The Seabellies

It’s been a few years between albums, but Sydney via Newcastle indie sound-collagists The Seabellies are back from a stint overseas and set to release sophomore album “Fever Belle” later this year.

Tonight they’ll be dropping by The Worker’s Club in Fitzroy to launch new single “It’s Alright”, which we can confirm is not an East 17 cover.

Milk Bar talked to vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Trent Grenell ahead of the show about multiple trips to Germany during the writing and recording of forthcoming album “Fever Belle” and the band’s recent signing to Shock Records.

Milk Bar: It’s been a while since “By Limbo Lake” way released in 2010. What have The Seabellies been doing since then and how did you go about making “Fever Belle”?

Trent Grenell: After “By Limbo Lake” we’d been touring for a few years straight, so we decided to have a little bit of time off and go travelling. Within a few months though, we all ended up meeting in Berlin and writing the album and putting it together there.

So it started in a way we didn’t expect, which was really fun to do because our first album was written completely in our hometown.

MB: Where did you record it?

TG: The bulk of the album was done when we got back from that trip in Albert Studios in Sydney. We finished the album, did all the vocals and mixed it all in Berkfinger’s (Simon Berckelman of Philadelphia Grand Jury) studio in Berlin in the middle of last year. It was really fun and a crazy place to do something creative!

We were supposed to finish the album in Sydney but I went off the rails a little bit and had to walk away from the album for a while and had a bit of upheaval in my life so I took off overseas and ended up in Berlin again a few months later (laughs).

MB: As a multi-instrumentalist, what do you really get into playing in the studio and onstage?

TG: On guitar I’ve got my reasonably new Gretsch, which is amazing. I only really use one pedal and it’s this bizarre discontinued Boss pedal called the PS-3 which is just pitch shifting and all sorts of weird sparkly noises.

I also play a really primitive sequencer, I probably should be getting on the Ableton Live train but I still love having knobs and buttons at my fingertips live so I can really control things, it’s a lot more fun.

MB: The Seabellies have recently signed a new record deal with Shock. What are the advantages signing to a biggish label like Shock brings a band like The Seabellies?

TG: The main thing with Shock is that they were just into what we do the entire way. There were no requirements of having to change, I think they just liked what we did and encouraged every element of that.

It’s a really nice change from the way we were introduced to the industry four or five years ago. There was a lot of focus on the ‘potential band that we could be’ , whether we’d become more of a straight pop band or a jangly astro-pop band – we’ve had a lot of conversations over the years with A and R people so it was just nice to have some people who dug what we already did, I think that was the clincher for us.

The Seabellies launch their new single “It’s Alright” tonight at The Workers Club.
Check it out on their Soundcloud stream.