They Started A Joke

It's a sign of the times that there's a Brisbane rock band in our midst who are probably as well-known and respected in far-flung countries around the globe as they are here in their own backyard, but it's hard to fight the impression that that's all about to change with the release of Blank Realm's already-acclaimed long-player, Grassed Inn.

The new album (their fourth “major release” by their own reckoning, following a veritable river of tapes and CDRs that they've passed out since their inception in 2005) has already been praised without reserve by venerated overseas sites and publications such as Pitchfork, Uncut, The Wire and MOJO just weeks since its release. They'd already built up a cache of goodwill with past studio efforts and years of touring, but Grassed Inn has taken that well-earned respect to a whole new level.

Blank Realm is comprised of three Spencer siblings – Daniel (vocals/drums), Sarah (synths/vocals) and Luke (bass) – plus close friend Luke Walsh (guitar/production), and their music is a heady amalgam of disparate sounds and genres incorporating psych, motorik, rock'n'roll and, increasingly, good old-fashioned pop music. Their 2012 long-player Go Easy introduced a new, more accessible façade for the band, and though Grassed Inn still contains plenty of left-of-centre ingredients it builds on its predecessor's charm to become their most readily-endearing collection to date.

“We had an idea that we wanted it to be more of a pop record that you could play any time of day – we wanted it to be something that people could play over and over and [it would] keep its appeal,” Daniel explains of the album's tone. “Our other records have had a bit more of a long-form, improvisation vibe or had been distilled down from longer improvisations, whereas with this one we wanted to keep that kind of meandering to a minimum.”

“I really wanted to write a song that could be featured on the television show Glee, and I told the guys, 'I think we wrote the wrong record!'” Sarah laughs. “This record's a little bit strange in that there's some songs on there that are completely improvised – they're first takes – while others are ones that we've been playing for a while, like obviously Falling Down The Stairs. But it definitely feels different to Go Easy in the sense that on Go Easy those were songs we'd been jamming on for a year-and-a-half – maybe more – while these ones we wrote over probably six months or a year, so it had a completely different feel for us.”

“I don't know whether it's so much reacting against the previous one, but we definitely don't want to repeat ourselves,” Daniel reflects. “I guess in a way this has some refinements of what was on Go Easy, but every album up to this we've really tried to change things and not go over the same ground, which I guess is good and bad in a way – I do respect bands who stick to the one thing and keep doing it, but I think we'd get bored doing that. We're pretty ADD.”

A lot's been made in the press about the more accessible nature of Blank Realm's recent output, but the band attest that it's a just a natural extension of what they've always been doing.

“We don't see it as that far removed [from our past music] – although Grassed Inn is definitely a lot easier to listen to compared to the tapes and CDRs that we were putting out when we first started,” Daniel offers. “But it's all part of it. When I think about what people are saying about [our shift in sound], I just feel it's rock'n'roll that's grown out of this chaos that we used to make. To me all that chaos is still there, it's just squished into song form.

“In my life I've had songs that have meant a lot to me and albums that have meant a lot to me, but the songs are the things that you'll kind of go back to – if times are tough or whatever you probably don't put on a noise record, you put on songs. As you get older you want those songs to latch onto, and this definitely feels like a snapshot of our lives in song form.”

“From my perspective I've been listening to a lot of pop music,” Sarah tells. “We definitely still listen to a lot of the more 'out there' stuff as well – just listening to how it's produced and written and constructed has really been a big influence on me personally.”

It's got to be remembered that intangibles such as “accessibility” are always relative when discussing music – Grassed Inn's songs may incorporate more pop elements, but they still stretch and meander to their natural conclusion, with most easily exceeding the five-minute mark.

“Yeah, I think a lot of people probably don't agree – I've heard some people say that these songs are too long and that kind of thing, but that's just how long we feel they should go on for,” Daniel smiles. “I guess we get into a certain zone when we play them, it's kind of a transcendental experience for us playing music and we just do it until it seems over, pretty much. There's way longer versions of these songs that we've recorded that go on forever, so we kind of edited it down in a way.”

And of course it's not all about the music: Grassed Inn's lyrics are equally integral to its appeal.

“It's all about obsessive love really,” Daniel admits. “We tried to put ourselves in the frame of mind of a creepy, obsessed kind of character but also have this really fun music at the same time to create a weird feeling. A lot of it's repeated phrases and that kind of thing, but that's a conscious decision to keep it really simple and to remain within the 'stupid rock lyric' form, in a way. I try and work with that instead of trying to be too clever.”

One of Blank Realm's further strengths, whether onstage or on record, is their clear musical bond – obviously having siblings in their ranks helps in this regard, but it's more about shared experience.

“We all came of age together, and we all discovered certain things hanging out at uni and stuff,” Daniel recalls. “Even though we're brothers and sisters we're all really close in age, and Luke [Walsh] is as well, so we'd all get into listening to krautrock and do that for a year, and then we'd get into punk and do that for a year – we just went through all of these different phases together and would get really deep into things. So we've got this shared musical background, and we talk a lot in terms of, 'Let's make this song sound like this record or that record' – it invariably ends up sounding a million miles away from what we intended but it's good that we all know the same things.”

Blank Realm's rise in profile both here and abroad is notable not just for how far their music has resonated so quickly, but also for how organically it's happened – they've done things at their own pace and for their own reasons, barely even considering the usual commercial or industry-related concerns.

“We've definitely never been careerist or even thought about those things like triple j or Splendour to be honest,” Daniel muses. “We started the band as a bit of a joke really, and we were even amazed when we first got a gig, and then we were amazed when someone wanted to pay to put our stuff on vinyl – we thought, 'As soon as we put something on vinyl that'll be the end of it', but it's just steamrolled. We're definitely amazed by anything that happens. I suppose we only got ambition as we went along; we never really started with ambition of being anything, but now we want to make it work – hopefully financially, but mainly to get it to a point where we can keep making records and it doesn't take a huge toll on us.

“Making a good album is our main reason for doing it – I guess we think of them as things that may only be popular now or only popular with record nerds twenty years down the track, but as long as some people like it that's fine. I think that making good music and having good live shows is definitely more important than anything that goes along with it – sponsorship deals from Levis or anything like that. They haven't been forthcoming yet anyway,” he chuckles, “and we really don't care.”