Ahead of The Superjesus‘ national tour with The Baby Animals, Australia’s rock royalty front-woman, Sarah Mcleod had a chat to AMNplify’s Pauli Dee about writing, touring and how the two iconic Australian bands came to be touring together.

Paul: Thanks for taking the time to chat with me Sarah. I follow you on Facebook and one thing I’ve noticed is that you seem to be touring and playing a gig in a new city or town almost every night, your schedule is pretty full-on, isn’t it?

Sarah: Yeah with different acts too, like sometimes I’m solo, that’s its own set, sometimes I play with Mick (Skelton, drummer for The Baby Animals) so that’s another set and tomorrow night we’re playing as a trio with KJ, which is another set again so every time we play, it’s a different repertoire so I’m just like “Oh my god, what instrument am I playing?”

Paul: Don’t you get tired?

Sarah: Yeah! I’m exhausted! (laughs) Do you know why I’m exhausted? I’m exhausted because I was trying to sleep last night and there was a crazy lady outside my window screaming obscenities to a pole for like 3 hours! Everyone was yelling “shut up!” There’s a lot of crazy people around here! I’m in Darlinghurst so it’s full of nut-cases: Nut-cases, hookers and a bunch of musos!

Paul: Hahaha, well the three go hand-in-hand, I suppose! So you must’ve played almost every town and city in Australia.
Do you have any favourites?

Sarah: I always like it when I go to a small town where I haven’t been, like the other day I played a town in regional South Australia called “Stansbury,” which I’d never even heard of, let alone played there. It was a tiny fishing town & Mick and I went down there together and did it, it was a duo set & it was just fantastic, I mean the whole town came out, you know, kids, parent, grandmas & everybody! It was just like party of the century down in Stansbury and it was really fun! I really like that because suddenly you become a member of the community and I was like ‘man, maybe we should try and become mayor of this place or something!’

Paul: Yeah, I grew up in Ballarat, so I’m a country boy and might be a bit biased but isn’t it like the smaller the town, the friendlier the people are?

Sarah: Absolutely! Yeah the smaller towns always have more of a party vibe because everyone’s like ‘tonight’s the night’ they get really into it, they don’t get a lot of live music, they don’t a lot of action from the big city, so they’re like ‘tonight’s the night, we’re getting a babysitter, we rallying up 15 people and we’re all going …& we’re gonna get blind!’

Paul: haha! and you’re supporting Foreigner in a couple of weeks on their Australian tour. Are you a fan of them?

Sarah: Yeah, weird show for us, but yeah, totally fans. I grew up with their music and it’s funny because I know so many Foreigner songs but it wasn’t until we actually got booked to do it that I looked at their songs and I was like “Oh, THAT is Foreigner, OHH, that’s Foreigner too, I just knew them as songs from the 70’s that I know, but I didn’t know who they were by…
I thought some of them were the Doobie brothers!

Paul: Really? The Doobie brothers? hahaha

Sarah: Yeah I thought (sings) “It’s as cold as ice” was The Doobie brothers! hahaha It’s Foreigner!

Paul: Hahaha I didn’t know that either! You learn something new every day! SO, the BIG news that I wanted to talk to you about is The “She Who Rocks tour” with The Baby Animals. That’s massive & a combination that, to me, goes together like peas and carrots! How did that come about?

Sarah: Well I’ve been playing with Mick Skelton, The baby Animals’ drummer for about 10 years, you know, the acoustic stuff, and that was before he joined The Baby Animals. I think he started with them about 8 years ago and we were like ‘wow! one of these days we should do a show together & I knew Dave, but I didn’t know anyone else in the band. Then about 3 years ago, I was in another band called ‘The Screaming bikinis’ and we got a gig in Sydney supporting The Baby Animals and that was the night I met Suze and I was like “Oh Hi, I’m a huge fan” and yeah we got along really well and we were like ‘yeah we should play together’ and it’s just one of those things where we banged on about it for a really long time and we tried to put something together last year but everyones schedules were just colliding left, right & centre and it was just so hard, we were all so busy, then we tried again this year and it worked so we were all like ‘Oh Thank God, this is has been like 2 years in the making, trying to get this shit on the road’

Paul: It’s the best combination! When I heard you were touring together I thought ‘yes, why hasn’t this happened earlier?’ It’s perfect, you know, it just works

Sarah: Yeah & the tickets are selling really well too so I think the audience members are getting vibes on it just as much as we are!

Paul: Will you be playing the older hits or newer songs or a bit of both?

