Rocky Alliance

It's been a while now since Sydney outfit Naked On The Vague have plied their unique avant-garde brand of semi-minimalist pop, but when they head north for the annual Deadshits! festival this weekend it's going to be in a completely different guise – the band's core duo and founding members Matthew Hopkins and Lucy Phelan will be collaborating with Brisbane psych-rock outfit Blank Realm, a somewhat perplexing but potentially awesome combination of musical visions and sensibilities.

“We did a tour through the US a couple of years ago, and then when we came back we did just a couple of shows in Sydney and one in Brisbane around the time of the 2011 Brisbane Festival, and then we just took a break,” explains Hopkins of their recent absence. “We all had things individually to do, and some people were travelling and it just seemed like a good time to take a break because we'd been solidly doing it for six or seven years. We haven't quite got it back together yet though.”

While they're looking forward to joining forces with their long-term friends Blank Realm, they have no idea yet what shape this union is going to take. “It's something that was suggested by Joe [Alexander] actually, the festival organiser and guy who runs Bedroom Suck Records,” Hopkins continues. “I think it's been in the back of our minds for a while, because we're pretty good buddies with Blank Realm and I suppose someone suggested it probably half-jokingly at one point, but the idea sort of stuck. Then Joe proposed it so we thought it would be the ideal time to do it. I think originally the concept was that we were just going to collaborate together on a recording – which we hopefully still plan to do because we're going to be up in Brisbane the whole week before the festival, so we can do some rehearsals and hopefully get some recording done as well – but then it was suggested that we do a live show for the festival, and we jumped at the chance.

“But I think we're going to have to wait until we're all in the one room together [to know what's going to happen]. I mean we've sort of had a few discussions about it but nothing in depth – there's a few ideas for some covers that have been thrown around – but other than that the plan is to just meet up and come up with something, nothing too much has been decided. I think it might vary a bit instrumentally because in Naked On The Vague towards the end I was primarily just the guitarist and Lucy was the vocalist and keyboardist, and I think Blank Realm have all that covered pretty well, so we might have to come up with some instrumentation that neither band has used before. We've talked about an elaborate percussive set-up, but I don't know how that might work exactly.”

The two bands have a different sound but a similar aesthetic and approach to their music, which augurs well for the weekend's festivities. “Yeah, I think so too,” Hopkins agrees. “When the idea came up it just seemed right. You have a lot of peers and friends in bands and there's such a wide network around the country with tons of great bands, but with those guys the idea of [working together] just sort of makes sense somehow. We'll see how it goes – we could all be hating each other by the end! There's definitely different sounds and stuff going on with our bands, but some sort of common link there.”

Naked On The Vague will be playing the following dates:

Friday 25 January - Deadshits Four Festival, The Zoo, Fortitude Valley QLD