Drunk With You

You don't get a much more ad hoc beginning to a band than that of Brisbane alt-folk collective The Gin Club. Step back in time one decade and Ben Salter was supplementing his meagre income from fronting rock behemoth Giants Of Science by running an open mic night at inner-city venue O'Malley's Irish Pub – remunerated in the age-old musical tradition of a trickle of money and a river of beer – where he happened upon a disparate but talented group of singer-songwriters fronting up on a weekly basis to show their wares, and before you knew it a loose collective was born.

The trail from an unruly group of like-minded drinkers and performers to a band proper was as haphazard as it was organic, but over time The Gin Club steadily became one of Australia's most respected outfits in their field. Over the last ten years they've ticked off all of the big festivals, toured extensively overseas and played alongside acts such as Paul Kelly, The Drones, You Am I, Band Of Horses and Iron & Wine (to name but a few), and to mark their first decade together they're re-releasing their eponymous 2004 debut album on vinyl and hitting the road to celebrate as only they know how.

“I'd cut my teeth doing open mic nights in Townsville, so when I got the chance to do the one at O'Malley's I was really excited,” Salter recalls. “It's something that I enjoy doing anyway, encouraging other people musically, and it was a perfect outlet for that. I guess having done all that stuff with Giants and seen the industry side of things and how horrendous it can be, seeing all these people who had no aspirations, or very limited aspirations, to do music as any full-time concern – they'd just written a few songs and had vague ambitions – was pretty cool.

“Also the fact that I couldn't believe how good these songs were; I don't know if I'm a weak judge but I really thought their songs were fantastic, spanning the whole gamut from Brad [Pickersgill], who in his mind was writing commercial songs like Crowded House or something, but when he sang them they were just totally different – really weird and fragile – and maybe in Conor [MacDonald]'s mind he was writing sort of weird, fragile songs but they were really something else as well. It was just great to meet all these people totally randomly – people from all over the place – and it was just a really cool group of people as well.”

Even though you'd imagine that such a voluminous membership would be a logistical nightmare – The Gin Club's current live roster is eight, but ebbs and flows and the band can subsist in myriad configurations – one thing that's been notable throughout is the complete lack of ego as the gaggle of songwriters cede the limelight and back one another on each other's material.

“Sometimes it's almost like I'm pushing people to take more of the spotlight or to do more stuff outside the band. The original idea was for it to be like the Wu-Tang Clan and for everyone to do their own solo album, but I think I'm the only person out of the whole band who's actually managed to do one,” Salter laughs. “But for a group of such good songwriters we're just mainly friends first and everything else second, and to be honest everyone is pretty good with me bossing them around – which I wouldn't expect from any other group of people – but they're pretty good with me yelling and hollering at them, because I think they know I'm doing it because I'm a big fan of all their stuff.

“When you start a band – whether you work it out or not – fairly early on you have this set of rules or expectations that you'll go about things a certain way, and with The Gin Club I think early on we set it up so that we could do gigs without people there, so we've never had to have the whole complement of people. I think Conor's the only person who's played at every single Gin Club show; everyone has missed at least a stint. For a while there I had to be there, but I said, 'C'mon guys, you can do shows without me', so they've done a bunch of shows without me, which is awesome. But I think it makes everyone that's not there a bit jealous and want to come back and do the shows more, so it's sort of a good system. I can't think of any other band who operates in the same way really.”