True Believers

Of course, Rule #1 of The Rock is 'There are no rules'. But listening back to their last album, The City Lights felt they might have been breaking the guidelines. “Songs were getting up over the four minute mark,” guitarist and singer James Roden ponders. For guys whose record collections tend to The Jam, The Who, The Sunnyboys, and other short sharp shoves of guitars with punch and melody, this was heading outside the guidelines. “When you get there, you tend to need more in a song than just that first idea. With those bands we love, it's meant to be just those short bursts of energy. It always seemed to us that as music took itself more seriously, the songs got longer – and said less,” he laughs.

With their new album, I Just Got To Believe, the balance is redressed. Roden offers the formula: “Ten songs, most around – or under – two minutes. Not many even have middle eights. All done in under half an hour. This is the way.” There's little room for argument.

But for all this focus and apparent certainty, it became a bit of a marathon for the album to finally get here. “It became a massive struggle, an almost stupid saga,” he exasperates. “Yeah, it was all so easy we just recorded it twice.”

Plan A saw the band – just back from touring Europe as a tight four-piece unit of James, brother and fellow founder Harry, thoroughly nice guy drummer Graeme Trewin, and Peabody guitarist Bruno Brayovic – link with producer Tim Kevin at his recording facility of historic buildings on Sydney Harbour.

“But he was being moved around the site as things were being demolished, so we saw the lovely water views as we walked in – to a windowless room that could have been anywhere,” he recalls. “But the bigger problem is we just weren't prepared, we just didn't have the songs, and about halfway through each take of each song we just lost our way.”

One song – the aptly titled Without People You're Nothing – was salvaged. The band now happily describing it as “written in 2008, played live in 2009, recorded in 2010, mixed in 2011, and finally here in 2012”. Stupid things like life, work, and family then got in the way, before they got around to having the second go with a more developed collection of songs. Recording this time at former Midnight Oil man Jim Moginie's northern beaches venue: “It's like a proper studio; all wood-panelling and nice guitars everywhere.”

But by then, there were three. Brayovic having relocated to Europe to study. Now as a three-piece, even a decade-on band can change its dynamic. “I started out as a bass player, not so confident, and got used to having a second guitarist to fall back on,” offers James. “But I can speak again now. With Bruno we could never get a word in.” He adds a caveat: “But if I'm now the alpha male, boy, we are in trouble.”

By this stage, the Rodens and Trewin have become fairly philosophical, and James finds the upside: “But we've got no label, no deadline, we owe no-one else paying for it. We do it just because we love it.

“It's simple. In the rehearsal room, in our mind we're the biggest band in the world. We still look forward to a rehearsal, to recording, to just playing a gig – even in front of people we know who are just there to heckle us.”

The City Lights are playing the following shows:

Friday 14 September - The Green Room Lounge, Sydney NSW
Saturday 22 September - Beetle Bar, Brisbane QLD