Speedstar: Touch Me.

Speedstar launch Bruises You Can Touch at The Zoo on Friday.

“I just saw the finished album today,” Speedstar bassist Luke Sullivan enthuses. The album, is of course, Speedstar’s long awaited debut Bruises You Can Touch, an eleven track pop musical wonder, big on vision and glorious in it’s execution, simply exuding that quiet sense of confidence the band have only hinted at in the past.

The band is also making themselves some pretty high profile friends. The discs third track It’s Okay To Be Sad When It Rains finds them joined by none other than country girl of the moment Kasey Chambers. A bit of a coup for the band?

“Yeah. That song was actually going to be the main track from our second EP, so it’s quite old. Ben (guitars) kind of got in touch with her, through the record company suppose. They got talking about music and they all liked the same things. He went to see her in one of her first shows when she came to Brisbane and they got to talking and emailing. When we went in to record it the first time she came in and worked on it then, but we didn’t think we’d done the song justice, so we didn’t release it.”

“We’ve actually recorded it a couple of times since then trying to get things right, and she came in again when she was heavily pregnant and did it again,” he laughs. “We were at Mangrove Studios, and she lives just near there.”

For people who’ve only heard the band’s Triple J friendly single Revolution or the title tracks from the previous EPs, there are a few surprises in store on the long player.

“The EPs have really been a louder rockier kind of song with three or four mellow tracks. The album’s a lot more up-tempo. If you’ve only head something like Wishing Your Life Away there’s a lot of difference with something like It’s Okay To Be Sad When It Rains. People are going to be a bit surprised, I suppose. Hopefully pleasantly.”

What was surprising is the way the dynamic of the album builds. Opening track Song For You is quite low key before Revolution kicks in, the band teasing and challenging you to listen.

“There was a lot of back and forth about what was going to be the first song. Just having that organ thing, we couldn’t pass it up for the first track. It’s a lot like a live set. You have to make sure people aren’t getting bored and that there are no dull spots in it. Even writing songs you’ve got to think we need eleven or twelve songs, so we can write all quiet or all loud. You have to get some diversity.”

“When you’re sitting in your bedroom you’re kind of conscious of getting into the one mindset and writing a lot of similar tracks. It’s not a forced thing, you don’t go, right, I have to write a loud song now. That’s where Piano Song came from. I really wanted to play on the album, and I just pulled my finger out and finished it. We all have three or for songs kind of finished and you just have to get your finger out and do it.”

Speedstar have been together essentially as a band since they were in high school. I ask if they’re getting to the point where they instinctively know what other members of the band are going to do with a song.

“I think songwriting, the core song, basically you can tell that’s a Ben song or that’s a Dave song. But we all know what other people are going to put on it. Everyone has some input in other people’s parts.”

“I kind of think we’ve only been a real real band since a week before we went away with Bluebottle Kiss last month. Everyone sort of quit their other jobs and we realised this is our profession now and we have to give it all our attention. We were confident with the sounds we were getting but live we’re that sure about the sounds we’re getting and I think that’s come across in some of our shows. We looked nervous. We’re trying to get out of that now.”

“Working with a producer we could just kind of focus and say this is what we do. Like it or lump it. It gave us a whole lot of confidence in what we were doing. It just gave things a whole lot of energy. It was a bit more energetic than we imagined. I suppose it’s more raw. It’s more like a live band kind of thing. Steve’s worked with people like The Superjesus before, and we were king of thinking ‘I hope he doesn’t do anything like that’, but he didn’t. He basically just kept it how we wanted. Kind of minimalist, but with that energy. A bit of sex.”