Iota: Bone Alone.

Iota plays the Great Northern Hotel in Byron Bay on Thursday, The Surfers Paradise Beergarden on Friday and The Zoo on Saturday.

Since packing his bags and heading to Sydney in 1996, former West Aussie Iota has been pumping out some mighty fine tunes. His self titled debut EP was quickly followed by the well received Hip Bone Connection. Hip Bone score a bundle of ARIA nominations for the independent artist and was backed up with the Little Carlos EP, but in retrospect all three were perhaps a just taste of the lush melodies of his most recent long player Big Grandfather. Which, by all rights, should pale beneath his next release, currently in production.

“We’ve been in the studio just last week doing the bed tracks of bass and drums. I’m still decking out my studio at home, and we’re going to finish the rest of it here. I guess that’s all I’ve been doing for six months now. Just working on demos and trying to build songs. Thinking about artwork. All that albumy stuff. The songs have kind of been half finished since Big Grandfather was released. They’re all ready and in the basic form.”

What sort of directions are you going this time?

“We’re having all sorts of dilemmas at the moment with final directions for the album, I don’t know, maybe that’s what the album will reflect. I think all the music I’ve released has taken a lot of directions. That’s my sound, I guess. It goes all over the place and that’s the way I like it. Sometimes I feel like I should have a more focused direction album wise, but it just doesn’t come out that way.”

“I’ve got all these songs that just seem to fit together well. I don’t think I’m explaining it very well, but it’s all good.”

What sort of time frame are you working on at the moment?

“Ummm, I’ve given myself four months,” he explains. Perhaps a little difficult considering his hectic touring schedule…

“Yeah,” he laughs. “It’s not a definite four months, more like four months of actual work. It should be enough time to really immerse myself in it and try and build a great record.”

Do you try to challenge yourself each time you make an album. Do you think it’s possible to get too comfortable with the music you’re making?

“At the moment I’m just pulling my hair out a bit going through a who am I what am I doing kind of period. I think it happened with Big Grandfather as well, but I’m feeling more and more conscious of my artwork.”

Are you in the habit of looking back at your older releases a little critically, perhaps?

“Not really. If anything I think I like them more. You can bring older songs back and they’ve got a new lease on life. If you keep playing older songs you can get a bit tired for a while.”

Does the release of Million Miles as a single close out Big Grandfather for you?

“I think that’s it for Big Grandfather. I think it was the obvious way to go out, I though when I wrote Million Miles it was a single. Big Grandfather wasn’t really a singly kind of album. It’s a hard listen, which I think is a good thing. Maybe ten of fifteen years from now you’ll have a better picture of what I was doing. I don’t have a real musical history to place it into yet.”

What was the deal with the Big Grandfather home video?

“That was just something we did while we were making the album. I just had a video camera and we just taped and taped and taped. I just tried to put a video together, which was actually for the Big Grandfather launch in Sydney. We did it in a movie theatre, and we just projected it on screen and played the movie and came on stage straight after. We just put it out so people can watch it should they feel the urge. We’re videoing again for this album, so it’s a constant thing. Everything but the shows.”

Would you recommend watching the video and then chucking on the album to get that live feeling?

“Yep, that would be good,” he laughs. “Get some Iota Barbie doll things to dance around while it plays. Maybe cardboard cut outs…”