Dead Letter Circus On Helping To Raise Money For Sea Shepherd

When Kim Benzie answers the phone, one can almost hear a slight sense of relief. Stepping out of the studio in the midst of writing for a fourth Dead Letter Circus album, this interview has given the frontman a much-needed break. "I hadn't looked at the time for a couple of hours. I needed to get out of the room," he laughs.

After a busy start to the year touring the US, and gearing up for their impending 11-date The Burning Number tour around the country, it hardly seems like the most ideal time for penning an alternative-rock album riddled with their trademark progressive bent and high-wire vocals. But that's how the five-piece have always worked their magic.

"Because we've been writing a new album, we kind of haven't been in the headspace of all our songs and it's always a bit of a shock for the first couple of days, so we dived back in," Benzie says. "But I'm liking it. I always have a moment where I'm like, 'Far out, we wrote a really good song!'

"It's such an amazing organisation - they don't care about red tape, about what bureaucracy says: they just do what needs to be done."

"I guess because we've been doing it for so long now, this is the downtime — the writing process. It's my favourite part. I'd say the writing is quite relaxing; hitting the studio is where the stress kind of picks up a little bit more, because you've got deadlines and you're burning money every hour basically. This time right now is pretty much the most chilled thing about being in a band."

What Benzie considers the band's downtime is something they should enjoy for now, because the Brisbane lads' touring schedule is a wild beast, which will rear its head again before the year is out with another run of dates across Europe throughout October. Not that playing a veritable marathon of shows is anything new for them.

Rising from the ashes of lauded Brisbane alternative bands Ochre and Melodyssey in 2008, DLC have become a well-oiled machine and figurehead for the genre, sharing stages with alt/prog-rock brethren Karnivool, Cog and The Butterfly Effect in the early 2000s and beyond. Despite the shift into the airplay limelight for younger guns like sleepmakeswaves, 12 Foot Ninja and Hands Like Houses, Benzie interestingly argues that alternative music has returned to being just that: alternative. "I feel like maybe the scene was bigger back then because there was more alternative music at touring festivals," he admits. "I feel like because of the electronic music dominance in Australia right now, that's what's more [in demand] at festivals. It feels like it's a little bit more underground at the moment, like, the size of the stages that we were going on back then were bigger; I think it's because of the lack of Big Day Out and Soundwave. It feels like alternative rock is actually more alternative at the moment."

 "I feel like maybe the scene was bigger back then because there was more alternative music at touring festivals."

Fans will undoubtedly be happy to catch the band on any stage — festival or not. But Dead Letter Circus' The Burning Numbers tour isn't just your average money-spinner run of shows. The five members have put their names and money behind Sea Shepherd, with $1 from every ticket sold going towards helping the crews fight whaling boats and other marine causes. For Benzie, the mission is a personal one, but it's one shared by the band as a whole. "When our new manager took us on we said one thing we've always wanted to do is to incorporate our shows with some kind of cause," he explains. "And he had a connection with the guys at Sea Shepherd Australia. It was just such a perfect, easy fit; we wanted to search out a charity where all the money wasn't going towards setting up an office somewhere.

"It's such an amazing organisation - they don't care about red tape, about what bureaucracy says: they just do what needs to be done. It's so inspirational from an outside point of view. I've already supported it personally, but to be able to do this — even for someone who's never heard of them before that jumps on the website to see what Sea Shepherd does — for us would be incredible."

With high hopes for what the tour will yield, Benzie has work to do in the meantime. Returning to the studio to keep chipping away at the shape of this new album, the inevitable questions arise before he has a chance to dash off: can you give us a taste of it? "I really can't!" he laughs. "We never really plan the direction or anything, we just let it kind of fall out. That's what we're doing now and it's pretty much a bit of everything; from stuff that we've been doing from right back at the start, there's a progression but a hint of the past as well.

"But it'll be [out] next year. We're a pretty good pressure-cooker band, we've set goals for the studio for the start of 2017 to have, like, a mid-year release. That's achievable, providing we don't get distracted."