we say more please

Every time i hear a new indie band with a fresh sound i get a warm feeling in my loins. Especially if they're hungry Australian up-and-comers.

I felt this way when i heard We Say Bamboulée on FBi last week. They're a three-piece from the Blue Mountains and Windsor on the outskirts of greater western Sydney. The band is Russell and Peter Fitzgibbon (basketballers) and Doug Wright (synths) making sounds like a Richard In Your Mind and Radiohead cocktail.

Their cheese-inspired pop music ranges from the upbeat, soaring harmonies of "Funeral Social", down to ambient 80s ice skating rink songs like "1959". That song is actually about a very, very old married woman having an affair with a young man. Doug Wright is this young man. He eventually confided in Blouse about his experiences because, by night, we are a relationship advice blog. But don't tell Steve, Rachel or Ed i said that.

I interrupted Doug's busy study schedule to get some comments about doing the band, doing the gigs and doing Cloud Control. He was enthused to get his blouse on with us.

Who are the band members and what do they play?

"It’s Russell and Peter Fitzgibbon and Doug Wright (me). Russ and Pete are exceptionally tall so they play basketball. I failed miserably at last years try-outs so I just play synthesisers and they joined the band to humour me."

When did the group form?

"It was a long time coming. We’d talked about forming a band around 2006 but Pete and Russ were busy with their other band Mild Ryan, and I was busy making my name as a booty-house MC to take on any more musical projects at the time. After school we went our separate ways, Pete to Uni, Russ started year 12, and I went to study in Switzerland. We kept in contact and sent each other fragments of songs throughout 2007, before we finally got together in 2008 and started jamming."

What does bamboulee mean and why do you say it?

"Well, while I was in Switzerland I went to this amazing week-long music festival called Paléo. In the camping area of this particular festival, there is a tradition where someone yells out BAMBOULEE! and anyone that hears the word will respond with another BAMBOULEE! So it creates these massive waves of BAMBOULEE throughout a camping area about the size of ten soccer fields. It was a surreal and lasting experience, so I guess it was on my mind when I was on MySpace deciding on a moniker under which I was going to upload some tracks. Since then I’ve done a bit of research and discovered ‘bamboula’ means party in Spanish, so I guess bamboulée is some Swiss aggregation of that and a feminine past participle (it’s not in any dictionaries). "

Do you all hail from the Blue Mountains?

"Half and half - I live in the lovely leafy suburb of Glenbrook at the foot of the mountains, but Pete and Russ live in Windsor in the Hawksbury Valley. It makes sense too, I love bike rides and live next to a national park, Russ loves to fish and lives next to a river. Pete is just full of love. Such a lovely man."

Are you guys friends with Cloud Control?

"Not really friends, we just write all their songs for them. We also should be raking it in with all the APRA royalties we will receive for their cover of ‘Buffalo Country’."

What’s the inspiration behind the lyrics for 1959?

"Good question. I should publicly state that I wrote them, just so no one thinks that Pete or Russ are weird."

What’s been your most standout onstage experience?

"No single moment really springs to mind. I love every moment that we’re playing together whether that be on stage or in our jamz room at Pete and Russ’s house. It’s great to be just having fun and doing this with friends and I don’t think it’d work any other way. I like that every time I send a smile at Pete or Russ on stage I get an enormous grin in return. It’s the moments where we can just relax into the music that make it groove, and make it all worthwhile."

How would you describe your sound?

"We are all synths and drums, but I guess we’re neither a dance band nor an IDM/experimental group. Not that we wouldn’t like to write something more experimental, but I guess we just like pop melodies too much. We tend to write songs that are fun to play, big choruses, washy instrumentals and sounds that border on cheese. I suppose there’s a strong emphasis on lyrics too, because I just sing the things I can’t say. "

Is there an EP in the works?

"Yes. We’re finishing up the recording stage so we’re quite excited that it should be ready in the not-too distant future. We haven’t set a date yet, and we’re all very disorganised so we think it should be ready by this winter. "

Expectations for the Oxford Arts gig?

"Pretty much a big ol’ party. We’re bringing our dancing choose, acid-wash, and stern-80’s-guitar-solo faces. We expect you all to bring the same."

We Say Bamboulée head to Oxford Arts to support Art vs Science alongside Papa vs Pretty on May 8. Tix available here.
We Say Bamboulée - Funeral Social