65daysofstaticOver his 37 years as radio presenter on BBC Radio 1, the late John Peel became renowned for his ability to recognize up-and-coming bands. The legendary DJ's stamp of approval was a badge of honour for young acts, a critical launching pad that would help define many British musicians. Having experienced Peel's endorsement firsthand with one of their earliest recordings, Sheffield's 65daysofstatic have felt the full force of the man's legacy. Peel's influence in the UK is unmatched, and the moment still remains dear to the band themselves.
“I remember when it happened,” recalls founding member Paul Wolinski. “He opened one of his shows with one of our demoes called Play.Nice.Kids, which was just about the most exciting thing that had ever happened to us, and it's still up there as just one of the highlights of the band. We did a John Peel session, but it was after he died suddenly. They already had us booked several months in advance, and then when he died they honoured the rest of the ones that he booked, of which we were one of them. I think there was us on and other DJs broadcasting, that was all part of it; part of a tribute to him. We never met him, but the gap that he left in the English music world, especially radio, was huge.”
In the almost ten years since, the post-rock heroes have released four studio albums and a series of EPs to ever increasing critical acclaim. The four-piece of Wolinski, Joe Shrewsbury, Rob Jones and Simon Wright specialize in instrumental soundscapes, and have taken their cinematic tendencies to their most logical extension with 2011's Silent Running, an alternate soundtrack to the 1972 cult sci-fi film of the same name. “We wanted to try it for a long time,” admits Wolinski. “And we got fed up with waiting for a film maker to come along and ask us to write a soundtrack, so we did it for an old film for this film festival.
“That was a really good way to learn a new discipline I suppose, because when we're writing our music it's quite an intangible thing,” he continues. “It's just the four of us in a room, and we come out writing all sorts of stuff that we can't really articulate to each other. But when we were soundtracking and there was a movie being projected onto the wall and that's what we were writing about it was such a refreshing thing that there was something tangible that we could put a song to rather than just this weird floating noise.”
The band's enduring success is at odds with their experimental outlook and decidedly un-commercial offerings. The group's intricate and innovative approach has garnered almost as strong a fanbase here as they have in their native UK, making their upcoming Australian tour a very anticipated event. “We're still not comfortable in a financial sense… or in any way,” laughs Wolinski. “It wouldn't surprise me if we can't maintain it forever, because people are buying less and less music. That's something I'm not going to spend too much time worrying about, 'cause it's gonna happen, no point pretending that it's not. But we're very lucky in the loyal following that we've built up, and if we were a bit more savvy about things like that we could probably push that to make it work a bit better for us. But we're not!
“We just wanna keep making music. It's good to be able to pay the bills, pay the rent, but it'd be pointless for us to compromise what we've managed to build by trying to find a way to make more money. That would just undo the whole point of the band, you know? So we'll just keep going until either we feel haven't got anything new to offer or it's just physically impossible for the four of us to survive. That one's probably gonna come first!”
65daysofstatic will be playing the following dates:
Sunday 30 December - Peats Ridge Festival, Glenworth Valley NSW
Wednesday 2 January - The Hi-Fi, Sydney NSW
Thursday 3 January - The Hi-Fi, Brisbane QLD
Friday 4 January - Corner Hotel, Melbourne VIC
Saturday 5 January - The Bakery, Perth WA
