A Wing And A Prayer

As far as unique voices go, Western Australian native James Teague has the market cornered. A quixotic mix of Devendra Banhart and Joanna Newsom with a dash of Joni Mitchell thrown in for good measure; it didn't take long for the young singer-songwriter to start raising impressed eyebrows in his home state. A year or two of steady ladder-climbing lead to the eventual recording of Teague's debut album Lavender Prayers, which was released to much acclaim in March this year.

“It was recorded in this big town hall in Pemberton, about four hours south of Perth,” Teague explains. “Our engineer (Donovan De Souza) set it all up to make the most of that natural reverb and we just stayed down there for a week in a little Bed & Breakfast, recording every day”. Sounds pretty quaint, but as is the case with many debut albums (especially ones recorded in exotic locations such as this), the production of Lavender Prayers had its fair share of ups and downs.

“Looking back on it now it was really fun, but at the time it was pretty stressful,” Teague says. “Mostly because we were doing it in a hall, there were a few technical problems that took a while to sort out. I'm not that good at that side of things, though, so most of the time I just tried to settle myself in and take the good with the bad.”

This zen approach seems to have paid dividends as the album, specifically the first single Strange Birds, managed to catch the ear of bona fide pop royalty in Darren Hanlon and his record label Flippin' Yeah Industries. Known as an elder statesman of the Melbourne scene, it's quite an achievement for a young songwriter such as Teague to pop up on Hanlon's radar, not discounting the tyranny of distance at play here. Teague, however, is typically coy. “Yeah, I just got in touch with the guys at Flippin' Yeah and luckily enough they loved it and got back to me,” he says. “They just believed in it, and as Strange Birds as an entry point and a good way to introduce me I suppose.”

They were right, too. Strange Birds is the perfect lead-off point for Teague's brand of quirky, shamanistic alt-folk. Banjo, mandolin, bongo, strings and many other eccentricities combine throughout Lavender Prayers to compliment that unique voice and a songwriting nous borrowed from the likes of Jeff Buckley and Elliot Smith. It's not surprising then to find that Teague spends a lot of his time focussing on lyrics as poetry as opposed to simpler vehicles for a melody. “I try to write lyrics as a whole piece, a little bit like poetry,” he explains. “Most of the time I'll spend a while putting the music together and getting a melody stuck in my head and then I'll go away and put the lyrics together. It's much easier to put the soul into it that way. I mean, I'm no Leonard Cohen or anything like that, but I do appreciate the importance of lyrics.”

Heading over east this week for the first time since a smaller solo jaunt last year, Teague is keen to spend some time exploring the city, even enlisting the help of a few Melbourne musos to help him out. “I'm bringing over my bass player and just meeting a bunch of musicians over here, who'll be playing in my band. I've got Leonard Barker (The Engagement), Tiaryn Griggs, Jesse Williams (Ben Wright Smith Band) and Justin Burntascone - we're going to practise for a week or so and then hopefully everything will go well and we'll get a bit of a reception. The shows are pretty spread out too, so we're going to use it as a bit of a holiday too. We're really looking forward to it.”