Ellington supporting Short Stack @ the Hi-Fi
5th July 2009
As we briskly walked up Swanston Street trying to find Hi-Fi bar we were greeted by an onslaught of teenage girls and the odd boy, dotted proportionately considering the circumstances: the final local show of Short Stack’s current national tour, accompanied by My Future Lies and our interview subjects Ellington. As we entered the spacious venue of the Hi-Fi’s bandroom, we passed by the noisy 600 strong sell-out crowd.
Five minutes after getting set up we bumped into Jake Bosci, lead vocals of Ellington. After rounding up other band members Michael, Stevie and Lloyd, who were largely scattered around the venue, the interview was underway:
Tim: Hey guys, so to start off I’ve always been intrigued, why the name “Ellington” ?
Ellington: Ermm well it wasn’t really linked to Duke Ellington at all, it’s a lot less in depth than that. It was actually one of our original band member’s friend’s street address. Ellington Street. And that’s about it.
T: You all live together I’m led to believe. How is this? Does it cause any unwanted conflict within the band?
E: We don’t really live together all the time just some of the time, but really it’s ok. We give each other our own space and we’re all pretty relaxed dudes so it doesn’t really amount to anything. It’s usually pretty good.
T: Ah, sweet. So, would you say MySpace significantly helped you to your level of success?
E: Yeah definitely it’s pretty much the biggest outlet and really the only way fans can access our music. But Jake’s broke his iPhone so he’s socially defunct and can’t access any of it. We are really into all the ways we can stay in contact with our fans, we used to have a number you could SMS and we’d reply to it. We loved that but it drowned in a stream in Adelaide so we were spewing.
T: When you travelled to America to work on your EP “More Like A Movie, Less Like Real Life” with producer Matt Malpass, how was it? Did you find it somewhat overwhelming and daunting, and to a certain extent an unexpected pressure to be given such executive treatment on your second EP?
E: The main thing was that we had never professionally made an album before, our previous one was home recorded. So when we got there we realised we really had to step our game up. It was sick working with some of the other artists and it wasn’t as bad as we envisaged, they’re really just chilled dudes like us so it was cool to hang out and make music.
T: Obviously you all have friends and other lives, does touring, working relentlessly on albums and your music take you away from the “average” life? If so do you resent this?
E: Yeah it’s really hard; no matter what you’re doing your mind is always on this, but in a way it filters out and all the crap. You know, it shows you the people that really care and are willing to make the effort so in a way that’s good I guess. And we really just formed a tight knit group so on the whole it’s hard but it’s worth it. Also, Jake lives about 600km from Brisbane and from the rest of us and he still just picks up with all his old school friends. So although it’s tricky it’s not impossible.
T: Absolute Punk described you as a seemingly cuddly John Lennon; why do you think this is?
E: I think he was just name dropping really, I’d take it as our music is similar to his peace and love music but not to the extremities AP described it as.
T: Were you jealous Short Stack got the Rove spot? Is it hard to not be envious when that sort of thing happens?
E: They’ve taken all the right steps through MySpace and YouTube and now they’re getting the fame they deserve through their work. We don’t tend to get jealous unless it’s a really sweet spot. We still get shit spots and struggle to get good ones but obviously we’re still trying to expand and get bigger and more consistent tours.
T: And finally, anything you’d like to plug? What’s in Ellington’s future?
E: Just taking some time off to finish the album and pick the songs, we’ve got about 30 songs to trim down to album length, then another tour around Australia, before relocating to America when the album’s finished.
T: Sweet, thanks guys. After a fantastic interview from the Ellington boys we located ourselves upstairs above the crowd and hung with For Our Hero and waited for the show to begin. Hi-Fi was a fantastic venue; we were looked after beautifully and given everything we needed. The layout of the room provided the prefect concert experience and it was an honour to be given the chance to work there.
The Ellington set kicked off fantastically and was met by a rabble of screaming girls and flashes of relentless photography. Jake and Michael seemed to radiate energy and charisma that enveloped the crowd wonderfully. Jakes vocals were soft and ethereal but to add to that, his voice was fragranced with some remarkable backing vocals from Michael (Who didn’t even wear shoes! Hippy, but what a lovely hippy he was). Jake, despite being under the weather, soaked up the attention and handled it fantastically. His illness didn’t show at all and he performed brilliantly. Between the four of them, Ellington put on a show worthy of entertaining the masses. I sat there in wonder as I realised how talented they are. They are wildly underappreciated, however stardom is surely only a waiting game for this Brisbane-based quartet.
Michael and Lloyd added movement to keep the girls screaming and added an aura of fun to the 5 song set. Between taking photos and making notes, I found my attention often drawn away from my set task. The show was so entertaining and everything about it was so well-practiced and put it to action you would never have guessed that they weren’t even allowed a sound check! This was madness in my opinion, as I’m sure the performance with adequate sound check would be simply unbelievable. That said, the sound and levels were perfectly set and all sound involved provided an inspiring ensemble. Everything was in time, including guitars, vocals and Stevie on drums. Stevie put in an admirable performance with his percussion perfectly timed and with the exact volume needed.
The end of the show finished with a perfect song “Between Faith and the City” that left the crowd clearly wanting more. And astoundingly it appeared from the cheers at the end that Short Stack weren’t even playing at all. They had simply slipped from everyone’s mind thanks to a dazzling Ellington performance! J
Band Members
Jake Bosci – Vocals/Guitar
Michael Beatson – Guitar
Stevie West – Drums
Lloyd Budd – Bass
