The Rubens

It's only been about 12 months since The Rubens returned home from New York City with their freshly recorded debut album tucked safely under their arm. Ever since, their incline has been nothing short of a spectacle. A stream of well-received radio singles paved the way for a debut album, sold out shows, festival appearances and a fan base that has grown quicker than anything seen around these parts for some time. But the four-piece made up of brothers Sam, Elliott and Zaac Margin as well as good friend Scott Baldwin remain seemingly unaffected by the accolades and rapid escalation in popularity and, instead of resting comfortably on their laurels, have dived straight back into writing and recording demos for what may end up being album number two.

“I think they sound really good,” frontman Sam Margin says of the demos so far. “We're keeping it simple, I think we don't want to go too crazy with them. We just want solid songs. It's a bit more rocky I reckon but so far, it's not too far from the first record – I just think it'll be a bit more developed and mature. There's always pressure though, as soon as you finish one record, people start to ask you about the next one. I don't know, I don't think it's hit us yet – I think we're starting early enough to take the pressure off and we're not hoping to come up with 15 awesome songs right now. I think if we can just continue writing over the next six months to a year, then by the time we're ready to actually record it, we'll have a bunch of hits and it'll be awesome. But there's definitely no pressure yet and that's how it stays fun.”

As Margin explains, the writing process is a lot less humble this time around and is a neat progression from the initial writing procedures from their own bedrooms. This process is not one to be sneezed at mind you as it spurred not only singles like debut Lay It Down and its followup Don't Ever Want To Be Found, but also their big one - crossover hit 'My Gun'.

“On the first record, the writing was mainly just the brothers because the band didn't really exist the way it does now and we didn't really have a system in place at the time. So we'd just write together in the bedroom with the laptop and programmed drums. So it was me, Zaac and Elliott that did most of the writing and now on this second record, everyone is together writing it in the studio. Everyone takes the lead at different points, I might feel a bit deflated so someone will jump up and get everyone going and come up with new parts. People write different songs for different reasons and that's the good thing about our album – it was definitely an intentional thing when writing it, to hopefully appeal to a few different genres and not feel confined to anything in particular. A good reference would be the Gotye album or Gotye albums in general – you can tell he writes songs just because he wants to write them, not because he necessarily thinks he needs to fit into any genre. I think that's good – I don't want t let people get bored listening to an album from start to finish.”

Success is an unfathomable thing for most. For The Rubens, it seemed to all happen all overnight when NYC-based producer David Kahne stumbled upon a home-recorded demo and was instanltly enamoured, reached out and expressed a want to work with the band. Of course, when you've worked with the likes of Paul McCartney, Regina Spektor and The Strokes, four Menangle lads will take notice.

“We definitely got real lucky,” Margin says. “Not to say that I don't think our songs are good or the demos that got people interested weren't good either. I think we can write good songs but I do think we kind of capitalised in a way on some of the opportunities given to us. I definitely think we wouldn't be here if it wasn't for the fact that we put it on the line – we got an opportunity with David Kahne and triple j, at the same time, started randomly playing one of our tracks. So we suddenly had this massive opportunity where record labels were interested and all that kind of thing was going on and we were just like “Shit, we're either going to have to work our arses off for three months and go to New York and make this happen or we're going to have to sit back in Oz and hope things fall into place here”. So it did become a case of “Fuck it”, what else were we going to do? We actually borrowed money off our parents to do it – I guess we convinced them by saying this guy had worked with Paul McCartney, I guess that thing helped. We just had to show them and they decided to take a massive risk, you know, our parents aren't loaded. It was hard for them to get it together but even once we had that, we had to live off ten dollars a day in the States, so you know, it was a definitely a big risk. I guess if we hadn't have pulled it off, we'd be back here in Australia owing our parents a lot of money and without a record. We've paid our parents back now.”

Next up it's tour time for The Rubens and what a tour it is. The Never Been The Same Tour has already seen one Sydney Enmore, one Melbourne Forum and one Brisbane Tivoli sell out completely with the rest soon certain to do the same soon.

“It's scary as fuck when you're overseas,” Margin explains of announcing a tour while abroad. “You just feel like everyone in Australia has forgotten about you. As soon as you leave the country, it really feels like everyone has bailed on you and that's it. We were overseas when we found out the first few shows were selling out and it was such a relief – you can never be confident in ticket sales, no matter what you do and how much promo you put into it. But right now I'm excited about this new material – any new song is like a new girlfriend: you think it's amazing and you can't get it out of your head, but you have to step back and be like “Is this really as good as I think it is or is just the fact that it's new” – I think we're working on something literally right now – I'm outside the studio right now – and I think we've come up with something that gives me that feeling.”

The Rubens will be playing the following dates:

Wednesday 24 April – Beach Hotel, Byron Bay NSW 
Thursday 25 April – Coolangatta Hotel, Gold Coast QLD 
Friday 26 April – The Tivoli, Brisbane QLD 
Saturday 27 April – Spotted Cow, Toowoomba QLD 
Sunday 28 April – The Tivoli, Brisbane QLD 
Thursday 2 May – Prince of Wales, Bunbury WA 
Friday 3 May – Capitol Theatre, Perth WA 
Saturday 4 May – Settlers Tavern, Margaret River WA 
Friday 10 May – Forum Theatre, Melbourne VIC 
Saturday 11 May – Forum Theatre, Melbourne VIC 
Sunday 12 May – Yarra Hotel, Geelong VIC 
Thursday 16 May – HQ, Adelaide SA 
Saturday 19 May – Wrestpoint Showroom, Hobart TAS 
Sunday 19 May – Country Club, Launceston TAS
Wednesday 22 May – ANU Bar, Canberra ACT 
Thursday 23 May – Wollongong Uni, Wollongong NSW 
Friday 24 May – Enmore Theatre, Sydney NSW 
Saturday 25 May – Enmore Theatre, Sydney NSW 
Wednesday 29 May – Armidale Uni, Armidale NSW 
Thursday 30 May – Entrance Leagues Club, Bateau Bay 
Friday 31 May – Bar on the Hill, Newcastle NSW