Sydney indie quartet The Jezabels experienced a meteoric rise in 2011, selling out venues around the country and winning fans with their ethereal, soaring tunes. After the massive success of their debut LP, Prisoner, the band are releasing their sophomore effort, The Brink, next Friday, 31st January. Jezabels guitarist Sam Lockwood gave Mike Hohnen a call to tell us all about it.
Sam explains that the last year has been hectic, with The Jezabels undertaking massive European tours supporting Pixies and Depeche Mode, before writing and recording The Brink. But there was no difficult second album syndrome at play. “We’ve always put the pressure on ourselves to do something really cool. The difficult second album – it comes from bands that have basically have no material.”
He adds, “We’ve always had that difficulty of being put on the spot to write, so it was sort of just the same as ever.”
And what was the band’s mission statement when writing The Brink? “The biggest thing we wanted to do is we didn’t want to put ourselves in the position that we were in after Prisoner, where it was really difficult for us to recreate the songs live. Like the songs were beautiful and they have such scope on Prisoner but they were kind of, like, constructed in the studio.”
Fans can expect some exploration of new territory on album number 2, with Sam clearly passionate about what the band have achieved. “There’s one song called Look Of Love, which is probably up there with my favourite songs on the album. It’s kind of like a disco pop song, it’s just beautiful as well. I’m really interested to see if people react a certain way to that.”
The Jezabels will be playing Laneway Festival, which kicks off on January 31st in Brisbane, the same day that The Brink hits stores, while Sam has promised the band will be back for their own headlining tour of the country later in the year.
Check out our entire series of podcasts right here!
Listen: Music Feeds Podcast Episode #68 – The Jezabels
http://youtu.be/nrmoU5lAhYI
St Jerome’s Laneway Festival 2014
Friday, 31st January
RNA, Fortitude Valley, Brisbane
Tix: Moshtix
Saturday, 1st February
Footscray Community Arts Centre/River’s Edge, Melbourne
Tix: Moshtix
Sunday, 2nd February
Sydney College Of The Arts, Rozelle, Sydney
Tix: Moshtix
Friday, 7th February
Harts Mill, Port Adelaide
Tix: Moshtix
Saturday, 8th February
Esplanade Park and West End, Fremantle
Tix: Moshtix
