Band's fun in the studio is no official fiction
By Kamahl Cogdon
MX, August 8 2003

Laughter and fun are not normally associated with the haunting and provocative music of Something For Kate. But that's how frontman Paul Dempsey remembers the recording of the band's fourth album, The Official Fiction. 

"My memories are definitely of laughing a lot while we were making it in the studio," Dempsey said today.

"Between the three of us in the band and Trina the producer and Blair the engineer there was some very strange humour going on."

But Dempsey said the frivolity of the recording studio did not indicate a change in direction for the band.

"It's just not what we do with our music. To me, music has to talk to you about more complex feelings."

Dempsey said writing the album's 13 songs, including first single Deja Vu and his favourite Reverse Soundtrack, was more intense and torturous than its recording. At one stage he made a spur-of-the-moment escape from a six-week rehearsal stint by flying to New Zealand on frequent-flyer points.

"I just landed and hired a car and took off in any direction," he said.

"I was writing sitting on the side of the road or in a little hotel or at the beach or walking through a forest. Just to kind of get out of the rehearsal room."

The final product has not only pleased the band, but also the critics.

The Official Fiction is released on August 18.