When somebody ask you, 'Whats your favourite band?' you're supplying them with important information about what sort of a person you are. If your answer is Something For Kate, you've joined a cerebral demographic."
So wrote SFK fan Cal L Bushby in a letter to JUICE recently. Bushby is not alone. Talk to people about Something For Kate and the words "intelligent" and "meaningful" surface in a way that 28 Days will never hear. Their tours consistently sell out, and their latest release, "Monsters", entered the national singles chart at #15. And, most importantly, they have a cult-like following that almost defies explanation.
Paul Dempsey, Stephanie Ashworth and Clint Hyndman are in a unique position, called, Having The World At Your Feet. But who are they, and why have they captured such a devoted audience?

Paul Dempsey has the air of a man who thinks before he speaks. He is, to the multitude of SFK fans, their own personal musical Messiah.
"I think the first album i ever owned was Whats A Few Men? by The Hunters And Collectors," Dempsey remembers, eating lunch in a quiet cafe during a thunderstorm. "I went from that into metal stuff; I was just totally into Slayer. That turned into the Dead Kennedys, and punk; Sonic Youth and Superchunk. But Fugazi had such a huge impact on me; the way they used their instruments, these really slippery grooves that i just loved." His first taste of live music came dubiously via John Farnham, at Brisbanes World Expo, in 1988. (Nirvana and the Violent Femmes followed.)
Originally from Ireland, the Dempsey family spent years moving around. Queensland and Victoria. "Music was present from day one," he recalls. "My mother was a professional singer, so she sang every night. But it wasnt just her - it was everyone. I remember being a kid and hearing one voice come from one end of the house and then a harmony come from another room. They were just always singing. And its still that way." As his sisters (two now classically trained opera singers) headed off for vocal lessons after school, the four-year-old started tinkering on the piano, inspired by his grandmothers playing. Dempsey first remembers picking up the guitar at eight, the same time he begun using chopsticks to beat pillows in time to tunes on the radio. When the kid across the road got a drum kit, Dempsey found he could already play. Surprisingly, he believes hes actaully a better drummer now than a guitarist, but admits, the sticks weren't the most favourable option for home. Outside the household, the 13-year-old Dempsey was getting turned onto new music through tapes froma Washington DC pen pal. The budding songwriter discovered Autoclave, Sleeping Body and Jawbox, as well as local hardcore flyers, and fanzines, while he sent demos of local bands in return. The years passed, Dempsey talking of his place on the school basketball team, and spending his final school days sleeping on Clint Hyndman's floor, after his family moved to Melbourne. He had one goal: to write songs and to form a band. And there was just one hiccup: he had never sung before.
"Growing up in this family where, at family get-togethers, everyone had to sing a song - I wouldn't," Dempsey says. "I would always run and hide, I just wanted to listen. I was mortified at the idea of having to sing."

Clint Hyndman is a larrikrin. The 25-year-old drummer has a laconic air, and often breaks up songwriting arguments with a bad joke. He even offers fans acting as extras at video shoots cold glasses of Fanta. Today sitting in his favourite South Yarra food hall, Hyndman is hung-over, but gleefully describing the covers band he and Dempsey entered a 'battle of the bands' competition with. "We did this band called Nine Iron. Paul didn't sing," Hyndman grins. "We did like a Dinosaur Jr cover, and a Nirvana and a NOFX cover.' He pauses, "We came in last."
For Hyndman, SFK is more than just a band. It's the vehicle used to escape The Future He Might Have Had. And it is also a great excuse to update his hairstyle, usually after every photo shoot. ("No-one recognises Clint anymore, Stephanie Ashworth concurs, "which is really good, 'cause he can go out and make an arse of himself.") Hyndman met Dempsey at school in Mornington. "I liked the social part of it," he laughs. "I was a fat social butterfly."
"Paul hung out with the basketball kids," Hyndman remembers. "Every single girl at the school was in love with Paul, 'cause he wasn't a threat. They would confide in him, so he had the real popular girls hanging out with him, and all the popular guys thought he was a weirdo. And they were the guys that I hung around with for a while, 'cause I was trying to be cool."
While Hyndman had learnt the basics of drumming, by the time school wound up in '93 he'd given the sticks the flick, opting for a nurseryman apprenticeship at the Rosebud Christmas tree farm, instead. Dempsey fled to Melbourne in pursuit of music, and enlisted bassist Julian Carroll, after placing an advertisement at a local music shop. The pair tried a few ill-fitting drummers, before Dempsey put the call into his school chum. And the band was born.

