Taking The Drop

Postmodern surf rockers The Break may be a relatively new band, but its players aren't. Midnight Oil's Rob Hirst, Jim Moginie and Martin Rotsey connected with Violent Femmes' Brian Ritchie to form a kooky supergroup. Now they're back with a playful second album, Space Farm.

Coincidentally, Midnight Oil were initially called Farm. “We did think about that,” Hirst laughs. “There was some sort of synchronicity going back to the Jurassic period of the band in the '70s.” The Break have just come off a tour backing (and supporting) Detroit folkie Rodríguez, an old Oils road buddy. 

Hirst was a founding member of Midnight Oil. The group, from Sydney, fragmented in 2002 when dynamic frontman Peter Garrett quit to pursue politics. Hirst had already conceived the “pop-up band” Ghostwriters with Hoodoo Gurus bassist Rick Grossman in the early '90s, acquiring a cult following. But their long-awaited fourth album, 2007's Political Animal, is likely to be their last, Hirst suggests. After 25 years in Midnight Oil, he enjoys the idea of transitory bands. He currently plays in the Delta blues outfit Backsliders in addition to The Break, the latter debuting independently three years ago with Church Of The Open Sky. 

Space Farm was recorded speedily and spontaneously. “It felt much more like play than work, making this album,” Hirst says. Midnight Oil began as a “garage band”, evolving into something “much more produced”. The Break has a little of that old roughness, but is far from 'pub rock'. Moginie, who plays guitars, keys and theremin, produced the album.

Midnight Oil met Violent Femmes – and Ritchie, their bassist – through a US tour manager in the Femmes' Milwaukee, Wisconsin hometown. “We went to a German restaurant – the best German restaurant in Milwaukee. It's a very big German immigrant town.” They stayed in touch. The Oils shared the stage with the Femmes, once doing “a massive gig” together in Boston at Earth Day. Then Ritchie moved to Tasmania in 2008. “We grabbed him before anyone else did!” Despite their different cultural backgrounds, Hirst & Co discovered common ground with him. “We all seem to love the same kind of music and grew up listening to similar music – not just surf music. I guess there was precious little surf in Milwaukee, but Brian loves surf bands. He also, like us, loves that spaghetti western soundtrack music and the really early, rough origins of rock 'n' roll... And often the more extreme, the better.” Hirst jokes heartily about there being negligible surf culture in Ritchie's native Mid-West, telling “a fairly apocryphal story” of how he “caught waves behind the Lake Michigan super tankers as they cruised across the lake.”  

In some ways, The Break transcend surf music on Space Farm with ever more psychedelic – and eccentric – influences. “We realised that we actually had no expectations, other than we wanna make really interesting original music still. We want to keep challenging ourselves. So that's why it's such a hybrid beast we've created this time.” The Break recruited trumpeter Jack Howard (Hunters & Collectors). Then the Gyuto Monks Of Tibet open and close the album. Hirst recalls how they arrived at the studio in a “beaten-up” Volvo station wagon. The Break served the monks green tea and they sat on the floor and chanted for 30 minutes. The band took photos before they left. Wilder yet is a cameo by Engelbert Humperdinck on The Break's funky cover of his B-side Ten Guitars. “We just loved the song,” Hirst says. The original was a surprise hit in New Zealand. “It's like their national anthem over there!” The 70-something Brit legend recorded his vocal in Bel Air. Feted producer Nick Launay (who guided Midnight Oil's 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1) mixed it. “Weirdly,” Hirst says, it works. The Break now call Humperdinck 'Bert' – and hope to meet him when he tours.

Humperdinck, who entered 2012's Eurovision Song Contest, reportedly regretted that an ex-manager passed on a Gorillaz hook-up, but The Break makes up for it. “I don't think Bert wants to stand still. I think he likes being contemporary – and he's certainly incredibly well preserved. When the vocal came back, it sounded as strong and as rich as it always had – [a] remarkable voice!”

Hirst feels that with rampant hybridisation in today's (pop) music, listeners are receptive to experimentation. “Often we think we haven't gone far enough,” he says. “Sometimes we think we've gone far enough. But, generally, we realised that there's hardly any limits.” Still, Hirst doesn't necessarily dig contemporary mash-ups. “It just comes down to a matter of taste, doesn't it? Sometimes you like the hybrid, sometimes you just yearn for the original untampered-with, pure version of something.” But, while Backsliders pay homage to the blues, even they subvert the genre on occasion – as with The Break, they're “not afraid to move expectations along and challenge people.” Like Paul Weller, who's remained eternally cool through his myriad of reincarnations, Hirst and his bandmates in The Break are wary of nostalgia. “The great thing for us generally as musicians is that we've never had to hit the RSL circuit and play a medley of our former bands' hits,” he says. “In a way, logically, we've kind of made it harder for ourselves by starting a new band with a new name with a new repertoire and not trading off what we've done... But just constantly regurgitating the stuff in the clubs, pubs, here or overseas, wouldn't satisfy our musical curiosity. I think we'd die a thousand musical deaths.”

However, Hirst won't rule out the possibility of further Midnight Oil activity. Even with Garrett a government minister, they've reunited for charity, headlining Sound Relief. He could tire of political life. “I think it's actually quite likely that we'll play again together,” Hirst says. “Whether we'll ever record again, I don't know.” Garrett joined him and others at a recent benefit for ailing Angels lead singer Doc Neeson in Sydney. “You could see the stress just pouring off Pete's shoulders as he was suddenly in front of this adoring crowd again – 2000 people at the Enmore Theatre! I think he still loves that side of things. It must be a great release, quite cathartic perhaps, for him to do that.” A bigger complication might be bassist Bones Hillman's relocation to Nashville... 

Meanwhile, The Break are touring behind Space Farm, their show entailing “a very strong visual component.” “And, yes, the space suits will be worn,” says Hirst, referring to the gear they bought online from NASA. The drummer assures that the lightweight garments are comfortable for sweaty performances.