The Devoted Few: ‘Less Is More.

Ben Kweller

The Devoted Few play the Railway Hotel, Byron Bay on Thursday, the Troccadero, Surfers Paradise on Friday, Ric’s Café on Saturday and the Brunswick Street Mall Rotunda on Sunday.

When not spending his time kicking up a ruckus with Bluebottle Kiss, guitarist Ben Fletcher would pick up an acoustic, and head out for some solo work. The Devoted Few was thus officially born back in early 2000. After originally recruiting musicians to flesh out solo tracks, the band has now grown to become a serious entity in its own right. The Devoted Few are once again Brisbane bound, this time for the launch of their debut long player Sleepless.

“I’m a lot more laid back in Bluebottle, things don’t worry me as much I suppose because they are Jamie’s songs and I know how to play them,” Ben explains. “I’m definitely in a different mindset, not stressed out because everything’s all taken care of.”

I had assumed it would have been the other way around when you compare Bluebottle’s bluster to The Devoted Few’s stripped back and intimate guitar pop.

“Yeah, but I find Bluebottle really easy. Devoted Few for me just takes a lot more out of me than Bluebottle does. We’re on the road for a month for this album launch.”

Are you relieved to have the record finally finished and the songs out?

"Yeah. A couple of them are kinda old now, going back to like 1995 or 96. It took a long time to get out of my system, but once I wrote these songs and the album was finished, we’ve already got another 25 or 30 songs ready for the next one. Once it was done I found it a lot easier to write songs and stick them together. I played these songs solo for years before The Devoted Few actually started, so once everyone was playing their parts it just felt really good, and I’m writing a lot more songs these days.”

Are you finding your old songs taking on a new life, or evolving after the fleshes out the parts?

“It’s totally different to Bluebottle where Jamie will bring a song in and we’ll play our parts and that’s it. With Devoted I just bring in me and an acoustic guitar, just the really bare skeleton of a song for the guys to build upon, so it’s as much their song as mine. I’ve always wanted to work that way. I’m really comfortable with that kind of atmosphere in a band.”