The music industry, is in a very sad state at the moment, says Paul Dempsey, singer/songwriter for melbourne trio Something for Kate. The two years between a first album, Elsewhere for Eight Minutes and the new one, Beautiful Sharks, has been a rollercoaster for the guitarist. The band fractured, fell apart and came together with new bass player Stephanie Ashworth.

Something for Kate are now enjoying chart success even though their music doesn’t fit into any accepted format and Dempsey’s songs tend to be obscure. The group has a phenomenal presence on stage and a passion on CD, which largely comes from the opinionated Dempsey.

There’s as much talent and as many fresh ideas and as much great music as there always was, he says. It’s just that the people who are supposed to be taking it to the public, the marketeers and the engineers in the record industry, are the ones causing a lot of the shit feelings there are at the moment. If you look for it, you can find as much music as ever, and it’s all good, it’s all fresh, it’s all exciting

So who does Dempsey believe to be proof of this then?

Augie March and Adam Said Galore, they’re two Australian bands who are honestly more concerned with an atmosphere and a feeling, and they’ll do whatever is necessary to achieve that. They don’t confine themselves into a verse-chorus thing or even into time limits, both bands often go on for ten minutes.

A trip to Toronto via LA gave Something For Kate a taste of American rock radio and MTV reality, and it’s this ethic which Dempsey reacts against the most.

With everything from guitar to dance to R&B, there’s an industry standard now, says Dempesy. It’s the fact that there’s an industry standard slapped on an artform that’s making everything so disgusting.

Within this Dempesy finds some hope in his belief that pop music is by nature cyclical. What’s gone around will come around. In the meantime, the emotion and creative momentum remains the two crucial elements which the industry could well afford to make a standard. That’s where Dempsey sees the future of Something For Kate.

Just to keep moving, to keep that feeling. As soon as I don’t have that feeling anymore, when we play a show or write a song, as soon as that’s gone I’m out of here. But the only thing I can say about the immediate future is that feeling is very strong. We’re just riding our own wave.

Simon Wooldridge