In Perth in the '80s, music had yet to exert its influence on Stephanie Ashworth. The 11-year-old scholarship-winning trumpet player was becoming disillusioned with brass; her first choice had been classical guitar, but that was also every kid at school's first choice. It wasn't until her older brother's gothy best mate came over that her musical eyes were opened.
"He brought a Siouxie And The Banshees and a Cure record over," Ashworth recalls. "I heard this music coming from my brother's room, and I was like, 'What the hell is that? I have to get myself some of that!' It was Concert by the Cure. And I was like, 'That is brilliant."'
Borrowing records by the likes of Peter And The Test Tube Babies, Ashworth became fascinated with the sounds, fashions and attitudes so far removed from the quiet streets of Perth. The young music enthusiast began ordering the NME from her local newsagent, staying up late to watch clips by the Smiths on Rock Arena, and getting hold of all the punk rock she could.
"It was really alienating," she points out, 'because there I was, living in the suburbs with no-one around me, except some friend of my brother, with everyone going, 'What are you listening to? That's weird.' And I'm going, 'Don't you get it? This is really exciting. This is like, punk!' It wasn't until I got to high school that I met other people who liked the same stuff. When I was 13 i met a girl - who to this day is my best friend - with this wacky crazy hairdo, and we bonded immediately and started researching punk."
Ashworth headed to Sydney on school holidays to catch gigs by hardcore bands, as well as becoming immersed in the burgeoning local scene. "I knew a lot of people and we would go to all the gigs, underage," she recalls.
Determined to learn guitar, Ashworth enrolled in a night course and taught herself to play, but casting it aside in favour of a late-teens lifestyle.
It wasn't until she moved to Melbourne - via Sydney - that the idea of performing in a band became a reality. "I was living with somebody who collected vintage guitars," she explains, 'and I was hanging out with this girl who was going to start a band and who needed a bass guitarist in a hurry. So I went home and asked my housemate if he had any bass guitars under his bed, and he pulled out a little small-scale one and said, 'Here, teach yourself." 'The now-complete moniker-changing band practised for around two years without playing a booked gig. Ashworth's group continued to evolve, until she found herself auditioning a new guitarist named Brendan Webb. Soon after, Sandpit were born and would last for several years.
Ashworth was coaxed to a SFK gig by a flat-mate who had described the trio's Fugazi-like sound. "Everybody was raving about them and I was, 'I'll just wait and see,"' she recalls. "I was getting sick of hearing about them, so I went to the Nicholson Hotel one night. I stood there and watched, and the first thing I thought was, 'They don't sound like Fugazi to me!"'
Ashworth's memory of her first SFK show is indicative of the response from many early fans, who were blown away by Dempsey's intense stage presence. "Paul's voice was the main thing," she remembers. "There was a lot of melody going on and it was really emotional. I was like, 'This guy's really putting it all out there.' I was a bit overwhelmed."
"Paul also had that reputation at that time of being - wrongly - a bit unapproachable. Mainly because he was tall, like 6"6', and had a shaved head and looked really aggressive," she continues. "But he sung these songs that were really emotional, he didn't hold back at all, and so people and early media went, 'Woah, this guy's got issues,' which I think I was a victim of as well. It wasn't really until a year later I sat down and actually talked to him."

