21. Tickets can still be purchased through Landspeed Records, Ticketek, Moshtix and Oztix.
