You’re launching the new version of ‘Little Plastic People’ with a few gigs around the country. What can listeners expect to hear?
A bigger more rollicking sound for this track, which I reckon is pretty suited to the song. On a practical level we’ve had a large amount of changes within the band since the start of year and the new version of the track is reflective of that. We’ve brought in some drums, some banjo and new bass line for the new version of this song. On one hand we kinda had to make changes to our tracks reflect the changes in our band line up, but on the other hand we really liked the song and just wanted to give it a new lease of life anyway!
What is the band’s music the best soundtrack for?
I think our music would be a good soundtrack for something diverse with highs and lows, but an overarching bittersweet feeling.
You’re also on the line-up for BIGSOUND, who are you most looking forward to playing alongside?
More than just playing alongside, we’re really looking forward to hanging out with so many wicked music people all in one place. We had a similar experience at the Canadian Music Week earlier in the year, which was excellent fun and we’re dead set excited to do it again – It’s a weak answer to the question but, I think there’s too many really cool bands heading up there to choose one that we’re most excited for.
If you could play any venue/festival where would it be?
We’d love to play a touring festival, I reckon – I’ve loved the Laneway festivals in recent years so I think that would be fun. As an Adelaide band we’d also love to get on the bill at WOMADELAIDE – that always goes off.
What has been your most memorable gig to date?
Certainly, our shows in North America earlier in the year. It was our first time overseas for shows and was a totally mad trip, we got to hang out with really cool musos and had a great time playing almost every night.
How do you like your music? On digital, CD, or vinyl (maybe even cassette)?
I like nothing more that whacking a good album into the CD player and letting it go.
How did Traveller & Fortune form?
Although we’ve has a couple of recent changes, the ‘spirt’ (not too lame?!) of band started out when we had to fill in on short notice for a month long residency of shows in Adelaide. It was initially very slap dash but we began to really like what we were doing and the band grew from there. We still play a lot of those early songs like ‘Flying’ and “Letter to Japan.’
Your description is ‘not indie, but not not indie’ – what kind of sound do you aim to communicate to listeners?
Well, that statement doesn’t really communicate much! Perhaps we should revisit it. That saying stared out as a bit of a joke and then it stuck. I ‘spose we’re saying that we’re not a typical indie band (whatever that is!) but we’re still an independent band. We don’t want to be super serious all the time, although some of our tracks canvas serious concepts or sound morose we still want the songs to be fun and generally enjoyable too.
Who/What are Traveller & Fortune’s main influences?
As a songwriter, I’m influenced any musician who likes to make songs that aren’t just trotting out the same shit that’s been trotted out a million times.
As a band, you name it. All the guys and girls who make up traveler have really diverse tastes – I reckon that’s cool ‘cos we’ve, collectively, got a lot to draw from.
What’s in store for the rest of 2012? What other gigs can we catch you at next?
We’ve got our Single Launch tour to Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Adelaide, as well as BIGSOUND coming up, then we’ll be releasing a second single later in the year before touring and releasing our forthcoming EP, which we’re really excited about.
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