George & Queen - With the Breeze
Author: Melanie Selby (photography by Dave Holmes)
Three quarters of George & Queen have music degrees, so it’s not surprising that their latest offering ‘The Wind Is Up’ is a superbly arranged album, with beautiful melodies and catchy tunes you will hum merrily through the rest of the day. Over a quiet one at Auckland’s Wine Cellar (a favourite haunt of the band), Melanie Selby started by asking about the remarkably quickfire release of this second album.
It was when they were studying music at Dunedin University that George & Queen’s founding pair Immi Paterson and Neil Newton met. A tale as sweet as their music, the two married in 2003 and moved to Auckland to further their music opportunities a year later. After painstakingly setting up a makeshift studio in their Grafton flat, Immi and Neil spent endless hours recording their debut album ‘City’, released in August 2007.
Only 13 months later, in late September George & Queen have returned with their second album ‘The Wind Is Up’. Sure the duo have now been joined by Panduka Samarasinghe on bass and Rich Pharaoh on drums, but it still seems a speedy turn given the nature of the music industry and the time it can often take to produce those awkward second albums.
"We were kind of told we should," says Immi of their decision to keep the momentum up. "That’s generally the advice you get. No more than a year after the first one, otherwise people forget you."
The sound is similar but the recording process for this album was quite different to the first. With Dave Holmes at the helm, ‘The Wind Is Up’ was recorded with all four band members in his studio in just 12 days – significantly shorter than the year spent recording the debut. The new album’s songs were written over the period since ‘City’ and have been road tested while the band were touring. A lot of time was spent in pre-production, the band getting the 13 tracks tight.
Immi and Neil are both quick to admit that working with Holmes made the process considerably easier.
"When we did it by ourselves we were travelling by feel a lot – we’d just record something and then see what happened next. It was a slow process, whereas Dave had clear directions in his head a lot of the time. When you were going in to do something you knew exactly what he wanted to hear," explains Neil.
"He knew how to get the right sound," continues Immi. "When I sang on ‘City’ I closed the door, said ‘Neil don’t listen, shut the dog up’, and I’d just go for it and sing it three times and choose the best bits. But this time it was really interesting. Dave would kind of go, ‘Okay, yeah, but when you sing this line can you sing it with this melody and give it a bit of this tone?’ I’d think, ‘Huh that’s strange, no one’s ever told me how to sing a line before, I’ll give it go’ and it’s like ‘Oh that actually sounds really cool’. He knows what he’s talking about."
Rich joined the band 18 months ago, with Panduka joining at the beginning of the year. The band had already worked with Holmes as he had mixed ‘City’ which Immi admits would have been a shambles had he not been involved. So how does their second album differ to the first?
"It’s a bit more rock. Not on purpose – it just happened that way. You put a band in and the sound starts to change. The songs are still kind of the same but the arrangements are different," explains Immi. "It sounds like the same people and the same band, but it’s a huge step forward," Neil adds.
Neil sings four songs on this album which in itself adds a different element as he didn’t sing at all on the first. The second single, the catchy ‘70s pop-sounding Lemonade, is one of his. The song is receiving good airplay on Auckland’s bFM and the fizzy video, which was recorded in their lounge on a handicam and includes some rather rock’n’rollesque destruction, is on A-rotate at Alt TV.
The artwork of ‘The Wind Is Up’ is also worth a mention. The band commissioned Bob Scott (from iconic bands The Clean and The Bats) to design the cover which is inspired by a childhood memory about Immi’s brother.
"When he got in a bad mood, which was quite often, he used to climb up to the top of trees and cry in the leaves. And even in winter when there were no leaves on the trees, he’d still be sitting there on the branches and you could see him," laughs Immi.
The rest of the CD artwork was designed by Auckland-based artist Pete Heckman – another Wine Cellar regular. The theme is inspired by an old fashioned child’s storybook with elaborate lettering and each page telling a story.
With distribution through Universal the band launched ‘The Wind Is Up’ just a few doors along from The Wine Cellar at Auckland’s Whammy Bar. The launch gig kicked off a tour of main centres, even though times remain tough with Immi and Neil pouring every cent they have into funding the album and the tour.
But for George & Queen (so named after the main streets of Auckland and Dunedin), it’s not about selling huge quantities of their albums.
"We do it for our own selfish reasons of putting music out there," explains Immi.
I for one, am certainly pleased they do.
