San Cisco join the vanguard flying the flag for indie Australian music with new record Gracetown
THEY have grown up on the Triple J airwaves but rock band San Cisco insist they are no longer kids with a new album and a world tour.
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IF you start your first band when you are barely into double digits, it is likely you will suffer ageism.
The members of San Cisco — Jordi Davieson, Josh Biondillo, Nick Gardner and Scarlett Stevens — have known each other for years, been playing in bands most of their young lives and formed this particular quartet in 2009 as they finished high school.
They have travelled the world to perform in front of appreciative audiences throughout America and Europe and graced the stages of most venues and festivals which appreciate finely-crafted, intelligent indie pop rock.
San Cisco’s singles Awkward, Wild Things and Fred Astaire have been voted onto Triple J’s Hottest 100 while their peers have nominated them for plenty of shiny trophies including ARIA Awards.
Yet, having achieved so much with two EPs, a debut album and now a second record Gracetown released this week, we still won’t let San Cisco grow up.
“Everyone just remembers you as kids. My mum is always like ‘What gig do the kids have this weekend?’” drummer and vocalist Stevens says. Without a hint of an eyeroll.
Guitarist Biondillo adds: “And we’ve all got beards. I always make that joke. Kids with beards.”
So one wonders if these precocious musicians are having a dig at the old folk with the cover of Gracetown.
It is a neon pop-art reproduction of a mid 1960s holiday house in a West Australian town near Margaret River where Stevens and Davieson and their families often spend vacations.
Any Australian, no matter their age, would recognise it.
“Me and Jordi met at that house,” Stevens explains.
Davieson adds: “As we were growing up we’ve all started going down to Gracetown a lot and staying at my family’s house down there.”
And the old folk would find much to love about the band’s new record, a bright yet lo-fi mishmash of garage and disco quite unlike much else on the airwaves these days.
“Moments of disco? Maybe there’s more dance. That’d be sick to have a big mirror ball for shows. Strobe lights,” the frontman says.
They nominate bassist Gardner as the band’s best dance because he has “no inhibitions with his hips”.
That call may have jinxed him. Just days later, while enjoying a break before the band head overseas for shows in America and Europe, Gardner was shot in the foot when a gun discharged as he and a mate were driving through a rough paddock.
The bassist hopes to rejoin his band mates for their European shows at the end of March.
San Cisco are that quintessential indie Australian band whose deft skill with a pop hook can often disguise the cleverness of their songwriting.
With many of their songs, such as current single Too Much Time Together, playing on the male-female dynamic not only vocally but lyrically, Davieson and Stevens often find themselves having the same arguments as the characters in their music. For the record, they only sound like an old married couple but aren’t in a relationship.
“I always try to flip it so the girl isn’t the annoying naggy one and Jordi is the naggy one. I want to change the perception that woman are naggy and annoying and weak,” Stevens says.
Davieson counters: “I wanted an even split. Scarlett will never let the girl’s part be the vulnerable one. ‘No, no it has to be I am leaving you. Not maybe we should split up.’ The girl always has to be ‘No, f ... you, d ... head. I’m out!’”
San Cisco are just one of the young indie Australian acts who have garnered significant international attention in recent years.
While the success of Gotye, then Iggy Azalea and 5 Seconds of Summer have the major labels talent scouting down under, it is the underground or alternative artists who are blowing up the blogs and tastemaker websites throughout the USA, Canada, the UK and Europe.
The imminent debut album from homegrown grunge folk star Courtney Barnett is one of the most anticipated record releases of the year.
Indie rocker turned DJ now dance pop artist Alison Wonderland has scored a spot on the seminal Coachella festival next month not long after the release of her debut album Run.
The Preatures, who played that festival last year, are currently touring Europe before heading back to America.
And Sheppard continue their campaign to translate the success of their breakthrough single Geronimo into a career.
Gracetown out now. San Cisco performs on the Groovin’ The Moo Festival, Oakbank Racecourse, South Australia, April 25, Hay Park, Bunbury, Western Australia, April 26, Prince Of Wales Showground, Bendigo, May 2, University of Canberra, May 3, Maitland Showgrounds, May 9, Townsville Cricket Grounds, May 10
Originally published as San Cisco join the vanguard flying the flag for indie Australian music with new record Gracetown
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