Band Offers No Beg Pardons
Newcastle Herald, October 23 2003

DEEP-THINKING frontman Paul Dempsey makes no apologies for the strong personal and political themes percolating through The Official Fiction, the latest album from his Melbourne band Something For Kate.

"It's an album about propaganda, rhetoric and spin," spruiks Dempsey, pictured centre, with his bandmates.

"It's about how you receive information and you process it how that shapes your perceptions of everything around you and inside you as well. 

"It's about your world view, your personal relationships and how these things are spun to achieve a certain communication."

Something For Kate again turned to New Orleans-based Trina Shoemaker for studio help shaping the perceptions explored and provoked by The Official Fiction, their fourth long-player in the past six years. The American co-produced their acclaimed 2001 effort Echolalia which debuted at No.2 on the ARIA charts and is now approaching double platinum sales. Shoemaker's other credits include grunge gurus Pearl Jam and stoner rockers Queens Of The Stone Age, but it was her work with Sheryl Crow that initially caught the ears of Something For Kate. Not wanting to mess with a winning formula, band members Dempsey (vocals/guitar), Stephanie Ashworth (bass) and Clint Hyndman (drums) returned to the Central Coast, the sonic base for Echolalia, to create The Official Fiction. The musical trio, along with Shoemaker, set up camp at the Mangrove Mountain studios of INXS stalwart Garry Gary Beers. Dempsey asked himself, and in turn Something For Kate listeners, many questions while immersed in the serene Mangrove scenery. Some of the answers were almost as quiet as the countryside while others would have scared birds from the surrounding trees. The strung-out lead single, Deja Vu, balances aspects of fate against free will.

"Often when someone writes a song that's reflective or asking questions, it's typically done in a sombre mood," he said.

"But I guess I like to yell out the confusion, make it OK.

"I think it's perfectly OK to sing songs about uncertainty and to explore that."

Something For Kate fans will be able to respond in person when they play tonight at Newcastle University's Bar On The Hill with Gelbison and Further.