As the queen of the ‘art of asking’, Amanda Palmer once said, “you can’t crowdfund without a crowd”.
Kav Temperley, Stuart Macleod and Joel Quatermain were initially unfamiliar with crowdfunding, which asks fans to chip in for costs normally undertaken by record companies.
However, when they sought funds for their sixth studio album, Wastelands, they found they had acquired the necessary fans to ensure a successful Pozible campaign.
That fanbase started developing during their Triple J-launching days via early LPs Girl and A Song Is A City. The commercial breakthrough of Black Fingernails, Red Wine would then establish them firmly as one of the most successful local acts of the mid-noughties.
2009’s Inshalla and 2011’s Ghosts Of The Past consolidated their audience, with the latter being the first Eskimo Joe release to come out under the banner of their own label Dirt Diamonds.
Lead singer Temperley insists that the decision to crowdfund their record wasn’t in relation to creative control, but it has allowed the band to bring themselves closer to the fanbase that got them this far.
“It’s a really positive thing because it brings it back to just being about the band and the fans,” he says.
“We just didn’t want to be there anymore, so it just worked out beautifully as an in-your-face to the record companies.”It also didn’t hurt that the three-piece were at the end of a record a deal with Warner, and, as Temperley states, “We just didn’t want to be there anymore, so it just worked out beautifully as an in-your-face to the record companies”.
That in-your-face sentiment is particularly potent when you take into the account the $60,000 raised to fund the record. The initial target was $40,000, with half that reached within the first 24 hours.
Despite the overwhelmingly positive response to their Pozible campaign, the band had some anxieties about the initiative.
“We were kinda shitting our pants at first because we didn’t know how it would go, ‘cause we’ve always been under the safety net of our record company,” remarks Temperley.
While the aforementioned Palmer and other American musicians had put Kickstarter on the map, Eskimo Joe were the first high profile Australian act to ask their fans to pay for the development of their album.
However, with Temperley describing the record industry as in “a bit of state of flux”, their decision to break away from the traditional funding model was made easier.
“No one really knows how they’re gonna make records,” says the lead singer.
“You know you pay professionals to come in and who have been doing it for years who are at the top of their game and the records are costing hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars … record companies just can’t afford to make those anymore ‘cause as soon as you make a record it’s pretty much free to most of the public.”
As Temperley puts it, Eskimo Joe saw themselves as a “guinea pig” for the industry so that if the campaign was successful, “maybe other bands will do it in the future and take all that power back to the band being independent”.
Despite their crowdfunding success, the three-piece bare no ill will to the record labels and those they worked with.
“We’ve worked with some pretty amazing people over the years and learnt so much from them,” says Temperley.
But he concedes that “the record industry is quite fickle, so you’ll work with people for an amount of time and [then] you’ll turn around and do that next record and it’s completely new staff.
“So you’ve got to get to know everyone over and over again … it’s really frustrating, so one of the great things about this cause you’re in a team of people who you’ve worked with over the years and people who really care about the band and share your vision.”
The crowdfunding model’s greatest benefit is of course its ability to allow bands to work without record label restrictions.
And while the musician admits that it allowed Eskimo Joe to “kick off the blinkers”, he believes their WA home has enabled them to always do “whatever the hell we want” as people leave them to their own devices.
This time around though, Eskimo Joe would do whatever the hell they wanted by adding synthesisers into the mix.
Speaking of the single ‘Got What You Need’, the singer describes the development of their new sound as just them having fun.
“(It was us) not really having any obligations to anyone but our fans,” he says.
“We also made a couple of big rock records and that’s fun and stuff but we just wanted to round a new corner and do something new,” continues Temperley.
Rounding that corner, Wastelands would use electronics heavily as a foundation for its infectious choruses and bouncy rhythms.
It’s no surprise given the three-piece have often started writing on piano. Although this time the band worked their way through new songs by beginning with drum and bass grooves.
“You would really want to really move your ass too and have the vocals as well, so if the vox and bass worked together then we’d go from there.
“The consequence is not many guitars, but we’ve been doing the big wall of rock guitars for a while now…”“The consequence is not many guitars, but we’ve been doing the big wall of rock guitars for a while now so I was pretty happy by the direction change,” explains Temperley.
While Eskimo Joe have continually evolved over the years, the new direction on Wastelands is possibly the most daring move of their career.
However Temperley insists that the reactions so far have been “mostly positive”. Although not without a few hiccups along the way.
“I don’t think people knew what to think … ‘well this is not an Eskimo Joe song’”.
Yet the early road testing tours provided fruitful for the band, with the energetic new songs eventually inspiring audiences to move.
Their fanbase shouldn’t strap themselves in for a long haul electronic flight though, with the band’s sonic path unlikely to stay on a predictable route.
“I think it will be evolving all the time. Sure, we’ll stay with this sorta feel for a little while, but knowing us we’ll probably come back and make an acoustic album really.”
It’s a good thing then that Eskimo Joe have developed a strong relationship with their audience. Regardless of whether they ask their fans to fund their next record or not, the band have demonstrated their staying power through reconnecting at a grass roots level.
Wastelands is out now through Dirt Diamonds Production/Inertia.
