Eskies Put Their Brand Of Pop Before Posturing
Sun Herald
Sunday June 11, 2006
The deep tunes of Eskimo Joe mask a very wacky side to the band, Christine Sams writes.
THE men behind Eskimo Joe are earnest and engaging musicians, intent on making it their biggest year yet with the release of their album Black Fingernails Red Wine. But behind the scenes, the band members - Kav Temperley, Stu MacLeod and Joel Quartermain - have a playful side.Take the moment when the band was celebrating an extraordinary live performance as part of Melbourne's Live At The Chapel concert series - not simply by having a few red wines of their own at an after party, but by delightedly photocopying their faces inside the office of their record label at an ungodly hour of the morning (where the party was being held) just so staff arriving the next morning might discover some amusing pics in the photocopier intray."You'll find the bands who are the most 'serious' bands are always the biggest light-hearted jokey dudes, then the bands who are these super-jokers on stage are always really dark and depressed off stage," says Temperley with a laugh, chatting to S over the phone a few days after the raucous Melbourne party. "I reckon people look at us and think 'aren't you guys those serious guys?'," he says. "[But] we get by, on the road and with each other, because we have great humour - we just joke around and laugh a lot."When it comes to their music though, the Eskies (as they're affectionately known to friends and music industry colleagues) are pleased to be labelled as very serious. With the release of 12 fresh tracks on Black Fingernails Red Wine, the band has continued a pattern of carefully honing their songs before performing them live. Temperley believes it's the only way the band can build and grow their musical reputation."Because of the anti-performance aspect we have with our songs we don't play songs live at all until we've written them properly and recorded them, until we're completely happy with them," he says. "For us, it's all about the album and the songs - we have a very romantic view of that."I think the reason why our songs resonate with people is because we're not doing them live as a part of a posturing rock performance, that's almost incidental. That comes with the territory of performing live. But our [ethos] is about creating a well-structured song."Actually, I don't think of us as a rock band. I think we kind of exist in that realm, but we're basically more of a pop band because we're more about the songs than rocking out."It's not surprising, as the band's sensitive and tantalising frontman, that Temperley attracts plenty of attention from female fans. But he says music stardom has its own pitfalls in the dating game."It's really hard if you're single and looking for a relationship, because if you meet a girl and she's really interested . . . you don't know if it's because you're a genuinely interesting, handsome guy [he laughs] or if it's because you're Kav from Eskimo Joe," says Temperley. "That, in itself, can be a bit of head f---."So I just date girls from Fremantle," he says with a laugh, referring to his home in Western Australia. "There's lots of beautiful girls here, thankfully."Black Fingernails Red Wine is available nationally, through Festival/Warner Music.
© 2006 Sun Herald
