Strength In Numbers

For years he's been best found behind the kit for Portland alt.rock behemoths The Dandy Warhols, but in recent times Brent DeBoer has been spending his spare time (when he has any) in the southern hemisphere, setting up home in Melbourne with his new family.

“I married an Aussie girl and we lived in Portland for a few years, and then we moved to Australia – we've been here for years,” he smiles. “I'm really enjoying it, Melbourne's great.”

But of course with a new city comes new routines, and it wasn't long before DeBoer had joined forces with Bob Harrow of Melbourne outfit The Lazy Sons to create music and mischief. “Right about the time that I met my wife I was on a trip over here with Matt Hollywood from Brian Jonestown Massacre and we were hanging out at Cherry Bar and Bob was there, and he thought that Dandys and Jonestown Massacre must be playing a gig or something,” DeBoer continues. “We got talking to him and we've just been friends ever since – we started hanging out right away, I thought he was really cool – and so we started making up tunes and little by little gathering up friends from the area. Then when I moved here we figured that we'd better really go for it, because I'd feel claustrophobic if I didn't have a rehearsal to go to at least once a week – I've been doing that for the last 23 years of my life and it would be weird if I didn't have that! I needed it and Bob knew it, so we went for it.”

The country-tinged rock'n'roll that has become the Immigrant Union stock-in-trade is different from the work of their other bands but not miles removed. As the band have expanded from the original trio into a six-piece so too has their sound evolved.

“It just happened basically organically – we just decided to make up tunes,” DeBoer explains of the Immigrant Union aesthetic. “The songs that I had lying around had that sort of [country-rock] feel, and Bob is pretty obsessed with all of the same old tunes that I am – Stones and Neil Young and Dylan and that kind of jazz – so we just naturally went that way. As we gathered up more and more people we gained other influences and branched out – we're like one of those bands that has a country, bluesy feel, but then a lot of the songs are rockin', like Creedence or Fleetwood Mac or something. We're all over the shop really. None of our songs would be described as death metal or hip hop, but other than that it's wide open.

“The first year-and-a-half or so we were playing quite a lot, with the philosophy that we should play as much as possible to figure out what we're capable of and what feels terrible and what feels great – trying to weed out the bummer elements and expand on the parts that work really well. But we're playing less now in Melbourne – we're trying to get more gigs in other towns. We want to hit the road with other bands, like we're doing this tour now with Royston Vasie – it's really fun.'

It must be incredibly different playing in a fledgling band after experiencing the highs with the Dandys – is DeBoer enjoying the ride? “I really am, I've never done anything like it,” he chuckles. “It's different – it's fun and a real challenge. But you want that in life, something to work on and some goals to work towards and that sort of stuff, it makes it more fun to get up in the morning.”

Immigrant Union will be playing the following shows:

Friday 12 October - Ric's Bar, Brisbane QLD
Saturday 13 October - The Loft, Gold Coast QLD
Thursday 18 October - Karova Lounge, Ballarat VIC
Friday 19 October - Ding Dong Lounge, Melbourne VIC
Saturday 20 October - The Nash, Geelong VIC