Six months after SFK began practising, they were given their first gig by Richard Moffat, booker for Melbourne's Punters Club and Corner Hotel, on Monday September 12, 1994. "They were called Fish Of The Day" Moff at laughs. "We had a 'new bands' night that was really low grade. I'd received this demo from Fish Of The Day and reviewed it in the Form Guide, and booked them to play. Then Paul rang up the week of the gig and asked to change the band's name in the ad, which I thought was a good idea. I asked him what they were called and he said, 'Something For Kate'." Moffat thought Dempsey was joking, and left the ad as it was. Other names thrown around included El Presidente and even Pregnant.
While Dempsey and Hyndman remember the first show as "shambolic", mixer Mark Adams (Hurdy Gurdy) offered them a gig the following week. "We were stoked," Dempsey says. 'Julian and I both had shaved heads, and we turned up at the gig wearing army pants and black T-shirts and Doc Martens boots. So we turned up and went, 'Oh great, people are going to think we are the Mark Of Cain."'
Over the next 12 months the band performed sporadically, with shows at the Central Club's all-ages gigs alongside You Am I, Spiderbait and Tumbleweed. "That's when the first signs of having fans appeared," the singer says. "We started to notice that there was the same people in the crowd, and then people started coming up to talk to us, saying, 'When are you going to record something?' So we went and made a demo tape."
Recorded with a friend who was studying sound engineering, the seven-song demo was laid during the nightshift and reproduced by the band in lots of 50. Carroll took the demo to Au-go-go Records. Soon, demand was outselling supply. Over 600 copies went on to be sold, and one landed in the lap of Sony's Melbourne A&R man at the time, Chris Dunn.
Dunn saw the band live (duly noted by the group) before calling up to introduce himself. After fielding several offers from independent labels and the idea of paying for their own releases, the trio opted for Sony's offshoot Murmur, headed by John O'Donnell, who'd been turned onto Something For Kate through Dunn (who would manage the group for two years). The subsidiary was also home to Jebediah, Bluebottle Kiss and silverchair.
Murmur's position meant SFK would have the freedom to grow without being pushed into the spotlight prematurely. It's a strategy that has paid off; nurturing the band's 'underground' following into a formidable base, while only now being on the verge of mainstream radio exposure.
"Most record companies talk about artist development and never practice it," O'Donnell explains. "But in the case of Something For Kate, it was obvious to me if we were patient and gave them a wide berth, great things would come. Paul was, from the very outset, a great songwriter - just listen to 'Slow' or 'Clint' from their first independently released cassette, they're great songs. And he's a brilliant, interesting frontman - somewhere between David Byrne, Michael Stipe and Tom Verlaine. But to have pretended they were going to sell a truckload of records overnight would have been stupid; it would have been misreading them. They weren't ready, musically or personally."
"I remember Chris Dunn, at the first dinner with Sony, saying, 'Magic Dirt are the next Sonic Youth, and you guys are the next Nirvana,"' reveals Hyndman, "and I went to the toilet, and so did Paul. We were standing there going, 'Yep, we're going to be the next Nirvana, aren't we?' and I was like, 'I'm going to have to give up my Christmas tree farm job!' It was really funny - of course I now realise that's what A&R guys do to everybody!"

Since, the SFK story has been well documented. Debut album Elsewhere For Eight Minutes, recorded in 1997 with producer Brian Paulson in New Zealand, heralded the sing-along single "Captain (Million Miles An Hour)", as well as their first line-up change: Carroll deported the group, before the album even hit the stores, to get married. Toby Ralph took his place - and would leave the group in early 1998. A year after the band had first approached Ashworth, the bassist committed, finding both a new bond and, with Dempsey, a new relationship.
After relentless touring at home, Ashworth and Hyndman travelled to Los Angeles together to bond, while Dempsey kickstarted a massive case of writer's block in Dublin. The three took to Toronto to write and, eventually, Beautiful Sharks (again with Paulson) was finished at home. Released in June 1999, it would go on to debut at #10 on the ARIA chart.
"When Paul decided to do a few weeks of solo shows at the Corner a couple of years ago," Moffat remembers, "he didn't want to go under his own name, so he was booked under Hawalion Robot [a then-unreleased song title] and set up to play in the bar. For days beforehand I had press people calling up asking, 'Who's this Hawaiian Robot?' and I guarantee that nobody on the radio or anywhere knew about it. And we had 300 people show up! That was the first time I realised it had gotten silly. I mean, no-one - not Neil Finn or Peter Garrett -would be able to get that many. No-one."
Adds Jonathon Williamson, Sony Marketing Manager, "The loyalty of SFK's fans stems from the fact that the band themselves are such avid consumers of music ... They've also tried to give their supporters real value in their releases, whether it be their distinctive artwork, interesting b-sides, T-shirts or striking video clips. It can sometimes be the small things that fans really appreciate, such as newsletters or their brilliant website, which has been such a important resource to communication with their audience".
When Beautiful Sharks touring wound up in Japan in April 2000, SFK - who had found peace with third manager, former Murmer employee, Carlene Albronda, in early '99 were tired but happy. Courtney Love had wanted Ashworth to join Hole, after bandmate Eric Erlandsen caught the band in Austin, Texas, at the annual South By Southwest showcase festival. But, as Ashworth says somewhat understatedly, "It wasn't something I could ever seriously entertain." And so the trio said sayonaro to Courtney, and headed home.

