Why They Love Absurdity, Collaboration And Zines

Brisbane outfit The Stress of Leisure began about a decade ago as a bedroom project for frontman Ian Powne’s idiosyncratic songwriting, but over the years has slowly morphed into the true embodiment of a rock’n’roll band. As the line-up swelled over the years and albums were gradually released the band’s sound changed subtly, whilst still retaining its core sun-kissed, eccentric aesthetic. Now on The Stress Of Leisure’s fifth album, Achievement, the vibe has been altered yet again, Powne’s charismatic worldview now being espoused atop music that’s more rhythmic and driving than ever before. 

“I think it’s a gradual evolution,” Powne explains of Achievement’s direction. “I’ve always had rhythmic songs, but since 2011 there’s been more emphasis on movement, in terms of all of the elements within the group have contributed to making you move: a moving bassline, drumbeats which are danceable and spiky guitars. I think it’s just the evolution of where it’s gone, and this album Achievement feels like the culmination of that progression. It’s a lot different to when I first started, which was more Go-Betweens-slash-Pavement-slash-Pulp sorta feel, it’s probably gone back an era.

"I’m putting the emphasis on myself, but these days The Stress of Leisure is more of a collaboration than it’s ever been."

“I think I’m getting closer to a true expression of what I think my music is, really. Funnily that’s involved taking on more collaboration as well; originally I held on tight to ideas, whereas now I’m up for collaboration and what other people can bring and I think that brings out the best in what I do. I’m putting the emphasis on myself, but these days The Stress of Leisure is more of a collaboration than it’s ever been and that’s part of the progression as well — even though I’m the leading the way, that’s a big factor in where it’s headed.”

Powne admits that he had a few musical touchstones in mind for Achievement, but that it was also informed by societal and geographical factors as well. 

“Of the bands that came to mind, there’s a definite Talking Heads vibe to it,” he ponders. “[2012 fourth album] Cassowary was all about tropical climes and Queensland, while for this one I’ve just gone into any CBD of any city — obviously there’s a lot of Brisbane reference points, but I was mainly just thinking CBD in general and that was the driving force in my head. There’s a bit more of that Talking Heads’ Stop Making Sense vibe that goes into this album, and that’s probably the departure point [from previous records]. There’s Talking Heads’ rhythms and a love of Rick James and all that great funky, soul music, but on top there’s this guy ranting and that’s going back to your Mark E Smiths of the world and that whole post-punk lineage. 

“That’s a simplistic way of looking at it, but coming through all that is our particular Brisbane sensibility — I’ve always thought that if you come from a particular region in the world, where you’re from should just naturally come out. Hopefully ours is a sub-tropical sound, and I think ‘movement’ augments that whole tropical feel.”

When Powne refers to the CBD is he thinking about men in suits with briefcases or something more than that?

“More kind of like corporations, and the way that achievement is framed in the world and the wider media,” he elaborates. “It is becoming inner-city, CBD talk; I’m mainly just thinking big corporations, success, achievement — all of these things that are sold to us basically as success and achievement.”

It seems that recent line-up shuffles within The Stress Of Leisure’s ranks has had a huge impact on the band’s sound for album number five. When former rhythm section Ben (bass) and Jess Moore (drums) took leave to become parents they were replaced by former Grand Atlantic frontman Phil Usher on drums and Jane Elliott (The Bell Divers, The Gin Club) on bass. While this line-up recorded Achievement there’s been another amicable change with Jess Moore back behind the kit, but Powne believes all of this changes have had positive effects.

"Big corporations, success, achievement — all of these things that are sold to us basically as success and achievement.”

“Funnily enough Jess and Ben had a child so we drafted in Phil and Jane, and Phil’s drumming is naturally dancier,” he tells. “He must have just locked into the idea because I’d been talking to him about what I wanted the album to be, and he just locked into this danceable rhythm. I’ve always had an interest in dance and dance music and movement, but in a sense of live drums rather electronic beats.

