Fremantle’s iconic San Cisco are at the tail end of a month long regional tour for their sophomore album, Gracetown. Named after a chilled coastal town in Western Australia the record has received extensive praise for its lusciously smooth peanut butter vibes. The indie pop quartet have ripped up the stage on back-to-back Australian and North American tours; their funk infused tunes gaining increased international recognition. Front man, Jordi Davieson talks us through the album’s creation and the whirlwind of performances that have followed its March release.
You have described your second LP Gracetown as a product of bedroom style recording with good equipment. How important is to you to maintain a DIY approach?
Personally I find it really helps to have a very hands on approach with recording. That’s one thing that Steven really helped us do with this record, he kind of taught us how to make a record ourselves. It was a very different experience to our first album.
Your current regional tour covers nearly all of the east coast, from Cairns to Geelong and everywhere in between. What are you most looking forward to?
We have four days off in Byron bay, I love that place. We are staying with a really nice bunch of people and it’s a great breather in amongst the touring.
The lineup for the Seed Fund Inaugural Fundraiser you were a part of featured several Australian music icons. How did you become involved? Who were you most excited to be playing alongside?
From the beginning of our musical career we where very fortunate to have Phil Stevens as our manager, who is well versed in the ways of running an independent band. We just want other musicians to have the opportunity to also be an independent band. I wasn’t really most excited to play alongside anybody in particular. I was just really pumped to share the stage with such great musicians.
You recently completed your third headlining tour of North America. Was there a particular show that stood out for you? Have you noticed a growth of recognition and support in the States?
All of the major cities are great shows. Places like NYC, LA and San Fran Shows are lots of fun. Every time we go back to the states the crowds are slightly bigger. It’s definitely a lot of hard work but from the beginning we decided that we wanted to invest time and money into international touring.
Interesting lyrics that tell good stories are an overlapping formula in the music that you have released. How would you describe your songwriting process?
Also the writing process is different every time but in terms of lyrical ideas, they usually originate from a scenario that I was apart of or observed. I’m not very good a writing fiction so rebelling a story seems to work best.
Gracetown is an innovative indie pop record infused with disco, funk and hip-hop. How has this album helped you to progress both creatively and technically?
Thank you! *laughs* I feel like the creative part of your brain is something that you need to always be working. The more you work on it the more fluent ideas come to you. For the creative of Gracetown I had never worked that part of my brain so hard and by the end I did feel like I was a much more creative person, I think we all did!
The music video for “Too Much Time Together” is a humorous take on the proximity issues existing in both relationships and the band. How did the concept evolve? What is it like to visually translate your music?
We do a lot of work with a guy called Matt Sav for all things visual. He sent us a treatment for the song and we all really liked it so we went with it. It’s pretty cool to help create a video clip for a song you have written and when it’s up there on the interwebs you can’t help but feel like a real band *laughs*.
What can we expect from San Cisco nearing the end of 2015?
Lots of Instagram photos of going to the beach, fishing, surfing and drinking coconuts in scenic areas. We will also dabble in some music making 😉
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Gracetown is out now. The band finish up their regional tour in Perth this Thursday night, playing Artbar. Tickets are available from www.ticketek.com.au.
Photo Credit: Kane Hibberd
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