Gold Fields may be the hardest working band on the planet at the moment. Their debut album ‘Black Sun’ was released earlier this year, and soon the band will return home for an Australian tour.
The electronic dance act have been Triple J favourites for a long time, but the band has lots of ambition and have spent the last few months in the USA cracking the college circuit, playing shows in different cities every night. The hard work is playing off. They’ve been noticed by MTV, got an invite to Jimmy Kimmel’s late night show and have being finding new fans everywhere they go.
OUTinPerth spoke to guitarist and vocalist Vin Andanar as the five boys from Bendigo headed to Los Angeles for the final spots of their US tour.
Didn’t you spend some time in LA recording your album?
We were there for six weeks back in 2010/2011, but we ended up scrapping that album and redoing it again.
Oh really, where did you end up recording it?
We did it ourselves, in our house.
That must have been a big decision to make?
It was a really big decision. I mean you work so hard for six weeks. We actually tried three times, the second time was in Sydney at the start of 2012 and we still weren’t happy with that. So then we did ourselves and now it’s out…we weren’t going to release something that we weren’t happy with.
The US tour you’ve been doing has been huge. You’ve been there for months.
We arrived on the first of February and have pretty much been playing back to back shows since then.
What’s it like being on the road for that long?
It gets normal. The first couple of weeks are a bit tough I guess, but it just feels like a routine now. Everyday you just wake up, drive to the next city, play a show, go to the hotel, sleep, wake up, go to the next show.
But you meet great people and all the shows have been surprisingly good. We’re only supporting. The first tour we did was a co-headline tour and that went alright, then we did South By Southwest (SXSW), that was a lot of fun. We got on a lot of really great showcase shows.
We did a few Californian dates with Capitol Cities, which is who we are on tour with now. It was like a college tour, there were three of four California colleges that we played in front of – that was fun.
Now were on tour with Capitol Cities which is great because they’re getting pretty big over here in America and their songs are being smashed on radio, so it helps supporting a band that has their music out there. We’ve been really fortunate that they wanted us on the road with them.
You’ve been getting some pretty good support of your own though?
Yeah, MTV supported us with the first single which helped us a lot. I think it’s a bit different here in America. In Australia we had support from Triple J that allowed us to play a lot of shows in Australia.
Here in America there are different ways I guess you can go about it, but we’ve been lucky that MTV – which is a bit more mainstream that what we’re used to – picked up our first single. Then all the alternative radio stations got behind that song too.
What was it like playing the Jimmy Kimmel show?
We were very surprised that they offered us a slot. We were very excited, it was definitely a highlight of the trip.
I’ve watched those types of shows being taped before, they go really fast. Was it a ‘you’re in – and you’re out’ experience?
We milked it as much as we could. We got there early for sound check. But the show went really fast, you’re there and suddenly it’s done. We were so excited though and there was a big build up to that moment. As soon as we played, your mind just goes blank, it’s over.
After the show we stayed in our dressing room and drank all the beers. They’ve got a bar out the back where other guest and people who work at the show hang out afterwards. There’s free food, a bar, a pool table. We just stayed there, we were the last ones out, and we made the most of it.
Once you get back to Australia you’ve only got a couple of weeks off before you’re back on tour again.
I think we’ve got 10 days off, before we fly to Perth for our first show. We’re so excited to come home. We haven’t toured Australia since ‘Groovin the Moo’ that was over a year ago. We’re just really looking forward to coming home, being in Australia now our albums out and touring the country.
Goldfields kick off their Australia tour in WA playing Metropolis Fremantle on June 21 and Capitol in Perth Saturday June 22. Their debut album ‘Black Sun’ is available now.
Graeme Watson
