You Am I
Resilient, beloved rockers, Rogers, Kent, Hopkinson and Lane stoke the fire under album #8 and shape up to Angus Fontaine
In the backstreets of Sydney's inner-west, squirreled away in Electric Studios, a sound shack smack-bang in the suburban shadowlands Tim Rogers has sung to infamy, a band of old gunslingers are laying down tracks.
There are no bells and whistles here, no ARIAs on shelves or posters for sold-out tours, no indicators the first band in Australian rock history to have three albums debut consecutively at #1 on the ARIA charts are recording. There are only booze bottles and scrawled scraps of lyrics and chord progressions... and one lonely Pink Lady apple.
And You Am I themselves - Rogers, their elegantly addled frontman and laureate, Andy Kent, chisel-chinned bassplaying rock, Davey Lane, their strumming humdinger of a guitarist and Rusty Hopkinson, renaissance tub thumper and a dangerous man tonight behind his twin-barrelled drum kit.
It's official, folks. YAI are no longer MIA. The band have convened for their eighth studio opus, and this one is "in widescreen".
"I guess what I mean by that is we're trying a lot more sounds," explains Lane between thrashing the king-hit riff for newie ‘Frightfully Modern', "the soundscape is a lot wider this time. More instruments, more overlays, a less rock, more creative approach."
Kent nods assent. "Everyone's enjoying themselves. There's no stress, no point to be proven. It's been: ‘Don't talk; just do'. We had about seven rehearsals in a Melbourne warehouse and we've been here now ten days and have 12 songs already. I think that's a sign we're enjoying ourselves."
Cue Rogers. He bursts through the doors delightfully rumpled and gleefully half-cut after dinner with his mum. Hat at a rakish angle and taut frame unfolding like a switchblade, he throws up his arms in greeting. "Hey, hey, we're making a record!"
Sipping clear liquid through a bushy lip-fringe and pulling up a pew under a whiteboard splattered with makeshift song titles like ‘Smarty Pants', ‘Give Up, Get Fat' and ‘Davey's Gone Green', Rogers ebulliently reflects on the album's "on-the-fly" content which is expected on racks in August with a national tour to follow.
"That last song didn't exist at 10am but was finished by noon," he chuckles. "A bunch of chords merged with a story about Davey and I touring Itchycoo Park and visiting Iron Maiden's rehearsal space and a memory of a girlfriend who loved The Cure, who I hate," he muses. "Then, as usual, the band rejected my first three versions, and I went out back and sulked as I wrote the verses. That's how it works with us - I get angry with 'em... and then I hug 'em."