Taking A Lot Of Influence From Australian Things & Songwriting As A Seven-Piece

"We're not out to write pop hits or songs that will keep getting us on the radio or anything."

The last 12 months have been a period of immense change for Adelaide rock'n'roll collective West Thebarton. They not only abbreviated their name from the slightly more risque (but eminently memorable) West Thebarton Brothel Party, but the seven-piece also tweaked their line-up and completely realigned themselves in an industry sense, signing new deals with a management group, record label and overseas booking agent in quick succession (all of which so far seem to be paying handsome dividends).

But by far the biggest change to the band has been a pronounced sonic shift, best evinced by their excellent new debut long-player Different Beings Being Different. Still jam-packed with the band's rabble-rousing suburban anthems, the album found them pairing up with producer Dylan Adams (DMA'S, The Vines) and eschewing their former lo-fi garage tendencies in favour of a far larger and cleaner sound, one that still fully captures the live intensity for which they've become so renowned.

"It's really weird, before we went into the studio I really wanted it to sound super-garage-y and that's the kind of vibe we were going for," frontman Ray Dalfsen (aka Reverend Ray) reflects. "Then the day before we went into the studio I kinda decided in my head, 'Nah, fuck it! I really want this album to be huge and really grandiose; it will still be pub rock-y, but huge in sound'.

"I wanted to show the rawness, and thinking back we're such a hard-working bunch and honestly we've all put in so much blood, sweat and tears into West Theb - but also into other projects - and I wanted to just show that as well. I wanted to kind of make the album reflect how raw and energetic our live show was.

"Dylan is such a guru in that regard. I played guitar on [the album] and I'm not a very good guitar player, but all the other guitar players in the band are just so nuts and they really spent ages trying to find all the right sounds and that sorta stuff, so we're so happy with not just how the whole album turned out but especially the guitars. That's the 'novelty' of the band, I guess, having four guitars in it, but this proves they're not just for show."

Dalfsen happily attests that the West Thebarton sound has been heavily influenced by Australian artists, ranging from veteran acts like Midnight Oil and Cold Chisel through to more recent contemporaries such as Eddy Current Suppression Ring and fellow South Aussies Bad//Dreems.

"I grew up listening to heaps of different stuff because of my parents, but then when I was 16, 17, 18, 19 all I listened to really religiously was Australian stuff," the singer recalls. "And a lot of the other guys are the same - all they listened to was Australian stuff. I've got an English mate, actually, and he says, 'Oh, you Aussies are full of it because all you listen to is yourselves!' and I always laugh at that but it's so true, especially of me.

"And it's not just the bands or the artists we listen to which are Australian, I think we take a lot of influence from just Australian things - and South Australian things especially - in general."

Indeed Different Beings Being Different drips with hometown pride - rife with references to local landmarks and customs - yet the results are still completely relatable, regardless of your postcode. The most appropriate comparison would be the parochial zeal of Brisbane rockers Violent Soho, whose guitarist James Tidswell is releasing West Thebarton's debut on his new label Domestic La La.

"We tried really hard to avoid being a cliche or overdo it, but it's really hard to not wear your heart on your sleeve sometimes when you're really proud of where you come from," Dalfsen chuckles. "When we were talking to James before we got signed - we were just shooting the shit with him up in Brisbane - one of the things he was talking about was how he has this really big respect for us because we rep where we come from and obviously they rep Mansfield, where they come from, on their sleeve. And I was thinking for a second, 'Oh, I didn't really think we repped where we came from that much.'

"Then it really hit me that when I was sneaking into pubs and stuff watching bands back in the day that they'd be awesome and then they'd piss off over to the east coast, so it really gave me a lot of pride to be in a band that was setting a precedent to stay in Adelaide and really do it yourself, and kind of be proud of where you come from."

The singer explains that while he's solely responsible for the band's lyrical output ("Every song on the record pretty much just comes from a different story, either made up in my head or from something that someone's told me - I like to pride myself on being a really good listener") when it comes to West Thebarton's music it's an entirely democratic process.

"Pretty much how every song gets written is either one person will bring a riff and everyone will build from it, and when I say everyone I literally mean all seven of us kind of write all these songs together," he smiles. "Which is pretty cool when it used to be really weird having seven people writing songs, but now it works really well. So they'll either get written like that or someone will come with a full, complete song - with drumbeat and everything - then that will get totally deconstructed and rebuilt by all seven of us.

"All of us are keen to put our own little trademark on the song, but everyone's good at trying out different things - there's no ideas that anyone's ever had that get dismissed instantly or anything like that - we're all super into just writing songs and making them so that everyone's happy with them."

And while West Thebarton are obviously ambitious creatively, this shared desire for success would never contemplate or tolerate musical compromise.

"I mean we're kind of just taking everything as it comes at the moment," Dalfsen muses. "We're all super-hard-working people in every facet of our lives and we're all really ambitious - we want to be a big band and all that kind of stuff - but I guess what we really want to also do is obviously keep our integrity. We've always been one of those bands that can't stop jamming - someone's always got a new idea and we're always playing new stuff - but whatever we do we just want to be true to ourselves and keep our integrity.

"We're not out to write pop hits or songs that will keep getting us on the radio or anything, it's imperative we just keep doing what we're doing. So I guess we're ambitious in that sense, and of course I'd love to do the band as my thing, but I'd also love to always do it my own way and nothing's going to alter that."

Different Beings Being Different (Domestic La La) is out now. West Thebarton tour from 7 Jun.