Somewhere Else
By Paul Dempsey
Juice Magazine, October 1997

Something for Kate went to New Zealand to record their debut album Elsewhere for 8 Minutes. They took along photographer Sophie Howarth and a notebook.

Hi, how are you? My name is Paul and I play guitar and sing for Something for Kate. In February this year, myself and my bandmates Julian (bass guitar) and Clint (drums) got on a plane and flew to Auckland, New Zealand, to record and album at the lovely York Street studios in downtown Parnell. I was asked by the good folk at JUICE to keep a diary of sorts in an effort to share with you the experience of recording this album. I've never kept a diary before, let alone writted anything for a magazine, but here are some of the things I wrote (sometimes neatly, sometimes in a frustrated scribble, sometimes in a drunken scrawl) in my little notebook after another day in the studio.

Got up at 7:00am and drove north to a place called Kare Kare, which was truly the most beautiful place I have ever seen. It's a beach that is surrounded on every side by huge rocky mountains and dense green forest. The sand on the beach is black for resons I don't know, but the black sand gives the water a silvery shine. The ocean looks like mercury (y'know that metallic liquid that rolls around your hand and forms little balls) and when the waves break it looks incredible. The sky was grey, the ground was black, the ocean was silver, it was early and it was cold... Later, I was joined by dog that was wandering around the beach and which insisted that I throw its stick. This was easily the most surreal moment of the trip.

We arrive at the studio at around midday and work through until about midnight. In that time we get a couple of things recorded, come up with some more ideas, lauch a little, play a little hacky-sack, argue, make up, eat food and drink lots of "smart drinks." At around seven in the evening, the smart drinks are replaced by beer and we slowly become less smart. Sophie [Howarth, the photographer] is pointing her camera in everyone's faces and is generally distracting us. We're quite an awkward band; the three of us kind of pull the music in different direction and this can work for or against us. On this particular day it worked against us.

Last day. Very sad. Clint (drummer) and I sat in the control room with Brian (producer and mixer) and listened through the 15 songs that we recorded. I couldn't be happier with how they sound, but it's still a strange feeling that they are now "framed" and we'll never record them again. Brian bought a bottle of gin and we all got "el loaded" and started making incomprehensible noise on the instuments. I wouldn't go so far as to call it a "jam," but it was fun.

Words and thoughts by Paul Dempsey (guitar, keyboards and vocals), Julian Carroll (bass guitar) and Clint Hyndman (drums). Photography, design and captions by Sophie Howarth. Design and layout by Adam Yazxhi.