The Jury Is In

Simon 'Berkfinger' Berckelman is pacing around his studio in Berlin at the end of an 18-hour workday, contemplating the 30-hour flight ahead of him. “I'm only coming down to Australia for two weeks for the tour. There's a 30-hour flight and then three rehearsals and then gigs and then a recording session with The Creases and then gigs and then a flight back to Berlin.”

The frontman of Philadelphia Grand Jury relocated to Europe shortly after his beloved pop-punk group announced their split. The rise of the Philly Jays was fast and furious, launching in June 2009 with the release of the high-rotation indie hit Going To The Casino (Tomorrow Night). The album Hope Is For Hopers followed in September 2009, bringing a small army of fans in its wake. Two months later, they won an ARIA Award. Two years later, they broke up.

“We grew to a point where this thing that we didn't expect to be a real thing, especially not a real career, became a real career. There was pressure on us to do the next thing, and we were all in a difficult place. I was really busy thinking about how the next record should be, and Joel [Beeson, guitar] was really busy getting his home life back together,” Berckelman says. He and guitarist Joel Beeson had been friends since childhood and played together for years before the Philly Jays were a hit, but they experienced the band's meteoric rise in very different ways. “He was married at the time and I wasn't. I think I was quite pig-headed and I didn't see how difficult it must be to keep a real relationship together while touring around the world and earning just enough money to survive all the time, and not know how much money you'd get paid next and where you would be required to be living next. All these things, now that I'm married, I realised must have been extremely difficult.”

On the eve of the Philly Jays reunion tour, Berckelman has a very different perspective on life. He admits he was seriously depressed after the band broke up; sleeping on a friend's floor and tucking his mattress away under the stairs every morning, writing grunge tunes and wondering what to do with himself. When Susie Patten (former Philly Jays drummer) invited him to visit her in Berlin, Berckelman figured he had nothing to lose. He fled to Germany, fell in with a new group of friends and met the girl who would become his wife. “She's from Brisbane,” he laughs. “I went all the way around the world to meet someone from my home town.”

Eventually, Berckelman bought a studio. A long-time engineer and producer (whose credits include Architecture In Helsinki, Wolfmother, Silverchair and The Temper Trap), he found rent in Berlin was so low that Australian bands could fly all the way to Europe to work with him and still save money. He had 300 kilos of gear shipped out from Australia, got married and made a brave new start. “In Australia, if you work with a band – whether they like Philly Jays or not, or they like my production work or not – they generally have an idea of who I am and that I'm professional and I should be trusted. Whereas here, when a new band comes in, if a band from Sweden comes in, for example, they don't give a fuck who I am, I have to prove myself. In some ways that's really exciting because I get the chance to kick butt and have people go, 'Whoa, this is way better than I thought. Who are you?'”

While setting down roots and building his business in Berlin, Berckelman channelled his songwriting juice into a solo project. In 2012, he delivered a new album, Intercourse, under the moniker Feelings. Released in Australia, the Feelings record was a middling success, but it had a delightful knock-on effect. It brought Berckelman home on tour and it brought the Philly Jays back together. Earlier this year, Berckelman was looking for a guitarist to join him on a spring Feelings tour, and Beeson came immediately to mind. “I thought about who I would be comfortable playing with and whose company I enjoy, and I immediately thought of Joel. I thought I could call him and offer him this as a friend – just pay him, with no strings attached – and he could just play the Feelings songs. Once we started playing together we had such a great time and we remembered our childhood friendship rather than any music stuff.”

As the tour went on, Philly Jays songs began to creep onto the setlist. Then, figuring they might as well, the band reformed officially for a surprise gig at BIGSOUND – nothing but Philly Jays tracks, back-to-back. “We just loved it,” Berckelman says, “And then we thought, 'Is there any reason why we shouldn't do this, at least occasionally? Or at least once, just to try it?'”

Two months down the road and Philadelphia Grand Jury are once again on the road, a little wiser and with very low expectations. “We decided to do this tour because we wanted to, not because we needed to. We'd probably make more money if we just stayed home and did our jobs,” Berckelman shrugs. “All that has happened is that every label in Australia has now gotten in contact with my manager to say, 'Are they doing a Philly Jays album because if they are, we want to put it out.' There's been a lot of music industry interest in what's happening with this band because they think it's a known quantity. To be honest, I'm not sure that Joel would want to or even can do another leg of a Philly Jays, make a record and then tour it. Who knows. I think we'll just finish this tour and then get back to our normal lives, and then we'll talk about it.”