Better Kate than never
by Suzanne Simonot
Gold Coast Bulletin, June 26 2003

HAVING to wait until August 18 for his new baby to hit record store shelves is somewhat of a godsend for Paul Dempsey, frontman of masterful Melbourne trio Something For Kate. Dempsey is chuffed that the as-yet untitled, 13-track album will remain the band's until then.

"I'm having my time with it before everyone else gets their hands on it," he says. "It's finished and it gets to be my pet for a while." 

In fact, he's so protective of his pet, he won't even give away any of the album's song titles - or the album's title. Fans can catch a sneak preview of the album material when SFK set out on the road in July to promote first single, the haunting Deja Vu. Incredibly, SFK haven't played an Aussie show since last October's Livid Festival dates, the time off the road spent working on the album and touring Europe with Silverchair. Songwriter, guitarist and vocalist Paul Dempsey explains what fans can expect.

From which girl did you steal the Deja Vu lyrical line "until one of us makes the other one come true"? "What makes you think it's stolen from a girl? (Laughs). It's the idea that if you subscribe to the theory that nothing exists unless we're here to see it, then each other is the only reason that we're here."

So is that the kind of idea you write a song around? "No, I wrote the lyrics last. I always write the lyrics last. Always, the music comes first and then the kind of music it is then informs the mood of the subject. Really, that line, if anything, it's like quantum physics. The idea that nothing is real until there's an observer. I like the line also just because I think it's a very basic observation but at the same time it's a beautiful thing to think - that two people make each other come true ... give each other the reason for being."

It's one of those lines that's so logical/poetic it makes you wonder why you haven't heard it before. It must be satisfying to come up with a line like that. "It is. I guess that's why some lines end up in songs and some don't. That's part of the reason why when I'm trawling through my notebooks, some lines will stick out and others won't. There's something true about them."

Deja Vu sounds like another single from your last album, Echolalia? Is it indicative of rest of the new album? "I wouldn't say so because I don't think one song can represent 13 songs. This album is very different. If Deja Vu sounds like it's on the same thread as the last album, that's probably because it was one of first songs we wrote after the last album. But I think the new record has a very different quality to it."

You used the same producer (Trina Shoemaker) and studio (Mangrove Studios)? "We had a great time making the last record so we thought why not have the same scenario. It's a comfortable studio, it's a technically great studio and Trina is a great engineer and a dear friend. Why screw with that? But at the end of the day, it is another collection of songs and the songs are different. It wouldn't matter what studio in the world we recorded it in, it still would have come out sounding the way it sounds because we knew what we were trying to achieve."

You've clocked up a decade together now. Would it be difficult to make music with anoyone else now? "It's like being in a family. Who's your oldest friend and how long have you known them? You don't get sick of them. You become intuitive and know when to give each other space and when to push. I've never tried to make music with other people."

Have you thought about it? "I've definitely been asked to write with people and stuff like that but I'm just not interested. I've got the attitude that if you can't write your own songs, what were you doing? I have little tolerance for people who are posing as musicians or songwriters. Having said that, there are people out there with fantastic voices who can't write. That's OK, but, I don't know. I'm not that black and white about it. I've got my own music to write. I don't need to write other people's music for them. Having said that, I produced a record last year (the Givegoods' new album, I Want To Kill A Rich Man) and enjoyed doing that. I'd like to do that again."

What about your own records? You're co-producers on your own records really, aren't you? "The bottom line is we write everything, we have it completely mapped out down to the last note before we even walk into a studio with a producer. We already know what we're doing before Trina even hears it. Her role is really more on the technical side of it as an engineer and also as an objective listener. When you use the word producer for SFK you're not talking about someone who's had anything to do with arranging or writing or ... you know? It's more just someone who's objective - like 'Paul, leave Clint alone' (laughs)."

How long has it taken Stephanie and Clint to get used to you? "I don't know if they are used to me. I think we're still getting used to each other and that's why we're still in a band together - because there's still more to learn. Every record's such a different experience. It's almost like you become different people for a while while you're making it. I don't know if Stephanie and Clint always know what I'm on about and that's kind of what keeps it stimulating. Every time we write music and new songs and write new lyrics, it's like the parameters of our band and relationships shift. It's exciting."

The bio says you all 'played together on this album'. What does that mean? "In the past I was really into everyone doing their own thing, almost like a free jazz thing, where I would play a certain thing on the guitar and Steph's bassline would wind around that and then Clint would be off-setting it as well. So it creates this king of jerky, abrasive sort of effect. I was really into that for a while. With this record, I've come to appreciate the joy of just strumming a few chords. I think there's a few more instances on this record of 'let's all play with each other as if we're sitting around a campfire' and not always have things so complicated. But at the same time this record also probably has the most complicated things we've ever done on it."

* Deja Vu is out on July 7 through Sony. Something For Kate play The Troccadero, in Surfers, on July 4, and The Great Northern Hotel, in Byron, on July 3.

* Win SFK concert tickets, CDS, Page 8