Sarah: A bit of both! I don’t know what they’re gonna play, but for my band, we’re gonna do a selection of singles that we’ve released in the past and we have a couple of new ones & I think the plan is at the end of the set, I’m gonna do a song or 2 with The Baby Animals, like an “all in jam!” I’m not sure if we’re all doing it or it’s just me but that’ll be fun! We’re hoping to have a single out prior to the tour. We’re looking at recording an EP, not a whole record, just an EP to sort of test the waters & that won’t be released until later in the year, but with any luck the plan is to get the first single out before this tour. I think we should make it. We’ve got the song sitting there, we’re just doing the final touches.

Paul: Are you rehearsing for the tour yet? Or just gigging and in the studio?

Sarah: Ah, No, we don’t rehearse. Ever! We just go for it!
Our drummer lives in Washington, our bass player’s in Adelaide, the guitarist’s in Melbourne & I’m in Sydney so we’ll write songs by sending files around the world and then we’ll send files around the world again to record them properly for the record and then, at best, we might get there a day before the shows start and run the set once or if not, just a really long sound-check or a hotel room jam and then we’re off! We’ve been playing together so long now that we know where everyone’s feel sits & where everybody’s beat is so as long as you know your part when we get together and play, everyone knows everyone’s groove, so we’re generally alright!

Paul: Are there any other bands, apart from ‘The baby Animals’ that you’d like to tour or work with in the future?

Sarah: Oh god, so many, there’s loads of bands I’d like to work with!

Paul: Like a dream collab or co-show?

Sarah: I’d fuckin love to do a tour with ‘Queens of the stone age’ That’d be my ideal tour, but we’ll see, bit by bit!
We did the Tea Party tour last year and now Mick, The Baby Animals drummer, myself & Geoff from The Tea Party are doing a record together and a tour that will be coming out pretty much after this baby Animals tour.

Paul: Oh nice! How is touring with The Superjesus different to what you seem to have been doing more of lately, which is the smaller solo or duo shows with Mick?

Sarah: Oh it’s totally different. I sort of look at it like when I play acoustically, for me it’s more about the singing, because the guitar is so stripped back and I don’t really have to do much, I just sit there and sing & I really enjoy that. Whereas in The Superjesus, for me personally, it’s more about guitar playing. The singing is sort of something I do to keep the song connected, but it’s all about guitar playing because the guitar parts are so complex but really fun to play. Its not as much fun to just sing, its way more fun to play guitar. I still haven’t quite worked out how to have fun doing both at the same time!

Paul: So what’s more fun for you?
Writing, recording or touring & performing?

Sarah: Hmmm, for me it’s like ‘do you prefer reading the book or watching the movie?’ Writing & recording is so much harder, it’s a really difficult road and you put a lot of pressure on yourself, like if it’s not working I just hate myself & I can’t even exist with the people around me because Im just so down on myself until I get it right, then when it’s right, Im so happy & it doesn’t matter what happens because Im just so completely elated & the world looks a different colour so it drags you up & down emotionally, whereas playing live; you’re just sort of showing off really! You’ve already done all the hard work, you just get out there and dance around and “yay” it’s just fun and theres nothing thats gonna drag you down about it!

Paul: So a lot planned for 2015. The baby Animals/ Superjesus tour, the record with Mick & Geoff then the next tour with them. Is that gonna be a similar style set to The Superjesus? Or a more laid back & relaxed acoustic sort of gig?

Sarah: Oh no, there’s nothing laid back & relaxed about that tour, it’s gonna go off! Plus theres another project in the middle of all that but it hasn’t been announced yet so I’m no allowed to speak about it, but thats even more work than both of these combined!

Paul: Wow! You must be one of the hardest working girls in the industry that I’ve spoken to recently!

Sarah: I know! I don’t even sleep! I can’t sleep because I go to bed and Im just planning things then working on songs in my sleep! Thats the hard part, you know if you’re working on a song and you want to just go to sleep but you’re lying there going ‘what if I drop the beat on one and, and then I could go to this note..’ and suddenly you’re looking at the alarm clock and it’s 5am & you think ‘oh god, I’ve gotta get up in 2 hours and I haven’t quite got the hook yet!

Paul: Well sleep or no sleep, whatever you’re doing is working! Hey I thought I might throw in a quick multiple choice round to keep it fun! First off the mark: Beer, wine or spirit?

Sarah: Umm, all of the above!

Paul: Elvis or the Beatles?

Sarah: Hmm, fuck, thats a hard one! Im gonna have to break this up and say Beatles for songs and Elvis for the vibe

Paul: Summer or winter?

Sarah: Winter

Paul: Apples or Bananas?

Hahahaha… don’t get me wrong here, but bananas!!!

Paul: Tea or coffee?

Sarah: Coffee! …Obviously! …and heaps of it!

You can get tickets for The Superjesus & Baby Animals’ “She Who Rocks“ tour HERE!