“When we were writing Cassowary with Ben and Jess we were moving closer towards that collaborative model, so when Jane and Phil came in I really wanted to collaborate with them. Of course Phil is a songwriter in his own right and Jane is just an exceptional musician so they brought a lot of confidence to what they did, and I think a lot of confidence comes through in the playing. Certainly with the Girl On A Lilo bassline, Pascalle [Burton – keys/vocals] just shouted out the title and said, ‘What would that be Jane?’, and that was the riff, and the riff is the song basically! These sorts of things aren’t coming from my head, and I promoted that collaboration and it just seemed to work. This sound is as much about the four of us working together as it is a progression in my writing, and I think Jess coming back to the band is totally onboard with that model as well — we’ve already written a couple of new songs since she’s come back, and she loves these songs on Achievement too. It’s just about establishing that collaboration, and having Phil and Jane come in as confident players has enabled us to move it on.”

With The Stress Of Leisure starting out as essentially a bedroom project for Powne has it been easy over time to cede control and get the others involved so intrinsically in the creative process?

“The older I get and the more I play music, the more it is about the interaction between the players and how you interact with people in the band,” he offers. “When I first started I’d hold onto things tight and was probably a bit anal about it, whereas now the real success and the great things I love are the simple things that other people do — things which they might take for granted but which to me make the songs sound great. Collaboration really brings out a side of your music that you probably otherwise wouldn’t have imagined, so I love it.”

Powne further explains that the “achievement” motif which, as well as giving the collection a title, runs through the album’s songs and artwork came very early in the piece.

"Collaboration really brings out a side of your music that you probably otherwise wouldn’t have imagined."

“Before I start an album it seems that I have to have a working title,” he admits. “It’s weird, but until I actually settled on Achievement as the title I was a bit directionless, but as soon as I had the title I went, ‘Oh yeah, it all makes sense’. To an outsider it mightn’t, but when I think of ‘What fits in with the concept of ‘achievement’?’ I’m thinking the CBD, I’m thinking the corporate world and all of these other themes, so all of a sudden you get a song like Professional Woman which is about professional women out trolling the nightclubs of Brisbane, or White Funk?? which is about middle-class anxiety or my own anxiety and recognition of that. I did struggle with the racial overtones of ‘white funk’ and whether to call the song that, but it’s the way it came out and the way I sang it — and Bowie said that the Velvet Underground where ‘white funk’ so as soon as I read that I was totally fine with it. We’re one of the many bands who’ve come out from the various strands of the Velvet Underground, so that’s good enough for me. And in the title I did put two question marks, just to contribute to the coiled-up anxiety residing in the song already. But Achievement came together from these disparate ideas about inner-city life, the CBD, what does success mean, what are the symbols of success, and also marrying this at the same time with politicians’ use of the word and what they think. There’s a whole lot of different overtones swirling around in my head when I think about it, it’s like a low-level unchecked anger or energy inside me that comes out on this album.”

Is the often nebulous concept of ‘achievement’ something Powne himself seeks for validation in his art?

“I think we all do to a certain extent,” he muses. “Most musicians and most artists want to be taken seriously, and all want to tell you about what they do. And the need to be taken seriously runs through the album, it’s inescapable.”

There’s a quote attributed to the frontman in the zine that The Stress Of Leisure concocted concurrently with Achievement that states, ‘What I love in music and art in general is absurdity’. Is this quote a true reflection of his views on the matter or a more off-the-cuff remark?

“Yeah, it seems so simple,” Powne smiles. “Pascalle Burton and myself were questioning why we were looking at artists or art in general and just thought, ‘What do we actually like?’ and we realised that we actually love absurdity — that’s what we like in art. It seems such a simple thing, but it actually took us a while to latch onto the fact that that’s what we like. And that’s not to take away from the fact that there’s often a hot core of emotion behind that absurdity, but I think the absurdity is reality to us — we see how people act in everyday life and if you analyse people’s patterns there’s a level of absurdity involved there, so I guess it’s just humanity. Absurdity is really refreshing in lots of ways. Once we realised that small kernel of truth we realised, ‘That’s where we’re at!’ — it’s not a mission statement, just a recognition that it’s what’s behind a lot of the stuff we like and what we’d like to do.”
The Achievement zine itself is a cool piece of creativity in its own right, and Powne explains that it’s mainly a way to give more insight to people interested in the project.

