Sweet Sounds

On a night when the federal leadership topples, again, and Queensland tears New South Wales a new one, again, Ofa Fanaika is happily oblivious to the day's events and is knuckling down for a bit of band practice. After a two-year break, West End reggae/roots eight-piece Chocolate Strings are back in business with an upcoming support slot alongside Afrobeat legends Kooii. As one of its leading ladies and group founder, Fanaika admits the call to rearm was not of her own making.

“That was Chris, our bassist. He was super exuberant and went through the fun last days with us and just really wanted to revise it. And that was great timing. We were a bit more mature and better players and we'd all started our own other projects. But it just seemed like the right thing to do.”

Chocolate Strings came to life in 2006 when Fanaika, guitarist Alex Skinner and drummer Kasper Skou started making some blissed out tunes. By 2008, three had become eight, and from hip hop and dub roots to “driftwood slow-moving stuff”, the band created a relaxed party vibe wherever they went. With an LP to their name and some respectful festival slots notched on their belt (Woodford, Island Vibe, Rainbow Serpent), Fanaika says a self-inflicted break and shakeup was needed following their last show at Peats Ridge in 2011. “We've probably had one falling out and that was at the time that we needed to have a break,” she says. “We were just going crazy before then. But we're all a lot older now and it's just life.

“We spend much more time on developing songs before we play live, whereas in the past we'd come up with an idea and we'd play it live and just work it out as we played. And although that has been magic to a degree, the evolution's really been in our writing process and that changed our live shows, too. The way that we've evolved now is into more sophisticated dub and hip hop, a lot of soul music as well and a really rootsy reggae.”

Being in an eight-piece band takes a fairly rigorous bent for democracy, and with some musicians' egos it's a wonder that any work gets done. But Fanaika is adamant that as part of the new writing process everyone is heard and that everyone has “their baby”. But are there times when she thinks, 'Man, I should have left it at a trio'?

“Well, there's more people to hide behind! I think that big collective thing on stage is lovely. The only thing…” she muses, “no actually, I don't think it's ever been a problem. It's so much nicer to play with more people and at one point I think we had about twenty people on stage at one of our West End gigs. I think if we had it our way we'd have a gospel choir!”

With most of the tracking done for album number two, Fanaika expresses a quietly confident hope for a November release. The only thing left to do is rattle a few cages at some planned shows down south. “Sydney's a tough cookie to crack, it's somewhere where we haven't really tamed the wolf, but it's been really interesting. We played some shows in the western suburbs and at this one pub show in Parramatta this guy kind of faked taking out a gun. It was a really bizarre experience, but it's pretty funny. It's good and bad everywhere; it is what it is.”