When it came to finding someone they could work with this time around, SFK made a list of the requirements and sounds they wanted, and who could deliver those things. R.E.M. and Liz Phair producer Scott Litt was one, as was Radiohead and Natalie Imbruglia chum, Nigel Godrich. "We really wanted to work with someone who was, first and foremost, a good engineer," says Ashworth, "because we don't really need a producer as such, 'cause we write the songs how we want them, we don't want someone coming in and changing them.
"We'd been listening to some Sheryl Crow records and," she continues, "the production on her records is flawless; it's unbelievable. Then Paul read the back of Sheryl Crow, and Sheryl had written, 'I would like to thank Trina Shoemaker for being willing to try anything.' And that got us."
O'Donnell forwarded early demos of new material to Shoemaker, whose work included Blues Traveler, Kristen Hersh and Queens Of The Stone Age. A nervous conference call from Sony sealed the deal. Asked about her first impressions, Shoemaker says she was, "instantly attracted to Paul's lyric sensibilities and the feel of the arrangement." The band, she says, wanted, "the best record possible; great vocal representations, sometimes a lush record, sometimes a sparse record, big and present. Also, to sell as much as their last record so Clint can get a better apartment, and to be proud of their music.
"She was really good," attests Hyndman. (And yes, he has recently moved.) "Someone who was good in the studio, but also a good person - who'd make you feel confident in your abilities. Every now and then I'd go through a stage where I'd doubt myself as a musician, and then she'd say the right thing to make me feel really good before I'd go into a track."
Never before had the band spent so much time on their songs, locked away at Garry Car Beer's Mangrove Studios on the Central Coast of NSW "The entire experience for me was like a long day filled with laughter," Shoemaker remembers. "This bond has changed some of my fundamental perceptions of myself and my interests outside of music. Paul taught me about science and astronomy, and introduced me to the Orion and Sirius in the southern hemisphere; Clint reminded me of who I really am, over and over again; Steph and I were sisters, and I counted on Steph's sense of overview and to let me know when a mix was really finished. People who needed to meet each other and shared a love of music and record making.
"That they love and respect each other and desire to make music together," she continues, "this doesn't sound like it should be unique in a band, but it is."

Echolalia is the record of Something For Kate's career, the mark of a band hitting the nail on the proverbial head. It is, says Hyndman, the first time they've felt 100 per cent comfortable with the finished product. And in Melbourne, two months before the album's release, i ask Dempsey what he thinks fans expect - from the new material, and the band.
"I think you can make some loose generalisations like, 'OK, maybe it's that they sense its honest,"' he pauses. "Different bands are appealing to different things. Some want to get your sense of fun - which is cool, that's fine. There are other bands that are appealing to your hips and want to make you dance. And there are bands that are appealing to your heart. We are trying to appeal to people's brains; to people's psyches. I am trying to get things off my chest and, hopefully, it's affecting them here [taps his head] and not their feet."
Like all great albums, Ashworth admits, one quick listen to Echolalia is not enough to get it. 'People who are familiar with us know that its gonna take a few listens," she starts, "and there'll be a lyrical content that will challenge, or maybe confuse, them. But they know there's a point to it."
The key to success for Something For Kate: instead of songs that simply relate to fans, they resonate. For someone who dreaded the idea of singing, Dempsey now relies on the writing to placate those demons within.
"It's about self-discovery" he admits when asked what songwriting means to him. "There are things you can't say in conversation. I learn about myself; I take the things that confuse or frustrate me, make me curious or ecstatic - all these weird things that I can't put the finger on about myself, about being alive - and put them outside of myself in a written or musical form."
"I've learned that I am constantly curious and that I'm probably never gonna satisfy myself; I'm not going to stop questioning everything, I'm never gonna be relaxed about the way things are. But I'm very relaxed as far as my relaxedness goes," he laughs. "I'm not in a constant state of manic depression."
Dempsey's talent as an honest frontman sees fans also wanting to connect. "Paul gets his brain picked all the time," says Ashworth. "People come to the show and they just want to talk to him about their life and how a song made them feel better on an intellectual level."

The friendship between Dempsey Hyndman and Ashworth is the glue that binds this band. "Every three months we'll go out, have a drink, bond all over again, and remember why were doing it." says Hyndman. "It would be weird if we ever broke up. If we ever lived apart, it would feel wrong. I live around the corner, and when I was looking for my new house, Steph and Paul were there to make sure I didn't go too far."
One thing is certain: with Echolalia, if SFK do go far, they'll go there together..

JUICE has absolutely tons more Something For Kate: head to www.juice.net to read Q&A's...