eFestivals talks to Julia from Angus & Julia Stone

Are you based permanently in the UK now?
Yeah, we have been for the last three years. The first year, year and a half we lived in Notting Hill, and we've spent the last six months in Hackney.

What do you miss about Australia?
We grew up in a place where we were right by the ocean. Angus, and the boys in the band, they all surf. So, sometimes it's hard being away from the ocean and have that freedom to go out for a walk at night, and see the beach, and listen to the waves, lie under the stars, and all that sort of stuff. We miss that, but it's been a good experience, doing something really different and something that we'd never have experienced if we'd stayed in Newport, it's good and it's bad, but certainly we miss the ocean a lot.

What do you like most about the UK?
For me, we grew up in a place where we didn't have a lot of experiences of different cultures. When you're in London, you're surrounded by people from all over the world all the time, and that's really interesting, and quite exciting. There's something quite exciting about everywhere in Europe and the UK, you kind of get this feeling that things are happening. There's lot of great conversations, music, and art and that's nice, people are quite expressive in big cities. There's much more people so there's much more going on. Where we come from it's quite quiet, you don't go out much and see art exhibitions or you know, you just hang at the beach all the time. I think that's a nice difference.

There's a load of history here as well, so driving around the countryside, you get to see castles, and just amazing things that have been around a very long time, the oldest thing in Sydney is, I think, about 120 years old.

I saw you on tour with Newton Faulkner, did you get a chance to all have a jam?
Yeah, we did actually, we all got on really well on that tour, and became really good mates, and after a few shows we'd all hang back stage and jam out these re-mixed covers. He was really into doing covers of old Eighties, and early Nineties songs and we enjoy a jam. So we'd all get the instruments out and have a play, with everyone singing together. He's great like that, a really down to earth guy, and really just into playing music. It was great fun to be on tour with somebody whose just cool and up for a jam, and all the crew are all good fellas. We got to hang out with him in Australia when he was over there.

You're playing Liverpool Music Week, have you been told about the event?
No I haven't. Is this the one in Liverpool?

Have you been to Liverpool before?
Yes, we have, we played in Carling Academy, I think, it was fun time. I'm pretty sure I'm talking about Liverpool, we went to the art gallery down by the harbour and that was wonderful, we had a great time.

When you play London Music Week will you play any new material?
Yes, always, you know for us to keep interested in what we do we have to always keep playing new songs. We certainly enjoy playing the songs from the first EP, to keep our hearts in the touring life, we always play new songs that we've just written, ones we're interested in recording, and songs that are more relevant to our lives, and what's happening in them.

Have you got any more festivals lined up?
I don't know that we have, the Liverpool Festival is sort of combined with the tour with Martha (Wainwright) so it's something we've kind of booked in as support.

Have you met her yet?
No not yet, she seems like a pretty cool woman.



You are incredibly adept at an awful lot of instruments, which one did you find most difficult to get the hang of?
Probably the clarient, dad gave me a clarinet for my birthday this year, or maybe it was last year, because I played the clarinet on the album we just released, which had a song on it called 'Horse And Cart'. For some reason that day that we were in the studio I found it so easy and just did this really cool little song.

Ever since that day I've never been able to do it again, every time I play it live I squawk and squeak, it's funny but the joke's wearing off it's not as funny now I've been trying to play it for a year and a bit. It's one of those instruments I need to spend a bit more time with. I think when we were recording, I was so into it, I'd just been given it and I was playing it every day, and I'd take it in the car with me, and now it gets put away for too long. If your lips are not in the right place it can make really ugly noises, so I find that the most difficult at present?

You and your brother really gel on stage,you must have spent a long time singing together, do you come from a musical family?
Music has always been a part of our lives and mum and dad when they first met, mum always sang and dad had been in a few bands through school and university. When they first started to hang out together, he and her went travelling together, through Europe and they played at cafes and stuff as a folky sort of duo. Then when she had us, she and dad would sing us to sleep. Then when we were little kids, dad started his band which he is still in now, and so dad was always rehearsing downstairs in the garage, and mum was in the amateur theatre company so she'd do musical theatre productions, and our grandmother had studied opera. So, there was always music around, people were always practising, and so we were used to hearing music.

