Oscarlima: Sun Of Us.

Oscarlima launch The Limas De Milo at the Rose’n’Crown, Surfers Paradise on Wednesday, The Zoo on Thursday and the 

It’s been over three years since Oscarlima’s instantly memorable If You Want To Be My Friend first sparked over the airwaves. There’s been a lot of water under the bridge since then. The trio’s debut long player Desert Caravan hit the shelves to the rightful acclaim of pop fans Australia wide before the band parted ways with their then record company and set out on their own. The swaggering jangle come stomping rock of their most recent single Who Likes The Sun? only hints at the multitude of angles the band delve into with their new recording The Limas De Milo. And album which, in a just and equitable world, should see the band regarded with the same reverence heaped upon the likes of fellow Aussie rock trios You Am I, Eskimo Joe or even Spiderbait.

The band are on their way home to Melbourne from their Sydney launch when I catch up with frontman Elroy Falcon.

“We haven’t really played outside Melbourne for about a year,” he explains. “Because the new album isn’t though a big label we don’t have that major record kind of working for us. Also, I guess, with the last record we were treated as a new band, I suppose. Now we’re not a new band any more. I know it’s not that cut and dry, but you can sort of get the feeling that it is. It’s just different to be running things by ourselves we’re a lot more aware of the processes that are going on. It’s exactly what we want to do.”

Oscarlima have out together their own label for the release of The Limas De Milo.

“We’re a lot happier now,” Elroy explains. “It was a big step. We had to get off our last deal. Two years ago we were on a tour with Midnight Oil and we got half way through and thought we’d be better off to be off the label. It was just logistics and bureaucratic stuff that goes with being on a big label. When we got back we said these are our concerns blah blah blah, and they said if we want to get off the label we could.”

“We spent a lot of time writing songs and working out what we were going to do next, but it was very amicable. It took a lot of work to work out how we were going to do it and raise the money ourselves. When you put your first record out you don’t realise the actual deal that you’re signing, I suppose. You just think, cool, we’re getting signed.”

Obviously, with their own label comes the creative freedom to work at the bands own pace, on what the band wants to work on.

“We’ve got 100% creative freedom now. It’s great. That was part of the reason we did it, really. I remember deciding on singles for the last record, we had to run it by people and see if they liked it. It was like, we don’t think that should be a single, so we’re not going to help you make a video for that. A little bit of blackmail goes on, that kind of stuff.”

Oscarlima have a forth member joining the band on their forthcoming live odyssey in the form of guitarist Sunny Leunig.

“The record had a lot of different bits and pieces, so we had moments where we played three piece and it wasn’t going to work. We got another guitarist in to fill out the sound. I think when we write songs we write them and just put on whatever instrumentation the song requires. It like, that would sound good there, and we do it without worrying how to play it live later on. It would be wonderful to head out with a string section or something… This is the next best thing.”