Wet 'N' Wild

"The tour so far has been awesome,” an animated James Grim admits. “We catch up with all the good folk and meet a whole bunch of crazy new folk.”

Playing a style of rollicking blues, with energy at the red line and lyrics full of colour and twisted plotlines, you can only believe that the critters come a-crawling when the Brothers lead the Murders into town.

“I wouldn't even call them crazy, they're just my kind of people,” he clarifies. “It's more of an external perspective that would make them crazy. For example Perth, we just played there, and the last time we played was for the West Coast Blues'n'Roots festival so I had 2,000 people screaming at me to take my clothes off, so I did a dance in my knickers. In their minds now that's just how I should play, in my Y-fronts...

“So I was doing a show and the music was pumping, and as I was playing the front two rows were just tearing off my clothes – it was hilarious,” he chuckles. “But if it was going to be a pants-off party then everyone was invited. Then basically half the audience took their clothes off, and that was about halfway through the gig. And there was a pool at this venue, and everyone was getting sweaty and it was a really great raunchy show so I was ready for a pool party and said, 'Consider this an invite.' But then the owner just booted everyone out straightaway, so unfortunately he did a pre-emptive action and we had to move [the party] onto somewhere else.”

Incongruously, it's here, amongst the undergarments and potential frolicking that Brothers Grim & The Blue Murders get a feel for their new songs: what works, what doesn't. Road testing, James admits, gives the band a clear indication of which tracks cut it and which need to be cut, or whether a certain part is holding its end up in the musical bargain.

And it's clear the Melbourne road warriors used their time wisely before deciding on the tracks for their latest EP, Roll It In. They took that lively, animated live experience they're renowned for, and used that exchange with the audience to feel out the seven songs before heading up to the gorgeous expanse of Empty Room, a privately owned property that doubles as a quaint recording location situated in Nagambie, 122 clicks north of Melbourne.

“It was meant to be nice and relaxed...” Grim says. “It's just someone's home in this beautiful winery, and they just invite you there and then you get to hang out with them and make art basically. You set up in their living room, they cook you meals and you slam out music. It's almost like an extension of a jam room in a really beautiful location.”

Three days was all it took the four members to emerge with a finished product. “It's a record of where you were at that time, doing what you do. And I really try and keep a hold of that [idea] whenever we do a release because... you want to do something more or do something less. But that's not what it's about. It's about four unique musicians walking into a space and just bludgeoning out what they're passionate about.”

But the highlight of the time for James Grim? It's unsurprising, really: “The pool,” he reports. “I'd just [wake and] jump right in – it just livens you up and awakens all your senses.”