The Tea Party: Hey Mantra.

The Tea Party

The Tea Party play the Nambour RSL on Friday and M-One at ANZ Stadium on Saturday.

The Tea Party’s bassist Stuart Chatwood is running about three days late when his interview call finally gets connected.

“Perhaps if we skipped a few more like this we’d be more famous,” he jokes. “Like Liam. I guess we don’t say fookin’ enough…”

Oasis are actually touring here a week after you’re in town.

“Well there you go. We’re fookin’ good… actually, I’m going to England tomorrow.”

Next stop after that is Australia, where the band was the final headline announcement for M-One.

“This will be our tenth tour of Australia. I don’t know how many bands have come down there that often. ABBA only made it once, didn’t they?”

They did. And people are still harping on about it…

“Yeah I know. They made a movie about it, didn’t they? Queen Of The Jungle or whatever… just kidding. We love playing down there. That’s all there is to it. We were talking about Chopper Reid tonight.

Since the release of their Interzone Mantras album in October last year, the eclectic Canadian trio have already visited Australia as well as fulfilling a heavy touring schedule around the world.

“This is the second time we’ve been there on this record,” he confirms. “I think the first time we were still trying to figure out a lot of the songs, and how to play them. This is the tour where we know the songs.”

It didn’t seem like you were trying to figure things out on the last tour.

“This will be cool, because this will be the first time I think we’ve done a festival in Brisbane since Alternative Nation. Since the last time we toured there we’ve toured with Ozzy Osbourne. We caught the whole Osbourne show hype. Right when we started touring is when the show debuted on MTV. We eventually met Ozzy, and we were trying to think of interesting things to ask him about, because he’s been asked every question ever. You want to keep you questions monosyllabic with Ozzy anyway. I’m originally from England, so I asked him if he still had a house over there, or any ties with England, and all he wanted to talk about was the show.”

“It was amazing, because he’s so out of touch with reality, but when it came to the show he knew like the viewer ratings for St Louis for the 7.30 timeslot. He’s like, ‘ratings are up 22% in St Louis. It’s fookin’ amazing’. We had a great time on the tour, because Mike Bordin, the drummer that used to be in Faith No More, he’s drumming with Ozzy now, and we sort of knew him from Alternative Nation back in 1995 in Brisbane. So every night we could watch them from on stage, and he’d come and check our set out. The band are great guys, they make up for Ozzy.”

Had you seen much of The Osbournes series when you went out on the road?

“It’s funny, because they shoot like 400 hours to make a half hour episode. I’d like to see all the half hour episodes cut down to one half hour show,” he chuckles. “That would be the show I’d like to watch. Some of it is hilarious, but most of it was just embarrassing. It’s just ridicule. I was never a Jerry Springer fan. I never got into watching the people on the to feel better about your own life. Things like that don’t make sense to me.”

Not a big fan of the good ‘ol American hype machine, then?

“Whenever we release records in America, we’re always asked to dumb it down. I remember someone asked us to write a stock car anthem,” he laughs. “Something they could play at the stock car racing… We don’t want to be the latest NASCAR event, you know. It’s a different appreciation of the arts.”

“It’s funny when things are hyped in America, you kind of feel obligated to watch it to see what the hype is all about. You just have to have a look to see if there’s anything good here, or if it’s all shit. I hope the Coldplay record is doing well over in Australia.”

I confirm the band strong following.

“That’s great. When we were growing up we were fans of bands like Echo & The Bunnymen. We just thought they were the greatest mix of rock and melody and emotion, and Coldplay I think are one of the few bands since Echo & The Bunnymen with a singer with an interesting voice that writes songs that move you. It’s probably the most romantic record, but not in a cheesy way.”

“Because we are on EMI in Canada, I got an advance of Parachutes when it first came out, and I was telling everyone to play it. I think the world need more bands like that.”