Feelin' It

Isabella Manfredi had no plans or desire to ever be in a band. Or so she now says. This writer remembers preparing for a school concert at the Opera House with The Preatures' lead singer when we were both just 14. Not only could she sing, but Manfredi also had no problems holding court. She still doesn't.

“I think it's very nice being the only girl in a band full of boys,” Manfredi admits cheekily.

But this is no ordinary gang of brothers graced with a woman's touch. The group originally began with Manfredi, Tom Champion (bass) and Jack Moffitt (lead guitar), who is also Manfredi's partner. “We were all at the Landsdowne Hotel in Sydney one night and we were only doing covers at that stage. Then Gideon (Benson – vocals and guitar) got on stage with his band and we loved his voice. He's got swagger, you know?”

After ambushing the devilishly-coiffed Bensen post-gig, Manfredi and co. managed to convince him to join their vision and so the current incarnation of The Preatures was born. Benson now shares lead vocal duties with Manfredi, the pair bouncing off each other on stage, with Bensen's gruff growl a fitting accompaniment to Manfredi's ethereal chant.

“It's been good having the competition with Gideon. It's helped push us and what I've learnt now is that total control is overrated. Having a decided vision of a song doesn't work so well; you need to let everyone have their autonomy and work on their part of the song rather than trying to control everything.”

However, one song Manfredi is grateful to have wielded control over is the group's latest single, Is This How You Feel?, with an '80s throwback vibe that sees her and Bensen again sharing vocal duties, but allowing her subtle coo to shine. “Some of the songs are very personal and others… Others you just put them out there and let them go.”

Not so with Is This How You Feel?, with Manfredi candidly admitting it's the first song she's ever actually “loved”. “Usually you write something, love it and then hit a wall and hate it. But this… this is my first experience of actually writing a song and loving it. I mean still loving it. But I don't think hating it is such a bad thing; I mean, I think it's just part of the process where you have to love songs and then reject them so that you can go on and keep getting better and better.”

Oddly enough, it was Moffitt (who also produced their new EP, Is This How You Feel?) who had a gripe with her first arrangement of the song: “Me and Jack fought a lot about that one, which was great, actually. It made it a better song. If someone gives you carte blanche it breeds laziness. Jack hated the guitar lines in the song. He thought it sounded, like, all very The Boys Of Summer. He's like, 'I hate it, it's so lame,' and I was like, 'It's on there and that's it.'”

Listening to all five tracks on the EP is akin to taking a lazy trip down a fuzzy, LSD-infused '80s time warp. “I think there are also kick-backs on there from our earlier EP (Shaking Hands, 2012), especially on Gideon's tracks. There's a bit of that, and an Elvis Costello vibe on there as well with the collective stuff. For me though, I was listening to a lot of new bands, like Chairlift – I just loved the production on that record. But I also got into the pop element – I actually had a pop revelation last year, the new Justin Timberlake album, The 20/20 Experience. I love it. I absolutely love it. I was also listening to a lot of the Pretenders; I love Chrissy Hynde, just her diction and the way she phrases her words.”

The next few months the quintet are gearing up for their first national headline tour to promote Is This How You Feel?, immediately after which they'll head back into the studio to start work on their debut album. Why then dd they bother to release this EP, instead of saving the tracks for the album? “Well, it was part of our contract,” Manfredi laughs. “No, but I think we would have done it this way even if it wasn't part of the contract. We needed another EP. After Shaking Hands, which we did in LA, we needed to do something really different. Everything we've done has been a reaction to something we have done before.”