Thirsty Merc Biography
SLIDESHOWS is a glistening collection of 12 new melodic, rocking tracks from one of Australias most popular and hard-working bands. The first single is 20 Good Reasons, a gloriously anthemic number with a huge sing-a-long chorus, sure to prove itself another instant Thirsty Merc radio favourite.
Since first bursting onto the national scene back in 2003, the Sydney-based Thirsty Merc quickly built up a reputation as one of the countrys best live acts. Word-of-mouth and hundreds of shows around Australia and, of course, a swag great songs saw the first Thirsty Merc CD spend over a year on the ARIA album charts and end up selling over 120,000 copies.
The album produced a string of memorable singles: Emancipate Myself, My Completeness, Someday, Someday, In the Summertime, When the Weather Is Fine.
And now, this is SLIDESHOWS sit back and prepare for a considerably different Thirsty Merc experience.
Singer Rai Thistlethwayte says the title of the new album is intended to instantly stir up a sense of indefinable nostalgia. Something memory-based, a subliminal thing, explains Rai. To me, it describes little emotional vignettes, which these songs are. They all describe different aspects of relationships with people and real life.
As bassist Phil Stack likes to point out: We couldnt call it Thirsty Merc II.
Jokes aside, though, Rai reveals SLIDESHOWS is a more serious album than the debut. No more smart-arsing about. The first time around, youre just trying to get noticed, Rai notes. But this time, he kept asking himself the same esoteric question throughout the year that it took to write and record the album: What actually matters?
With the music, Ive definitely tried to be more honest with myself about it, says the singer. Thats the way I want to play this stuff, because its the truth. Things arent always 100 per cent shiny (spelling was shinny) and great.
Its very self-explanatory what these lyrics are about because, lyrically, I didnt want to sugar-coat anything on this record. I just wanted to tell it the way that I saw it. Theres a lot of break-up on this album, so much more than the first album.
The core theme throughout all the slides in SLIDESHOWS is about each of us deciding whats important in an ever-increasingly confusing world. What is real? What do you stand for? What actually matters? Rai tries to explain: Im feeling like today, global village, internet, myspace, youtube, static, advertising, commercial-meets-fashion-meets ... Being busy with that, its a very busy, cluttered environment. And everyones got millions of friends and associates, whether its digital or just out on the town. Whatever it is, everyones a bit lost in translation. You have to redefine what really does matter to you.
Musically, as much as Rai hates this description, he genuinely feels Thirsty Merc has matured a lot since recording THIRSTY MERC. Now 26, Rai points out that he was only 21 when he penned songs such as Emancipate Myself and Someday, Someday.
I dont know how to describe how SLIDESHOWS is different, he says. I feel that its less local and its not necessarily more rock, but its deeper and heavier in subject matter, bar a few tracks here and there. Harmonically, its simpler. Some of these things require you not to rock out as much. You want to feel the deepest level of the song and what they really mean, so it kind of calls from a new level of interpretation. Of course, with an outfit of musicians as accomplished as Thirsty Merc, there are no musical limits.
Upfront, the charismatic, curly-haired Rai is a gifted and multi-faceted guitarist and pianist, as well as an almighty vocalist. Meanwhile, bass player Phil Stack can be found in his spare time playing his upright in the backing band for Australias biggest jazz star, trumpeter James Morrison. In Thirsty Merc, Phil hooks in with drummer Karl Robertson theyve played in bands together since they were little kids, so as a rhythm section, they just couldnt be any tighter. Lead guitarist Sean Carey was the last to join the Thirsty Merc fray, just before the release of the first album, so you know he was hand-picked from all the guitarists in Earth to be the perfect Merc guitarist.
While some of the new songs call on the band not to rock out, there are many moments on SLIDESHOWS where Thirsty (spelling) Merc rock harder than theyve ever rocked before, such as on the opener Shes All I Got, or the riff-heavy The Vision and the glam-infused Shes My Brother.
But these thumping, grinding moments are well-and-truly balanced out by the more delicate and aching tracks such as The Whole World Reminds Me of You, the painfully heartfelt Crying in Denial and the piano-and-strings driven album closer, Homesick.
SLIDESHOWS is a record which shows off the depth of Thirsty Mercs shared experience all those hundreds of shows theyve played together. I dont know if you realise it while youre doing it, living out the rock & roll dream, says Phil, but I was looking through my old 2004/05 diaries the other day and it was just el spazzo. At one point, it was something like 68 gigs in 70 days we went around the country four or five times in a row.
It was awesome, laughs Sean. We never slept. It was just good times. It was so loud that your ears were ringing all the time, your always on planes, your always dehydrated, but youre always cracking up laughing.
Following some dates overseas, Thristy Merc finally put a stop to all the endless touring early last year to clear space to work on the new record. After looking at a handful of producers abroad, the band decided it would return to the same production team in Melbourne that worked on the debut album producer Lindsay Gravina and engineer Rob Long.
At first, the going was a bit slow, but letting things happen naturally and new methods of playing live in the studio gave way to the songs taking shape. We ended up doing a lot of the recording in the studios central drum room, just all standing in there with Karl, Phil explains. Things like that made a big difference to the groove of the album, so we tried a lot of things before we realised what works best for us.
In the end, the main bulk of the recording happened very quickly, with most of the songs on SLIDESHOWS all recorded or re-recorded in a month late last year.
We just went in and bashed it out, says Rai. After that, it was almost done before we knew it.
To add some extra texture to the project, jazz legend Paul Grabowsky was brought in to put subtle string arrangements to several tracks, while Rai also jumped on an upright piano.
Once the recording was all done, Rai took the tapes to Los Angeles where the songs were given an extra sheen by internationally renowned mix engineer, Mark Needham [The Killers, My Chemical Romance]. The end result is an incredibly rich-sounding, diverse yet cohesive work. The perfect example of how bright SLIDESHOWS sounds can be found in its first single, 20 Good Reasons.
Its such a strong song, beams Sean. I feel like its very much a flagship for the whole thing. Its got the hooks and hits that Merc do really well, but the lyrics are so strong, so vivid, very deep. Together, its a smash, its great. Its got all the elements that I really like in pop music.
SLIDESHOWS is the beginning of a bright new chapter for Thirsty Merc. What actually matters? Its about the songs, the music, the emotion, the honesty. And its all captured right here on the brilliant second album from Thirsty Merc, SLIDESHOWS.
