Never Thinking They'd Write A 'Never Ever' & Realising There Are No Rules

"We never thought we would write a Never Ever," Elliott Margin, The Rubens' primary songwriter/keyboardist marvels. His brother/The Rubens frontman Sam seconds that motion with an emphatic, "No!" before Elliott continues, "I mean, I never thought we'd do a duet and then it happened, and we were like — we would've been against it if they were saying, 'We need another song for the record, we want you to do a duet,' we would've gone, 'Fuck off, no way!'" It would've sounded like a dud idea? "Totally!" They reply in unison. 

For the second single from The Rubens' upcoming LO LA RU set, The Rubens teamed up with Sarah Aarons for a songwriting session after they'd finished work on their third record. Or so they thought. Elliott elaborates: "When we were in the studio with Sarah and the suggestion was thrown around like, 'Why don't we make this a duet?' In both of our minds it was like, 'Well, it's not a Rubens song, then,' and we were fine with that; we were just like, 'We'll keep writing and then see,' and then obviously finished the song, and loved the song, and we were like, 'Are we allowed to make this a Rubens song?' And the answer was of course like, 'Why not?'" 

"It sort of just capped off the vibes on this whole record, like, the LO LA RU thing; making our own little place where we can do what we want," Sam continues, referring to their album's title, which represents a fake nation of their own creation where there are no rules. "And it was the final decision we made on the record, like, 'Oh, yeah, fuck, of course we can. Why can't we?' We can put a girl on the record that isn't in the band, we can have an extra feature - there aren't rules." 

In order to include this surprise duet on their album, "some shuffling" was required as Elliott tells. "You get attached to what you think the album's gonna be and then you get another song that you really, really love and that gets put on the album; it's hard to say goodbye to songs that you envisioned being on the record." Their solution? "I think we just decided to do a secret track on the end, so one of the songs gets pushed back and not listed," the keyboardist reveals. 

Didn't The Rubens have a similar experience when writing their 2015 Hottest 100-topping single Hoops, the title track from their previous album? "Yeah, that was [written] after finishing the record," Elliott confirms. His brother chuckles, "I hope the record label's not gonna expect that every time".

"I know!" Elliott seconds, before pointing out, "We recorded [Never Ever] with the same guy as Hoops, as well... Eric J [Dubowsky] in Sydney... After writing the song with Sarah — that happened in one day — and then teeing up a session with Eric to finish it off and get everyone else on the song, it was just like deja vu the whole time and everyone would be like, 'Remember this? You know, three years ago doing that for Hoops?' It was spooky."

We're all seated at one of the outside tables of Faraday's Cage cafe in the inner city Melbourne suburb of Fitzroy and order a round of iced lattes. Sam has grown a beard, his eyes are concealed behind Tom Ford shades and he sports a forest green hoodie under denim jacket combo. This is Elliott's first stop from Tullamarine airport having just flown in this morning. He pulls his grey marle hood up over a well-worn Goodyear peaked cap. Both speak enthusiastically at a million miles an hour. 

Million Man, the lead single from LO LA RU, could not stray further, stylistically, from its follow-up single if it tried. In fact, The Rubens venture down many previously untrodden musical paths on this album. Sam admits, "I'd get so bored if we stuck to..." Elliott finishes his brother's sentence, "The same thing," but Sam doesn't miss a beat, "The stuff that's worked in the past for us, 'cause if we did we'd be still doing My Gun, you know; that sort of [The] Black Keys-y, Spaghetti Western kind of rock'n'roll. And if we tried just to do Hoops again, we probably would've done a crappy version of that song. So it's kinda natural to keep just trying whatever comes out and then that's our style for the record, I guess." 

Another of the new album's standout out tracks, I Know, reminds this scribe of a classic '90s R&B song. Are they familiar with Would I Lie To You? by Charles & Eddie? "I remember that song, yeah," Sam enthuses. "Is it [sings], 'Would I lie to you, baby/Would I lie to you, baaaaby'..." Affirmative. "That's cool!" Then Elliott confesses, "I've had that song stuck in my head recently, maybe that's why. Maybe we copied it, I dunno," he laughs. 

"Oh, yeah, I can see that," Sam admits. "It's same register, similar melody — yeah, I like that. I love that." We make a suggestion that the band could perhaps inject a segment of this Charles & Eddie song into the live version of I Know and Elliott seems keen. "Like the [Arctic] Monkeys do in Arabella: they put in whatever song people say they copied from, um, Black Sabbath, War Pigs was it? Yeah, they put that section in there. Maybe we should."