Into The Now

Three years after reuniting, one of Canada’s more incendiary exports, The Tea Party, have released their comeback album, something none of the members could have anticipated after a less than harmonious parting of ways back in 2005. The signs, though, were looking good on the evidence of their barnstorming 2012 reunion tours of Australia and Canada, which resulted in an initially crowdfunded Live In Australia CD/DVD. But it seems there are no guarantees when it comes to anything Tea Party, as singer, songwriter, guitarist and larger-than-life frontman Jeff Martin explains.

“I think it was a case of we just had to take it in baby steps, you know. First of all, when we got back together, we had to know, ‘Okay, can the band still get on that stage and do what we do like no one else can?’ So we proved that – that was good, got that done. Second thing, which is the most important thing, was to get that friendship back on track, right, and the brotherly love and the trust and everything. And we got that, and once we got that, then it was time, like, ‘Okay, so we’ve got these two elements now. We’ve got to go for the third one. We’ve got to prove, not only to ourselves but to our fans and all the new fans that this band is now. It’s not ‘90s – this band is now. And I think the three of us were quite satisfied that we’ve proven that.

“See, for us to be away for so long and to come back, and okay, we’re successful again like with the tours and everything, but to make an album, the three of us knew that whatever we came out with had to be able to stand exactly side by side with the best of what we’ve done. And we couldn’t put out anything unless it did that… and so we took our time.”

The result is their eighth studio album, The Ocean At The End, arriving a decade after their last, 2004’s Seven Circles.

"It’s not ‘90s – this band is now. And I think the three of us were quite satisfied that we’ve proven that"

“We were very methodical. We did the recording over four sessions and with months in between the sessions, just so we could always take a look at it, you know, just sit with it and let it grow organically and let the ideas flow instead of being pressured like, ‘Okay, we’ve only got four weeks in the studio – do it!’ We don’t have to. We can just take our time and make it what we want it to be.

“Obviously there were demos that I did, but those demos that turned into Tea Party songs, you wouldn’t recognise them. That’s the beauty of it when the three of us get together. The first writing session, really, was in Byron Bay in this tiny little rehearsal studio – I think Jeff [Burrows, drums/percussion] and Stuart [Chatwood, bass/keyboards], when they got there,” Martin recalls with a chuckle, “it’s The Tea Party so we’re used to the grand rehearsal studios and whatnot, right? And I bring them to Byron Bay and it’s the size of a closet [laughs].

“The next writing session we did, which was really wonderful, we went back to our hometown Windsor [Ontario], exactly where it started, and once again it was not a very flash rehearsal studio or anything like that – I didn’t have my fancy pedal boards or my thousand guitars, it was just two Les Pauls, a cable, a Marshall, Jeff had his drumkit and Stuart just had a small little bass amp – and it was, like, ‘Okay, let’s play, just jam.’”

Then it was into one of Toronto’s newest studios to cut the album, Martin putting in some finishing touches back here in his studio in Perth. And while they included two versions of The Waters On Fire, one electric, one acoustic, so they have a song to take to radio if called on to pull out the acoustics and brushes and perform during interviews, they’ve released The Black Sea as the first single, because, as Martin puts it, “with a band like The Tea Party, if we’re going to announce that we’re back, we have to come out with all guns blazing – and that is The Black Sea”.

The international album tour kicks off right here in Australia and at the time of this interview, Martin was still hoping to get his obviously still-busy-with-other-projects fellow Party boys together in Perth to rehearse – a fortnight out from the first concert.

“And we’ve got some rehearsing to do boys!” he admits. “Like, Burrows wants to come over now, but Stuart has commitments until September 28. Our work ethic now is really, really strong, so we should be okay.”