We never, Angus and I, got together and had a jam but there's photos of when we were little, all playing instruments in the living room, I can't particularly remember those moments. But as we got older, we certainly both played in lots of bands and did our own thing. It wasn't up until about six months before we moved to London that we actually got together and started jamming.

Really? It was that recently? You seem to merge so well on stage as though you've been playing together forever, if you don't mind me saying.
No, I think that's a good thing, it feels like that, it's one of those things that happens when we start singing together. We always used to sing in the car when we'd go to camping trips and stuff like that, so we'd always heard each other's voices. We went to school together, the same High School, so I always heard Angus singing in his band, and he heard me always with my girlfriends down in the garage practising our songs together. When we started singing together it felt very natural, and we just know each other's voices, I know what he's doing without thinking about it, I think that's just history, you sort of know what they're doing without knowing, it's a nice thing, it feels really easy.

What have been the musical influences that have created your sound?
I don't know that's a hard question, I think it's one of those things where you are influenced by so many things, it's hard to pin point one particular thing or one particular album. When we grew up, dad is also a music teacher, so he'd be marking papers and listening to classical music. Him and mum were really avid fans of live music, so as children we'd go to string ensembles, and choirs.

Then we'd go and hang out when dad was playing at a party with his band which was a covers band that did The Blues Brothers show, and The Beach Boys show and all sorts of songs from Bob Dylan to Ricky Martin, whatever was required. Hearing all that, and Angus and I had our interests, Angus got into Rage Against The Machine, and The Chilli Peppers, and stuff like that through High School, and I was into Mariah Carey and the Spice Girls, and somewhere along the was everything had its influence.

Mariah Carey, and the Spice Girls don't show up in your music that much!
Well, I think that's a good thing. I don't know if that would be so cool doing the Spice Girls with Angus. But, I think along the way there's been so much music and it's all played a part in who we become as people and the music we play I suppose.

Who are the other guys in the band?
Well it has changed over the couple of years, but most solidly we've played with Mitchell (Connelly) and Clayton (Macdonald) who were both part of a reggae, surfy, beachy kind of band called 'The Beautiful Girls'. They both left that band a year ago. Mitch joined us two years ago, and then Clay's bass joined us a year ago. They're really cool, they've got a great sound together they've been playing together for about seven years as a rhythm section.

Oh but, you know who you would have seen playing with us on the Newton tour, was a girlfriend of mine from High School, Elkie, we were best friends through school, and Mitch got sick last year, and he had to go back to Australia, and we thought who is going to play the drums? So we called her up, she is living in the States, and asked her if she wanted to come on tour for the Newton tour. I think she hadn't played the drums for about three years, and she is just so amazing, she's such an incredible, she's actually doing a few shows with us in the States next month. We've got a good network of musical friends who are all pretty talented, so they switch around and all do a good job.

I don't have the album, but from the EPs I don't think they really capture that live essence and intensity, does the new album capture it more?
You know, I don't know if it does. When we started this six months before we came and lived over here and the EPs got released, and so for us recording was a really new thing. We basically recorded in the living room at dad's house. It was a similar thing we did with the album we released so it's very raw sounding it hasn't got the energy that we have when we play live through a big PA. I like the sound of the record, but it's really rough.

Heaps of people say it's really lo-fi and the way we play is really reverby. I think the next record will be a bit more like, we've been recording in the studio, and we're a bit more comfortable I suppose being in a studio. Originally, when we recorded a 'Book Like This' the ideal way of recording for us would be at home with microphones around the room, and that was cool because it had a really chilled out vibe, but I think it will be cool to do something that's a bit more intense.

When are you looking at putting the new album out?
Probably next year. We're going to take summer off at home, and hang out and go surfing and swimming and be with our parents and family for Christmas. Then we've got some work to do in the States in March, and then we'll come back to the UK probably about June or July.

Julia & Angus Stone will be perfoming at MTV Liverpool Music Week with Martha Wainwright on Thursday 30th October at the Philharmonic Hall in Liverpool. For more information on Liverpool Music Week, click here. To buy tickets for this show, click here.

Latest Updates