Interview by Hudson Reed.

FMM: Well, y'all having a good time at BIGSOUND?

MARVELL: Yeah, great time. So fun. It seems to be ticking all the boxes. We had mixed reports coming in here as some people said it’s a bit of a wank and you’re not really going to get anything out if it. Others said if you want to make something happen, you gotta make something happen. I guess it’s what you put into it. You see people out there hustling and you see people out there just partying, but our most important meetings have been in the smokers’ area at 2am and outside the park.

FMM: That’s exactly it. I don’t use durries anymore. I’m on the electronic cigarettes, but I always try to make sure I have a lighter with me because the best conversations happen in the smoking room.

MARVELL: One hundred percent. Honestly, absolutely. If I see some big, old guy with a cigarette, I’m like, ‘he’s important.’

FMM: Exactly. Ya’ll are defined as Australian indie rock and roll. Do you feel that’s relatively true?

MARVELL: I guess. It’s such a large genre, right? We’ve been thinking about it sort of like the Americana sort of vibe, but more fuzzy with a little bit of country twain. But, it’s still got the face of rock and that indie aspect.

FMM: That’s a vibe, and your single and EP song names like New Blue Jeans and Comfort Is King is giving like Western vibes.

MARVELL: Yeah, we’re trying to tap into that. Country music’s having a big revival globally.

FMM: Come on, I’m here for it. I’m a Texas bloke myself, so country music is in my blood.

MARVELL: We love it.

FMM: The only time I ever listen to it though, is on the radio in Texas itself. Support local artists.

MARVELL: Right? Aussie country is the best. It’s also just the musicianship of country, so you go see country bands and they’re just so good. All the bands are the most talented artists you’ve ever seen in your life and it stands the test of time. We want to do this for the rest of our lives; not just a five or 10 year stunt. I want to do this until I’m 60, 70 years old.

FMM: That’s the way, and you want to be confident singing that song.

MARVELL: Yeah, yeah, and I went that. I want that song to translate and be able to stand up there and sing that song and deliver that song proudly when I’m 55, as to when I released it, I was 21. So, that’s the sort of direction we’re going.

FMM: Amazing. I love to hear that. So, you’ve already played a show at BIGSOUND and you have one tonight?

MARVELL: No, we’ve played two. We played one on Tuesday night at Rick’s and we played last night at the JBL stage and that’s us done, but they were fantastic. They were received really well and we met a lot of amazing people.

FMM: Which venue did you like more?

MARVELL: JBL stage was fantastic. Rick’s was kind of in the corner and hidden back. With JBL, people were walking past and everyone was stopping so you could literally watch it fill up as the set went on. It’s a great sign. If you’re not stopping people and turning their heads, then you’re doing something wrong. We offered the sound guy a $50 note to make us the loudest band of the night on the record. He did not accept the $50 note, but we were still the loudest. We might have done that on our own, but I liked to think he helped.

FMM: Well, it's good to hear that you've already played and you recently had your headliner tour back in May through July. How was that experience?

MARVELL: It was really good actually. We managed to get a bit of a grant from Music NSW because we did a lot of regional shows, so that helped a lot with costs of travel, so it was a comfortable tour. We got some festivals through Big Chill in Armidale, The River Estate and Gerang, so that just makes life fun and a happy tour as well. We got to meet a lot of nice artists. We played with ICEHOUSE, The Rubens and Jack River. It was really good. Then, we did a couple of headline shows in Brisbane and Melbourne. Melbourne was good and it was our biggest Melbourne show to date.

FMM: You’re on the ups.

MARVELL: Yeah, for sure. It’s nice when the numbers reflect and it’s visible as well.

FMM: You have Great Escape in Yas, playing some New Year’s shows with Ball Park Music, Skeggs and Mallrat. That’s exciting. Have you ever worked with any of them before or had chats with any of them?

