They've Arrived

When you pick up your copy of Adelaide City Riots' debut album, Sea Of Bright Lights – and a more appropriate title you couldn't want if you've ever seen the Adelaide plains after dark from the neighbouring low-lying hills – you're actually listening to their second attempt. Back in 2009, the four-piece found themselves overseas, ostensibly working on what they thought would be their debut with producer Bjorn Thorsrud, whose credits include records for Smashing Pumpkins and The Dandy Warhols.

“Being a young band, getting an opportunity to go and record overseas with an American producer,” the band's singer, songwriter and guitarist Ricky Kradolfer explains, “at the time was like, 'Wow, of course we'd love to do that,' and he took a real interest in the band and the songs and we were going back and forth on email and it seemed like, at the time, he was the right guy for the job.

“So we went to Chicago and lived at his house and attempted to record an album. We were actually to do it at Steve Albini's studio and maybe a month after that was confirmed, Bjorn rang and said that Billy Corgan has just finished building his personal studio and he said we could just come in and use that before he came in to record some new Pumpkins stuff, so why didn't we do it there because we wouldn't have to rush. We could record everything there, take our time – the catch was that we were going to have to help finish the studio. It wasn't completely done yet; so we'd have to tidy up, help bring in stuff. So we knew that the process was going to be a little bit all over the place.

“So we jumped on the plane and went and did it, and then it just became a process where, as we were doing it, we just weren't really comfortable. Bjorn was a lovely guy but we just weren't comfortable working with him and it wasn't 'til we came back and we were listening to all the mixes, and I think there were some good songs on there but definitely not enough to do an album that we were totally happy with, but just the way they were put together and produced really didn't represent who we are as a band and our sound – it just didn't sound like us.

“So we rejigged a few things and kept moving forward – we used five of the songs and put them on as part of [last year's] Matchsticks EP, and then kind of had to regroup, 'cause it's also quite an expensive process, doing that.”

Originally forming in 2005, for all the setbacks of that American recording experience, City Riots had quite a dream run, releasing an eponymous debut EP the year after forming and picking up plum supports both local – Midnight Juggernauts, Operator Please – and more importantly overseas – The Academy Is…, Cobra Starship and the turning point, Smashing Pumpkins – as well as being 2008 Unearthed J Award nominees.

“Putting out a first record, I think you have to make sure that… you only get one chance to put out your first record so you want to make sure it's the right thing, that really kind of represents who you are as a band, and your sound, and that people can go, 'Hey, that's City Riots'. But we wouldn't have been the position to write the type of songs or be in the type of headspace, and to just have the experience that we had go into writing this new album. There's no way we could have written the songs that we've written for this album two years ago, just from all the growth of touring and just writing and jamming and playing as a band, and just me personally maturing as a songwriter. And now I have a record that we're really happy with.”

Though the Bjorn experience demanded a little reassessing about just what they were trying to achieve, City Riots have always been a very proactive collective, going for any opportunity, which has seen them spend a lot of time over in the US, away from the failed recording sessions, playing SXSW and CMJ festival/conferences, and even picking up US management that helped facilitate a few other opportunities.

“Like I said before,” Kradolfer continues, “and you're a young band, it's very hard to say no to them – 'Cool, let's go play that festival' and 'Let's go support that band' – but perhaps what we lacked was a real long-term plan; a long-term goal in terms of, 'We're going to do this' and really think about why we're doing it and what we're going to do after that.”

The first step in formulating that long-term plan was taking time out from the gigging to get stuck into writing for what became the Sea Of Bright Lights album, recorded in Melbourne with producer Paul 'Woody' Annison, whose credits include Children Collide, Red Riders and Rocket Science among others, including the title track of the Matchsticks EP, which was what swung him the gig on the album.

“From last November, we just really concentrated on songwriting, which was the first time we'd ever really done that as a band. In the past we've been sidetracked with these things happening in the UK or going to the US and doing this and that, and even at the start of 2011, when we were focused on being in Australia and building our fanbase here, we just did support tour after support tour, and if we weren't doing support tour we just did our own little indie club shows or whatever.

“So we just started writing, set up some stuff at home, jammed with [brother and drummer] Dan and spent some time up at my parents' place on the river [Murray, at Walker Flat, near Mannum, SA], so I was able to kind of disconnect from what was happening back in the city and just focus on writing. So, by the time we went to see Woody we had a bunch of, like, thirty to forty songs, so we had the flexibility to focus and choose a group of songs to make a really great record. I didn't want to do a mishmash of all kinds of stuff; I wanted to make a record, which made sense. So we picked a bunch of songs that we felt would work really well as a record, and also really could encapsulate who City Riots are as a band, that we can go, 'Right, this is who we are, this is our sound – we're here'.”