Australian music icons The Church bring their most ambitious live show yet to stages across the country, with A Psychedelic Symphony set to reimagine their beloved catalogue alongside a 30-piece orchestra led by celebrated conductor and composer George Ellis.
From ‘Under the Milky Way’ and ‘The Unguarded Moment’ to ‘Metropolis,’ ‘Reptile’ and ‘Almost With You’, the November tour gives fans a chance to experience The Church’s timeless songs in an entirely new light, with grand orchestral arrangements adding new depth and dimension to their unmistakable sound.
In a conversation with Futuremag Music, frontman Steve Kilbey reflects on the return of A Psychedelic Symphony, which was previously performed at the Sydney Opera House in 2011, and the excitement of hearing The Church’s music transformed by a full orchestra. As Kilbey puts it, the experience is like watching the songs become “3D” — a new dimension opening up through the addition of strings and other orchestral instruments.
With shows spanning Sydney, the Gold Coast, Canberra, Newcastle, Melbourne, Geelong, Brisbane and Adelaide, A Psychedelic Symphony promises a rare opportunity to hear more than four decades of The Church’s music in suitably grand fashion.
Futuremag: I’m really excited to see that you guys are going on tour again. A Psychedelic Symphony is described as your most ambitious live show yet. What inspired you to revisit your catalogue with a full 30-piece orchestra?
Steve Kilbey: We did it once before, only once at the Opera House in 2011, and it was a wonderful show. Then we never did it again. I’m not sure why. We did the singles show last year and a little bit of this year, and we didn’t really know where to go next.
I was having lunch with my best friend, who’s the conductor, George Ellis, and we were talking about this. I was saying our promoter wasn’t sure what our next move should be, and he said, “Why don’t we do Psychedelic Symphony again?” I went to the promoter and he said, “Yeah, let me think about this.” He came back and went, “Yeah, let’s do it again. And this time let’s take it round Australia a bit, not just do this one show.”
I think almost all rock bands, it’s a kind of a given. It’s not a particularly original idea to play with an orchestra. After The Beatles did all that orchestrated stuff, and then all the classic old bands did it, it’s become a bit of a thing. It’s just an amazing thing to hear your songs orchestrated with the strings and the power that can bring.
George is doing a PhD. He’s the conductor and arranger, and his specialty is where rock and classical music collide and people do this kind of thing.
It’s one step beyond. I don’t know where you go after this because it really is sort of the ultimate experience.
Futuremag: It’s great seeing these songs brought to life with the orchestra. When working with George Ellis on these songs, were there any songs that surprised you with how they transformed?
Steve Kilbey: I can only talk about the last shows because I haven’t heard what’s happening with the new ones yet until we get together with the orchestra.
He started working on the arrangements. Some of them we changed around a bit, and there were moments on the night when we’d be playing a song and suddenly the orchestra would kick in. It was like having a secret weapon up your sleeve, when 10 violins suddenly jump into a song and start playing along.
It’s like it becomes 3D, or like black and white turning into colour. There’s suddenly this new dimension of all these other instruments.
I’m very interested to see what will happen with some of the newer songs that we’re writing, that he’s writing arrangements for that I haven’t heard yet.
Futuremag: You’ve obviously got a catalogue that spans more than four decades, and you’ve just mentioned new songs as well. How did you decide which songs make the setlist, and were there any difficult omissions?
Steve Kilbey: Well, we’re starting off with what we did before, the songs that we had for Psychedelic Symphony, which was originally in 2011. And we’re trying to get the new songs in, so we’ve got to get rid of some old songs.
It is a bit of a conundrum now: which ones to take out and which ones to put in. I guess in the end it’s all going to end up with me and George deciding which ones work the best.
We definitely have a good problem to have. We have too many songs and not enough time to play them all. I guess I’ll ask the band and consult with people, but in the end, I guess it’ll be me making the final decision about which ones go in.
And that hasn’t actually happened yet. I’ve been procrastinating a bit, putting it off. Making that final call.
Futuremag: With songs like ‘Under the Milky Way’ and ‘The Unguarded Moment’, does performing them live in an orchestral setting change your relationship with those timeless classics?
