Michael Smith, Journalist

"So the whole idea of the Devilstown thing is that it’s pretty on the outside but then, a little deeper, it all gets a bit ugly and a bit nasty, so there are songs about adultery and murder and all those typical blues themes."

"This album’s the album we’ve always wanted to make. We feel that we’ve found the perfect formula."

"I guess ‘Postcard From Surfers’ is automatically ironic, ‘cause it’s the sunny beachside capital, but it’s also I think makes a lot of people immediately think of the negative, sleazy kind of unhappy side to that."

"We weren’t talking at all for seven years, so if we wanted things to evolve and improve, we’ve got to be in each other’s faces, you know? Influence each other, learn to respect each other again. So, it’s not been easy, but it’s been fun.”

"We’re each living two other lives on the road, which is a bit ridiculous... We’ve all got our own little things but they all tie together somehow, so we can all help each other if it gets too much.”

"I’m a kind of old-fashioned ‘radio is the best’ guy, even though it’s not done very well, except for community radio. I mean commercial radio should really play so much more but won’t unless they’re told to."

"During different periods, when live music was at a low point, the Annandale was always sitting there, kind of charging through."

Now 21, English singer/songwriter Benjamin Francis Leftwich has known he wanted to be a singer/songwriter since his was ten, though he admits to Michael Smith that he’s still not sure it’s a career.

“Yeah, I know,” he laughs. “Makes me feel old! It’s been very quick as well. I remember at that time [of the 2002 ARIAs] I decided… It was actually just a couple of weeks before that that I decided to move to France, and a week later I found out I’d got that nomination and there was this thing inside going, ‘Maybe you should stay and change it all,’ and I thought, ‘No, I’ve just got to go with the journey – it feels right.’ And I wouldn’t regret anything because of what I’ve set up and the beautiful time I had in Europe. But it’s gone fast!”

There’s either the triple j route or the commercial radio route. Either you have to be super commercial, where you don’t have any kind of almost artistic [laughs] kind of sound

Last year while on tour, the girls spent a lot of time watching ‘old-school’ rock and roll videos as well as lying in their bunks listening to their own playlists. “The good thing about having an iPad is you all go back to your bunk and listen to your own music at night,”

The life of a full-time touring musician can be quite bittersweet, as Jack Carty has discovered. But it’s all grist to the creative mill, he tells Michael Smith.