Focus Georgia Wonder
Article by Colin
Have you ever considered what the sound would be of The Carpenters driving Tom Petty to an R.E.M. gig but getting crushed under the wheels of Pink Floyd's tour bus while arguing over whether to listen to 'Love Shack' by the B52's or 'Go Your Own Way' by Fleetwood Mac? Well, to answer the question, Steph and Julian of Georgia Wonder are here.
Singer Steph and instrumentalist Julian like to do things their own way - their DIY ethic has earned them plays on Radio 2 and support slots with Simply Red's Mick Hucknall. They've also been getting attention from top music business folk - their song Girl You Never Knew is a haunting, yet delicate ballad (with more than a hint of Jennifer Rush and Sinead O'Connor in there). It sounds refreshingly modern, and is sure to propel the band into the big time.
The band took some time out from their increasingly busy schedule to talk to We7....
The interview
How did you two meet? What made you want to start making music?
Steph: Let's think... Basically I always wanted to be a singer. I really wanted to work with someone who was a good writer. The thing is you can write songs but never really have anyone to bounce them off. I called up my singing teacher and said, "Do you know anyone I could play with?". At the same time, Julian phoned her up and said, "I'm looking for some people to collaborate with, as I have all these songs". We met up and had a great time by going out and getting drunk.
Julian: We didn't do any work for two years! Steph would come over after she finished work, and we would work for half an hour and just end up going to the pub and get pissed.
Steph: One day we just decided to move to Portsmouth, just because it was cheaper living there. And all of a sudden it just worked, we were able to practice, get all these great songs out that were lying in the background.
So getting out of London motivated you?
Steph: It really did help. The thing is in London, there is so many places to go, things to see and places to play live.
Julian: It was incredibly distracting.
Steph: When you are around other bands there is a lot of pressure - you can't be yourself, you have to kind of go with this 'flow'. We really wanted to get away from that and find our own way, and be happy with the music we made - and if people liked it, great and if they didn't, it was going to destroy us.
Julian: Making music ourselves has been good fun, you can try things out. No one is sitting there trying to make you do nine songs that all sound the same.
What are your influences? Does each of you come from a different musical background?
Steph: It's bizarre; I think I was actually brought up on my parents music - The Beatles, that kind of thing. Julian was more into the heavy rock side of things, the heavy AC/DC type of music.
Julian: I love my heavy rock, but I was classically trained, I went to the Royal Academy.
Steph: And I am a trained opera singer. So similar backgrounds, by different at the same time - we kind of meet in the middle somewhere. A hybrid of opera, rock and classical!
You had some early support from Bob Harris at Radio 2 - what was it like to get his seal of approval?
Julian: Bob Harris, that was weird... I sent an email through to Bob Harris, through the BBC website, which obviously never gets anyone anywhere. You normally get the stock response saying "you're a loser". But few days later Bob wrote saying, he really liked it, and to send it to his home address. So I sent him a demo. And then it turns out that another friend of ours, Jeff Dexter, had met Bob at a gig at the Roundhouse - and mentioned us at around the time that Bob had got the CD.
Steph: So you never know, if Jeff hadn't 'nudged' him, we don't know whether he would have played it or not! But it shows, you have to get in contact with the DJs, make it more personal, and make an effort to get your music played.
What was supporting Mick Hucknall from Simply Red like? Did he have any tips or words of wisdom for you?
Julian: It came about through a promoter, who liked our stuff. He'd been trying to get us a gig
Steph: We did a corporate gig with Simply Red first - we did that, it went down really well.
Julian: That was our largest ever audience, about 1800 people. And there were just the two of us: guitarist and singer.
Steph: Then I was on holiday, and I got a call saying Mick needed support for his solo tour. It was very last minute, the original act couldn't do the tour. And because we had worked with him before, they thought we would be perfect. It was that quick - we had about three days to rehearse.
Julian: It was really fun.
Steph: And he was a really nice, normal bloke - he does the most amazing vocal warm-ups, you really don't appreciate what a great singer he is when he has his band behind him. We didn't really see him, because we had to drive everywhere, we would arrive 30 minutes before the gig started - sometimes not early enough for a sound-check.
Julian: I drove 1800 miles in seven days, and did the gigs.
What are your plans for the future? What do you want to achieve with Georgia Wonder?
Steph: The big question!
Julian: Lots more touring. It would be great to have a band behind us to make the songs come to life, as well. We know all the musicians we'd like; we just can't afford to take them on tour!
Steph: More live stuff, yes. We'd like to have backing to let us concentrate on the more creative side of things and allow us to go out on tour (it's not a cheap business) - someone who could take care of the administrative affairs so we could focus on the songs.
Julian: But fortunately there is a lot of different ways a band can do things these days, rather than go down the established record company/publishing route.
So your plan is to release a new EP every four months?
Julian: Yes, the next one is in November. It's quite hard to do one every four or five months, but we have a backlog of songs, so initially we will be ok.
Steph: I think it's better than releasing an album. This way we can take time over each of the songs and give them the attention they deserve, rather than churn out 12 songs for an album, some of which the fans may not even like.
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