“Pascalle Burton who plays in the band is an artist really, and she’s always working on projects and I think she suggested that we do an accompanying zine a while back,” he iterates. “She used to do little matchbox zines, and we’ve kinda been exposed to that zine community and it’s always interested me. I noticed some other bands have done zine additions and I think it’s a great way of promoting the personality of the band — it’s just a way for us to express ourselves and our absurd universes a bit more. It’s just a bit of fun and expresses us a bit better than the average press release would do, because we’re outlining what we’re about really.”

Burton’s creative role in Achievement extends far beyond the peripheral though, having contributed not just to the music and vocals but also coming up many of Achievement’s song titles and therefore themes. 

“Pascalle Burton and I spend a fair bit of time together, so we tend to discuss a lot of stuff — we share a creative life together — so with a lot of our thoughts if they’re not quite married up then they’re in the same ballpark together,” Powne reflects. “Her titles are great — I love a lot of her poetry and spoken word — so it’s just a matter of respect too, where if she submits something then it will spark off something else within me. Even though she came up with the title Goodyear Blimp and the opening line [I carved from that] is, ‘I hate the Goodyear Blimp’. But it all seems to align somehow, it just works. I guess that’s saying, ‘I don’t want to buy into the fact that suburbia is all bad’ because I’m looking down on it — I’m not looking down on suburbia per se, I don’t want to look down on suburbia — and just having some distance from that song it seems to be saying that I’m not above the simplicity of suburban life or what goes on in the outer suburbs or wherever. I’m not sitting in my inner-city cocoon thinking that the best life is here, and I guess the whole album is centred around the inner-city and then you have this sudden realisation that there’s more.”

This is a similar theme to the one he was exploring as far back as 2008 on the beautiful track House And Garden from their second album Hour To Hour.

“I guess that’s a theme running through my work,” Powne continues. “It comes back to that line running though Once In A Lifetime by Talking Heads — “same as it ever was” — and dealing with that. Dealing with the mundane, or the fact that everything’s not as exciting as it’s spun in the media — everyday life is what it is. I think that Goodyear Blimp and House And Garden have in common is a lot of light — there’s a lot of light in both songs — and once you have a lot of light it ushers in the question, ‘Well this seems like bliss, but is it?’ It’s all very existential, maybe it’s a European thing?”

With all of this talk of ‘success’ and ‘achievement’ being bandied around does Powne see The Stress Of Leisure as an ambitious concern?

“Some people ask me, ‘Why do you do music?’ and ‘Why are you putting out all these albums?’” he laughs. “Obviously there’s an ego attached to it all — you have to have a certain amount of ego to keep pursuing an art form, it’s inherent — but I’ve always been fascinated by artists who have catalogues. If I really go back to the roots of it, it traces back to when I was eight years old and there was an old lady next door who couldn’t read and I used to read through the Slim Dusty catalogue for her and order her albums, and I was fascinated by that catalogue and how Slim Dusty had so many records. I think the seed was planted back then, and I think I’ve always respected it when you hear something like, ‘This is their fifth album’ and I think, ‘Wow, there’s so much more to discover!’ What’s driven me is the sense that I’m building a catalogue of work, so the second I finish one thing I’m already thinking of the next. My biggest fear is that I don’t have a next project — I don’t know if you’d call that ambitious because I think a lot of our moves have been against ambition, it’s more about the art form. Success to me is playing a lot of shows and being asked to play a lot of shows alongside artists that you respect and admire. That’s success.”