Eskimo Joe’s is well known in the United States as a juke joint in Stillwater, Okla. Taking their name from this bar after seeing a T-shirt featuring it, Eskimo Joe may soon become more famous for being a band from Australia with catchy singles and cohesive albums.
Eskimo Joe is already more famous than the bar in its native Australia, releasing three multi-platinum albums, 2001’s Girl, 2004’s A Song Is A City, and 2006’s Black Fingernails, Red Wine. The latter album came out on Sept. 25 as the band’s North American debut. They are currently touring the United States and Canada, promoting this album as well as their cover of John Lennon’s “Mind Games” on the Instant Karma: Campaign to Save Darfur CD.
Kav Temperley, bassist and primary songwriter for the band, recently took some time for an interview with
Ultimate Guitar. He acknowledged his band tipped their hat to another Australian band, INXS, on their latest album, but they are looking to Sting and Peter Gabriel in the future.
Ultimate Guitar: Eskimo Joe is in the midst of a mini-U.S./Canada tour. What can people expect from a live Eskimo Joe show? Will there be a more extensive U.S. tour or will you join a bigger American act as a supporting one?
Kav Temperley: At the moment we are out here just testing the waters I guess, playing to a few of the tastemakers on the eve of the Black Fingernails, Red Wine album being released. But it’s been a really positive experience so far. We’ve had a lot of people who saw us on the Live Earth concert come down and see the shows, so it feels like things are moving forward.
The band has found huge success in Australia. And it is looking to breakthrough in the United States, with the upcoming release of Black Fingernails, White Wine. For people not familiar with Eskimo Joe, how would you describe the band’s sound, especially as it relates to this album, which is the band’s third but first U.S. release?
It’s a dark sound, somewhere between the Killers and Interpol, but a lot more immediate.
Tell me about your songwriting process. Your songs seem very personal. I especially love this set of lyrics from “Setting Sun”:
“Ice is just a remedy for pain and rising heat,
Hold it in your hands and watch the puddles form around your feet
And if you drink the water,
It might just stop the pain
From dreaming of the fever drowning holes around your name”
How do you come up with something as descriptive as that?
I really like poets like Charles Bukowski and the lyrics of people like Tom Waits. I love the way they give you little clues to a story and you have to imagine what happens next. When we were writing this album I was coming to terms with losing my personal space to the public and the way we were using things and people to deal with that, so that was the general theme.
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| "It's a dark sound, somewhere between the Killers and Interpol, but a lot more immediate." |
Although the band’s been successful on the Australian singles chart, Black Fingernails is a very cohesive record, one someone can listen to over and over, with no filler. Do you believe you could achieve long-term success in America if your record label would promote this band as an “album” band and not a “singles” band? Let the band tour and slowly build an audience, like they used to do.
We always have singles on our record and that’s our sneaky way of pulling people into the rest of the record... But what we want to do over here, and what we’ve always done is tour hard and try to build up a loyal fan base who will buy our records because they like the band, not because they heard the single on the radio.
You have said, “If we were like INXS, what kind of record would I want to write? And with the whole record, we’ve tried really consciously to not be self-conscious in our songwriting. It’s really easy to want to play it cool – and as soon as you do, the songs always suffer.” How do you consciously try not to be self-conscious? That seems self-defeating.
We always focus on what’s best for the song and when we have a song that sounds great just played on an acoustic guitar and someone singing over the top… then we dress it up however we like. This time round we decided to dress it up like Michael Hutchence.
In a sense, this does feel like a follow-up to INXS’ last great album, Welcome to Wherever You Are. I have to ask, how big an influence was INXS on your band, especially to you and this album?
For myself, I was more influenced by the Eurythmics and the Police, but there is a certain Australian heritage that we’re happy to tip our hat to, and carry on the the flame for.
There is a lot of piano on the album. As a three-member band, how do you guys make your live show sound like your recordings? Who plays what when you need four instruments with three people?
We have a keyboardist and a drummer who tour with us live. For our live show, we want to recreate a bigger, ballsier version of the album, but we still want all those little bleeps and sound effects that you hear when you listen to the album. I personally hate it when I go see my favorite band and they sound nothing like their records.
Eskimo Joe covered John Lennon’s “Mind Games” for the Instant Karma: Campaign to Save Darfur CD. How did this come about? I heard Yoko Ono personally selected all the songs for this album, which must give the band a sense of accomplishment, to be selected alongside such heavyweights as Green Day, U2, and Lenny Kravitz.
Yeah, any excuse to cover John Lennon is an absolute joy, but to get behind a good cause and have Yoko personally pick out the songs was a real buzz.
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| "I hate it when I go see my favorite band and they sound nothing like their records." |
In addition to supporting the Darfur cause, the band also played at the Australian Live Earth event. What was that experience like and do you believe Live Earth accomplished its goal, despite all the criticism it has received?
Well, Live Earth was amazing for us because it exposed us to so many people in the U.S. Obviously, it was an honor to be asked, but what we all liked about Live Earth is it wasn’t about making money; it was an awareness campaign and, criticism or not, it certainly got peoples’ attention.
Black Fingernails is already over a year old. Are there any plans to record a follow-up, even though it is just coming out in the U.S.? Have you written any songs for it? Where do you envision the band’s sound going with it?
I’m always writing, so we’ll just play shows until it’s time do it all over again. As far as the next album’s sound goes, this is gonna sound weird but we want to do a big ballsy version of the daggier moments of Sting and Peter Gabriel.
The band got its name after seeing someone wearing a T-shirt of Eskimo Joe’s, a famous juke joint in Oklahoma. Any plans on stopping there if you’re going through? It wasn’t meant to be a permanent name for the band, yet it stuck. Why is that?
I think it was always gonna stick, but we got an e-mail from Eskimo Joe’s asking us to come and play and they sent us a large box of T-shirts, so I think we'll have to make it over there and play a show.
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