Steve Kilbey: ‘Under the Milky Way’ will just be like the single version, like the normal version we play, plus orchestra. But ‘The Unguarded Moment’ has been completely rearranged to play with the orchestra and will not be like the normal version that we do.
It’s a kind of a completely different song. That is one of the most reworked songs of the whole night. Others, in various amounts, have been approached a bit differently. Some will just be the normal version plus the orchestra, while others will be changed around a bit to feature the orchestra more.
But it all still hasn’t been completely figured out and decided. I’m still putting it off a bit. But now it’s getting very close to decision time to figure this all out. It’s still a little bit up in the air.
Futuremag: Many younger artists cite The Church as an influence today. How does it feel to see your music continuing to resonate with new generations of listeners?
Steve Kilbey: It’s great. We just did a tour of America and every night the band would go, “Did you see all those young people in the audience?” We have meet-and-greets and there’s a lot of young people. Someone who’s 40 is young to me!
But there are 19-year-olds and 20-year-olds digging The Church. It’s a fantastic feeling. I don’t want to play to just a room full of guys my own age. It’s great to have a really diverse audience.
You kind of need it to keep on going. You need to be getting new people in, new young people. A lot of it is where parents have been playing The Church in the car with the kids, and the kids have grown up on it. Some kids grow up and probably reject that, but other kids sort of like it, I guess, from listening to it all the time.
We get a lot of parents and their children being into The Church. You get whole Church families, like people who follow a football team who have their favourite albums and favourite members. So yeah, it’s good to get those youngsters in for sure.
Futuremag: With the different generations of audiences you have, what’s the main thing you hope audiences take away from this upcoming tour?
Steve Kilbey: I don’t know. Everybody gets something different out of it. I guess I just want them to enjoy it. It sounds silly, but it’s just escapism.
You get in the Opera House or Hamer Hall or wherever it is, close your eyes, and for two and a half hours you can enter another world of music. The music and the lyrics are all designed for escapism.
It’s about setting up a situation where people can just forget all their problems and get off on the music and the words, and some of the happy songs and the sad songs and the surrealistic songs.
That’s what I did with music. I’d come home from school or work and put on my favourite records and lie there and drift away into this other world, a world of my own choosing. I just hope people can do that.
There’s no message. It’s not like there’s politics or advice or anything at all. It’s just purely escapism.
It’s like reading a fictional novel. It’s a world for you to get into and leave this other world out here alone for two hours. Do something else.
Futuremag: I think the venue really plays into that too. The Sydney Opera House is one of my favourite venues. Once you’re inside there, it’s just so beautiful and peaceful.
Steve Kilbey: Yeah, seeing stuff is a hell of a lot different playing at the Sydney Opera House than playing, you know, a pub in Newtown. You sort of get into the right mindset.
It’s a real occasion. You dress up and go down the Circular Quay, and it’s a real thing. It’s a really special night. No matter who you see at the Opera House, no matter what it is, it’s really something cut above all those other venues, for sure.
Futuremag: After decades of recording and touring, you continue to find new ways to present your music. Looking ahead, what still excites you the most about creating and performing as The Church?
Steve Kilbey: I think when you have a really good night. I mean, a really, really, really good night.
We just did a tour of America. We did 28 shows in a month or just over a month, and every night was a good night. Some nights were very good nights. And then some other nights, maybe a third of it all, something really special happened.
Something that you can only really hope for when you first start off as a kid. When I got my first bass guitar, I’m sitting there trying to figure it all out, or looking at myself in the mirror strumming a tennis racket. I hoped one day I could do that thing that people had done to me when I’d seen bands or listened to music.
It’s really transcendence. When the band really locks in together and you’re playing the right song in the right venue, you have these wonderful moments where it all adds up to more than you think it ever could.
The whole room feels it. It doesn’t happen every night, but when it does happen, it’s an incredible payoff. I’m not a surfer, but I imagine it’s like catching a really big wave. That’s just perfect news. You ride it all the way to the end and you feel the power of what that can do, while standing on stage, playing with a really excellent band in an excellent venue with an excellent audience, and suddenly everything locks in.
It’s like you’ve plugged into the universe. And that is still my favourite feeling. It definitely does not happen all the time, but when it does happen, it’s something. It’s kind of indescribable.