MARVELL: No. We’re not really in that Triple J esque scene where most of thos3 bands are being projected and heard. They all seem to tour together. They all sort of cross paths, but we haven’t been fortunate enough to cross paths. We know certain members within those bands, but it’s gonna be heaps of fun and we’re excited to meet them.

FMM: Love Ballpark Music. I think they're absolutely fantastic. They're good as.

MARVELL: Yeah. Hopefully this is our ticket into that little crew on the roster a bit more. As soon as we got one festival, it kind of dominoed. It was like that quick. It's like, okay, wow, you get into the little club and all of a sudden they start getting thrown at you and it’s a little club. The Australian music industry is a tiny little club. As long as you just stay true to yourself, you are kind of on the way up.

FMM: At BIGSOUND, are there any acts that you’ve caught or that you’re wanting to catch while you’re here?

MARVELL: No Cigar.

FMM: Oh yeah, they’re good.

MARVELL: Also keen to see Dear Seattle and Velvet Trip.

FMM: So with your previous release in 2023, you must have something new coming. You guys working on stuff?

MARVELL: We have out debut album coming out on October 4, so we’ve had about three or four singles already out. We’ve already started writing new stuff and booking studios. It never stops. We recorded that album probably two weeks ago now. By the time you get around to getting it all fixed up, mastered, mixed, release a couple if singles, film a couple of clips, all of a sudden two years has gone by, you spent $50,000 and you think, holy, we’ve got to pick something up. it’s like mate, when we get it, you’ll get it.

FMM: Yeah, I get that delegation of money is a very tough thing in a band that no one talks about, so where do you spend your money? Who do you give it to? And you've just got to hope to God that they do what they say they're going to do and send the emails.

MARVELL: Right? And you know, get it in front of people. You've just kind of got to cross your fingers and hope to God that someone hears it and likes it and bang. As an artist, there’s always something going on. I do photography outside of this, so it's like I've got projects I'm sitting on there in the vault for three years.

FMM: And my final question is, during live shows, what has been one of the most memorable, favourite, interesting, completely batshit crazy moments?

MARVELL: Oh, far out. All right, I got one. Most memorable for me, was probably we played a show at the North Wollongong Hotel. Tom had just come off a flight from a three-day party, struggling like no tomorrow. It was pelting down with rain outside under a tent, flash flooding. The river came up. Tom’s having the worst time of his life. I’ve picked him up from the airport, we’ve driven down to Wollongong, struggle through the show, put on a great show, jump in the car, driving home. About an hour-and-a-half drive. It’s just me and Tom. He’s gone, ‘Mate. I feel so bad, I just need to sleep.’ I’m like, ‘You’re right, you’re hungover.’ We woke up in the morning to a COVID positive test and I went, ‘Well, enjoy that Wollongong. We’ve left you a pressy; a little surprise.’ I think about that all the time.

The other hectic one would be that we supported The Living End. It was like the big crescendo. Our last song and Max's guitar stops working. 2000 people in a room. See, I blocked that out. That's not a memory that's in my head anymore, but the crowd was so good chanting the drum beat and ended up just singing the song without the guitar. Everyone was just clapping and requesting us to play it again. We got the guitar going and the crowd starts chanting. We played it again. We looked over at the sound guy, and he’s just like “You guys are 10 minutes off the stage.” Big round of applause and off we went, but that was another memorable one.

All in all, what goes wrong in our band, we just march on. If nothing went wrong, are you even doing it right? We pride ourselves on being a live band and a part of live music is shit goes wrong and learning how to riff and fly. Crumbling on stage is a very embarrassing thing, right? You know when you get flustered and you’ve got to power through it?

FMM: Yeah, the crowd sees that. I was chatting to the No Cigar boys and they were saying the same thing. They just said, if something doesn’t go wrong, are you even doing it right? I’m pretty sure the lead singer was performing and at some point he ripped a ligament or something and did the whole tour with his shoulder up. He went to the doctor who said he should have been getting it fixed about a week ago, but he just played it anyway.

MARVELL: So that’s the way. That’s rock and roll right there.