George: Pretty Poly.

George play the Empire Theatre, Toowoomba on September 5, River Symphony on September 7 and Twin Towns Services Club on September 8.

George bassist Paulie B is having a quiet afternoon on the deck. Or he would be if he weren’t being interrupted to do interviews every 20 minutes.

“We do have a lot of friends at home, and while we’re on tour they get horribly neglected. We try and spend as much time as possible with them when we’re in town.”

With one small diversion the day before this interview was done…

“We went out to Woodford,” Paulie explains. “We’ve just done a gig up in the maximum security prison up. It was freaky… It was such a good experience. We played for 175 of the prisoners in the gymnasium. It was wild. I tried not to have any expectations, you just go in with an open mind and a courageous heart. They were so appreciative. I think we were the first band to have been in there. I think Troy Cassar-Daley might have been up there for Nadoc week and done a solo thing.”

Since the release of their acclaimed Polyserena album, george have spent a good proportion of the time on the road, clocking up more than 70 shows in Paulie’s estimation.

“When the album first came out with did two months of playing six or seven nights a week. We have many more songs in the catalogue than we can ever perform on any one night. There’s a core of maybe four or five songs that we play every night, the rest of the set rotates out of the material.”

As well as the aforementioned album, there’s a handful of independent releases under their belt from which they still draw for their live set.

“We still sell the independent releases at the shows, and we still play the songs that we released as an independent band. People seem surprised that we have other releases out.”

This tour finds the band trying out a more expansive show than previously afforded by pub gigs.

“This time we’ve been able to move away from pubs and head into theatres around the country. We’re playing the major theatres around Australia, which is just going to be amazing. Seated theatres, no smoking, no talking. I hope that will go down well a george shows. We’re playing things like the Forum in Melbourne, the Enmore Theatre, the Empire Theatre in Toowoomba. That’s a great room.”

Didn’t you guys play there with The Whitlams a couple of years ago?

“We sure did. We’ve played their twice before. There’s a real aesthetic element in an theatre that doesn’t exist in a pub or club. We’re really going to play with that a lot more than we have before with the light show and staging. We just really haven’t had the opportunity before. Be it financial commitments, or availability of size. There’s not much you can do with a black room, whatever the reason.”