Resurrection Time

Sometimes, it all just falls together. The Superjesus never really had the door-slamming explosive break-up like some bands, more just slowly disintegrating as life got in the way.

The decade anniversary of their last performance, coupled with return of drummer Paul Berryman from living in America, seemed the ideal opportunity to take the beast out for a run. Just a hometown Adelaide pub gig was the idea, but events have moved things along a bit.

One thing that hadn't changed is Sarah McLeod's mile-a-minute interview style. Ideas, asides and maybe a bit of the question you actually ask her tumble out, occasionally remembering to censor herself after she second thinks something she said earlier. “Oh yeah, we always wanted to do it again, but were still all a bit trepidatious as to whether it would work. It really was ten years since we'd actually been on a stage together,” she admits.

So, first rehearsal: “It's so gunna sound like a cliché, but it was like we never left,” she laughs. “Y'know, all those bad punchlines and in-jokes that bands have being together in a van for years? They were all just there, right off.”

The Governor Hindmarsh pub show kept them smiling: “The vibe was so good. It was packed, people singing at the top of their lungs; everyone knew all the words. Not just in the quiet bits – you could hear them over the drums and everything.”

Even before that show, another opportunity had presented itself. “It was like our second day of rehearsing, and I got the call asking if we'd like to do the Stone festival thing. I was cool, like: 'So guys, what about one extra show – about 50,000 people, with Van Halen?' It was about half a second for them to say yes,” McLeod grins.    

Thus, The Superjesus' comeback timetable has now extended. There's a club show or two in various capital cities, with plans open-ended from there. “We'll just see how we feel after that. It's all still baby steps,” ponders McLeod. But don't concern yourself about the singer keeping busy. Her own five years away in London and New York – in part, avoiding a local media that seemed more intent on diarising her love life and drinking habits than her creativity – saw her gain a international reputation making dance music, of all things. That came with conditions: “I know I sometimes have to make it clear which music I'm doing; I know some of my audiences maybe aren't going to be friends.”

There's also a solo rock album about ready to go, and her acoustic live shows are an extension of her talkativeness: “I sit there with a bottle of wine and have a very public – sometimes slightly drunk – chat with the crowd, then throw in a song here and there.

“You can't do that in the band. I can't go off on tangents while the band stands behind going, 'Fuck! Could you just shut up and play the intro to the next song?'” Not for the first time, McLeod laughs at something she maybe shouldn't have said.