The last time we spoke to Melbourne folk-pop duo Pierce Brothers in May, the guys were just about to release their new EP ‘The Records Were Ours’ and were beyond keen to start their tour showcasing tunes from the forthcoming EP.
Fast forward three months, the guys are about to embark on their Australian tour after only just returning from playing sold out headline shows and festival appearances abroad to over 90,000 people in the UK/Europe.
“I’ve got super jet lag at the moment, so I’ve been waking up at like 5am and like ‘okay let’s start the day’,” Jack Pierce says. “I’m a musician, I’m not used to being up at five or six in the morning, so I’m like ‘look at me go, I’m up and about’. I went to a boxing class this morning, I went and got a coffee, there’s so much of the day left. I know it’s not going to last though,” he laughs.
Clearly still buzzing from the European tour, the excitable musician is even more excited to take their music around Australia with the tour kicking off this weekend.
“We’re looking forward to getting around Australia because we haven’t done a full Australian tour in a while, especially up to Darwin – we haven’t been there for a couple of years I think,” Jack explains. “I’m really excited, there’s a lot happening that I’m really looking forward to on this run, Australia is so pretty,” he laughs, “Just to get around it and see all the familiar faces and venues that we’ve gotten to know over the years, so I’m just very excited.”
After two years in the making and an abundance of new studio and live material, the band released The Records Were Ours in May as the first in a trilogy of EPs where it debuted at #9 on the ARIA album chart.
“Well this EP that we are doing was supposed to be our first album and it just took so long to do,” Jack explains of the trilogy concept. “We did the first part of it, and then we went on tour to Europe, and we supported the Cat Empire in Europe, and that went so well that they offered us another tour for the UK so we took that one, but that was just when we were going to be recording the rest of the album so we couldn’t do it.”
Pushing the album back again until after the tour, the brothers then received offers to tour Australia with the Cat Empire and Ben Harper on his Australian tour.
“By this point we had done so many songs that we had to then cut them down to like a 10 or 11 track record, and we were like ‘that’s really going to suck, we have to cut out some good songs here’, and there wasn’t enough for two albums and we certainly didn’t want to do an 18 track first album, so the label said why don’t we just split these up and do three EP – part one, part two and part three. And because we have so many different tours going on this year, we’ll just release one over the space of a year.”
“Now for the third one, we have this really interesting idea, because we’ve been recording a lot of the shows from Europe and from around Australia, and we’ll we recording ones in the states as well, we’re thinking of doing all the songs from the first two, but in live places all over the world. As a nice end cap to it, but we’re not sure though. There’s a lot of balls in the air,” he laughs, “We’re kind of running around like headless chooks a lot of the time.”
Cementing their place in the music scene, after The Records Were Ours tour in Australia, the the multi-instrumentalist twin brothers have stepped it up and will be supporting Tash Sultana across the USA and Canada.
Bringing good vibes, good music and some brotherly bickering, the Pierce Brothers have made their way from busking on the streets of Melbourne to delivering irresistible energy in their world-class, sold out live shows all over the world. However, busking will always be a favourite for the boys, with Jack keen to take it right back to the beginning.
“I think when we’re recording our album in November in between the Tash tours, we’re probably going to be getting out [busking] in Melbourne,” Jack says.
“I just really love busking. I love the whole idea about it. It’s the reason we got into music in the first place. People aren’t there to see you, or the expectations aren’t huge, what it’s all about is if people enjoy it they come and listen and it could make their day, and if they don’t, they just walk on, and that’s the reason I do it, that’s the reason we do music.
When & Where: Uno Bandroom, Geelong – September 1
Written by Talia Rinaldo
