It’s been over fifteen years since Oz legends Jebediah burst onto the scene with Slighty Odway, injecting Australian music up with shot of bratty energy, and launching into incredible support slots for Soundgarden, Everclear, You Am I and Silverchair. Every Jeb’s album has arrived to chart in the top ten and after a 5-odd year hiatus it’s hardly surprising that their latest record Kosciuzko has come in with an ARIA Award for Best Rock Album. It’s been a massive year, no question, but not everything came up roses. And then there was that Wiggles thing…
So you were going to kick the tour for your new album off with a set at StoneFest, but the whole festival was cancelled! How do you feel about that?
Well, not too good to be honest. I got the email saying it was cancelled and thought it was just us, then realised it was the whole thing, I mean it’s hard to pull these things off in today’s festival climate. Not worth losing your house over a failed festival though.
So what are you going to do instead of the festival?
Well I’m the only one who has held down a job, so I’ll just keep working at the warehouse til we hit the road again. Not sure what the others will be doing though, Chris had a full time job, and Vanessa did some part-time work but you can’t just rely on the band to pay the way when you get back into the real world.
You have been on the road for almost two decades, and it doesn’t appear to leave any time for normal things like dating, going to gigs as a punter, or having lunch with your mum?
Ha! Well, to be honest, and I feel kind of bad, but I just don’t go to that many gigs as a punter these days. I guess when we were really just touring heaps and heaps I’d find myself at a gig 3 or 4 times a week, whether we were playing with them or just in town or whatever. I’m a bit out of the loop really, there are a lot of really cool bands coming at the moment I just really wish I had the time to keep up with them all.
Well word is you have been doing some side projects with some bands in Perth…
Well I played a little bit with a Perth band called The Fuzz, but Abbe May has sort of got her own thing going now, so the band kind of fell by the way side, I just think she wanted to do something different, but it was really cool while it lasted. There were some other guys I was jamming with as well, but you know, Jebediah is my one true love. Anything else I do will just be a blip.
Well, a side project that I hope is not a blip is the Wiggles 20 year anniversary album.
Yeah, what is that! Such a great concept, I’m not even sure if I know all the bands that are on the album but I’m pretty certain that all that were asked said yes, it’s a pretty cool gig to get, I know Spiderbait have done a track..
Have you recorded it all yet?
Yeah it’s all done. I imagine its probably being mastered and almost ready to drop, not sure of the exact release date though. I am just really fascinated and excited to see how it all turns out.
Which Wiggles song did you guys do?
We did a track called “Getting Strong”. It’s about skipping with a rope, jumping up and down, and a couple of other things of that nature. I’ve got a couple of nephews, and they are basically my only contact with The Wiggles, because even though I know they have been going for 20 years I basically missed the boat on that one.
Guns ‘N’ Roses were my Wiggles. They were the biggest band in the world there for a little while… there was a lot of hair metal going on lets just put it that way, and it wasn’t really the content that had me hooked as a young kid, more the energy.
Well surely jumping up and down to hair metal is the same as jumping rope to the wiggles! So lets talk about your brother for a sec, being in a band together for over 16 years, have you two ever had any Gallagher moments? Ever had a massive fight, stormed off stage, thrown something, refused to work together? Or are you just rare perfect siblings?
Well Kevin does get irritated at me sometimes, sometimes it gets a bit heated, almost coming to blows… well, it kind of did come to blows once…
When? What happened?
Well there was some booze involved, we were touring, and we were in a really small town and the accommodation wasn’t really up to standard, it was a bit of a dingy motel and with the bunch of us in the same confined area.
Kevin was in bed, or trying to go to bed and I thought it would be kind of funny to pull him out of bed by his legs and he just was not in the mood for that at all. He fired up pretty quickly and proceeded to punch me in the arm and gave me a massive bruise that lasted about a month, It’s not that much of a hardcore story, but it bloody hurt!
– Tegan Louise
Jebediah dates
Jebediah play Melbourne this week – check out the rest of the tour dates.
