School's Out

Last Saturday night it was Greer Clemens' Year 11 formal, this Saturday night she will headline a sold-out Northcote Town Hall to launch her band's EP. The life of the 16-year-old is busier than most her age, be it recording in the school holidays or turning down gigs to focus on studies, but for the University High School student, her band The Darjeelings is her passion.

Established in June of 2011, the stimulus for the group extends back to early school music lessons and the formation of a vocal duo. “Mairead [O'Connor] and I, who is the other singer-songwriter in the band, started singing together in a choir in Year 7 and bonded over thinking we were way cooler than everyone else,” she laughs. “Then we started singing covers and writing our own duets and later on we got on to the other two members.”

Belying their respective ages, the quartet, all under 17 (the line-up is completed by Bella Chwasta and Izzy Flook), began playing live. Early venues included their local Northcote establishments Wesley Anne and 303 and low-key school fetes and functions. “We like to think we're a part of a really great network of Melbourne bands,” says Clemens. “Everyone knows we're youngsters and just getting into the whole thing, and people have been so helpful, wanting to see what we can do.” As the group gained confidence in performing, the attention to their music began to grow. Benjamin McCarthy, a one-time member of Kate Miller-Heidke and Megan Washington's backing bands, was so taken by their performance at a mid-afternoon fete, he offered to produce their EP. Given his experience with sweet indie-pop, it was a match made in heaven. “He saw Mairead, our drummer Bella and I playing at a primary school fete in North Carlton and contacted us and asked if we'd be interested in working with him on a project together,” Clemens recalls. “We of course completely jumped at the offer and ended up making an EP with him.”

Clemens admits it has been a challenge juggling VCE studies with band commitments. “It's something we have had to balance out and there's been a few things we've had to say no to or reconsider because we've had work or had mid-year exams. It's a challenge, but I don't feel that we neglect either pursuit in the process.”

Listing their influences as acts such as Belle & Sebastian and Fleet Foxes, the band's vocal harmonies and penchant for a capella arrangements seem uprooted from 1960s-era girl groups: The Shangri-Las, Supremes and Ronettes. Clemens agrees. “It's something we've been leaning towards more recently. Just Mairead and I use to sing two-part harmonies, but as we've been rehearsing and practicing a lot more as a band, the other two members have been getting into singing harmonies as well. We're really influenced by that whole girl group sound. I love The Ronettes.”

The group, who all study music at school, know how to craft pop, a skill Clemens says has strengthened over time. “Mairead has an affinity with the piano riff, whereas my songs often come lyrically first. It changes all the time, but as we've developed our songwriting skills, it's becoming more streamlined a process.”

The Darjeelings' self-titled EP, “made up of six songs written over the past year and a half”, will be launched at the Northcote Town Hall as part of the Darebin Music Feast. “We have really supportive friends and community,” says Clemens, on the show's sold-out status. “A lot of the audience will be our good friends and that's going to be so much fun.”

The Darjeelings will be playing the following shows:

Saturday 6 October - Northcote Town Hall, Melbourne VIC
Monday 22 October - The Evelyn, Melbourne VIC