Magic Dirt
With their sixth album in the can and a national tour set to take them around the country, Magic Dirt's Adalita Srsen battles interstate freight transport and regional telecommunications to speak with Andrew P Street
"Sorry - I'm in the middle of the road between Bundaberg and Rockhampton," Srsen bellows down the world's crackliest phone line. "So the reception's not so good, and there are trucks everywhere."
Obligingly, her voice is drowned out by the roar of a barreling juggernaut as she attempts to find somewhere she can make herself vaguely audible. "Sorry? What? I'm living the rock dream? I'm living the something dream, that's for sure."
With the release of Girl, the band are heading out on an impressively comprehensive Australian tour, with each stop featuring a support act they've hand-picked through their now-regular competition.
"That's been really fun, really cool," Srsen enthuses. "We found so many awesome bands. We get so many CDs when we run these competitions and everyone's really keen - and we build up a database of cool bands that we can call up next time if we can't get them this time."
So Magic Dirt are all about giving something back to the next generation?
"Yes," she says, with sincerity. "See, I reckon that's the thing, getting a show: getting into a good venue any way you can. I love the bands that just give it a go. That's really heartening."
The tour is in support of Girl, their sixth full-length album and first since parting ways with Warners in 2006. While it's classic rock‘n‘roll Dirt (as suggested by last year's mini-album Beast), there's a definite energy and joy to the disc that was lacking from the last couple - especially 2005's troubled Warners swansong, Snow White.
"I reckon you're the first journo who's said that, and I totally agree," Srsen declares. "I reckon it's a really fun record; we're just having a great time and I reckon you picked up on that. It's got a lot of energy... It was really fun writing it, really fun recording it and it's really fun playing it. That's definitely the vibe. And we didn't mean for it to be like that, but it is, you know?"
It also shows off the band's deft way with an arrangement. Listen to the opener ‘Get Ready To Die': on the face of it, it's a song that any number of pub bands could be pumping out around the nation, but the sheer energy and economy of the song transforms it into something else entirely. Thankfully, Srsen laughs delightedly instead of hanging up at the potentially-insulting observation that it's a song that could so easily have sucked.
"No, I agree! It's a really straightforward riff and that can sound really shit - and it did sound shit at one stage, but we massaged it and added the key change because it really needed it, and it turned into a really uplifting version of a pretty straightforward semi-classic riff."
It also suggests a band that looks forward rather than dwelling on the past - which, for a band in its sixteenth year, is no small achievement. Do Magic Dirt ever have those sort of ‘Given what we've done, where do we go from here?' sort of conversations?
"They happen, but not with too much analysis or time spent on it. It's more like one day: ‘Hey Deano, how about we try this for the next album?' ‘Yeah, cool.' ‘Alright'," she chuckles. "We tend to move forward pretty quickly and get on with the next project. I think we instinctively know what we want to do next and are very in-synch as a band. There's not much deliberation.
"But for this tour we had to re-learn some of the old songs, which meant going back over the old albums, and so it really struck me recently that we've done a lot of stuff - and it feels good!" She pauses for a second. "There's a sense of satisfaction that I've never felt before. And that's a nice feeling."
Girl is out now through Emergency Music/MGM.
Magic Dirt play Fri 15 Aug at the Annandale Hotel and on Sat 16 Aug at Mona Vale Hotel.
You've read what we think. Now tell us what you think.