Elsbeth Hastings

Cascadeer

At the start of 2007, local lad Kieran Ryan finally grew tired of the Canberra winter chill and went in search of sunnier climes, eventually hanging his hat on the Gateway Bridge – metaphorically, of course. It was here, within Brisbane’s thriving scene, that he formed folk-tinged alt-country group CASCADEER. But as Kieran explains, starting a band was never really part of the plan.

“The move wasn’t musically motivated in any way, shape or form,” he says. “In fact at the time when I moved up I really had let go of music and was actually more focused on theatre.”

After a year of working in Brisbane’s cafés and hospitals however, the creative urge struck again. He enrolled in a music course at QUT and found himself in the midst of a fertile musical community.

“Basically through that degree, 90 percent of my musical endeavours of the last few years have evolved, whether it’s been through meeting other like-minded people, other bands and also learning the skills and being given the mentorship,” he says. “It’s a very production-based university, so they do a lot more of the composing and recording side of things as opposed to performance and traditional classical musical areas.”

After Kieran’s teenage foray into the world of angsty pop punk during his Canberra years, Cascadeer presents an altogether more refined sound. Built around the man’s gentle vocal delivery and finger picked acoustic, the sound is filled out with layers of electric guitars, horns, banjo and vocal swells.

“In the last few years I’ve been going down a very country, Americana-based listening experience,” Kieran explains. “Bands like the Avett Brothers from America are where we pull a lot of our cheesier, hammy country licks from and inspired us to whip out the banjo and get a bit more of the thigh-slapping country stuff going on. Likewise, we definitely draw inspiration from more layered and textured sounds like Fleet Foxes or Art of Fighting.”

For their first out of town shows, the streamlined six-piece incarnation of Cascadeer will be teaming up with Brisbane compatriots Epithets and Canberra’s Voss. For Kieran, the prospect of returning home is exciting, though just a little nerve-racking.

“I think I’ll probably be more nervous in Canberra than any other show I’ve played in Brisbane, because I’ve got a lot of family who I’m sure will be more than happy to come down and embarrass me at the Transit Bar,” he laughs. “But on the other hand I’m really looking forward to being able to show them something that I’ve been working on since I’ve moved away from Canberra. I’m pretty proud of the sounds we’ve been coming up with and I’m really happy we get the chance to do it now while we’ve got a full band and a recent recording. Hopefully my grandma will be there!”

Cascadeer play with Voss and Epithets at the Transit Bar on Thursday April 8. Entry is free.

Me And The Grownups

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.