Hat Fitz & Cara are a Queensland folk duo founded upon the musical and romantic connection of the eponymous Fitz and Cara Robinson.
Their raw, retrophilic approach to folk music has taken them all across the world, and now, in preparation for their latest tour supporting new album After The Rain, the pair talk about the recording process and the fresh ideas for performing that have sprung up along the way.
It’s early morning when Robinson’s voice sounds down the phone line. She and Fitz are busy packing for the upcoming tour, and that’s an impressive feat in itself, considering they’ve just come home from celebrating New Year’s at Woodford Folk Festival. Robinson goes through the inventory of things the band will need on the road.
“One of the main things that comes with us is the guitar and Fitzy’s good Fender amp. Then for me it’s the kick and snare. But if we’re in the car, we bring the whole lot – full drum kit, dresses, the whole shebang.”
Robinson calls over her partner Fitz, who sounds off a friendly greeting and freely lets Robinson take the lead in the conversation once more. She explains their plans to feature a full choir at various shows on the tour.
“As we were making the album, we thought it’d be really cool to have all these voices on some of the songs,” Robinson says. “Now we have eight songs featuring choral harmonies. They really add a 1940s gospel vibe to it.”
Enlisted for the Herculean task of organising the choral parts on tour is Peter Lehner, conductor of the Lismore Street Choir and Winsome Gospel Choir – both local groups around Nimbin, a regular touring hub for Hat Fitz & Cara.
“I write all the harmonies by ear,” Robinson says. “But we’ve been really lucky to have Lehner, who brought his 50-piece choir with us for the Nimbin Bush Theatre. He wrote out all the parts for us, which was great, though we’re finding that doesn’t always help when organising choirs on the road, as not everyone can read music.”
After The Rain represents new territory for Hat Fitz & Cara, who left behind their usual producer Jeff Lang for Angus & Julia Stone collaborator Govinda Doyle. “He lives much closer,” Fitz says. “Lang lives in Melbourne, so that’s more than a 20-hour round trip for us, but Doyle’s just on the Sunshine Coast.
“Over the last two albums produced by Lang, he said to play the guitar and record the singing later. So I got out of me old way of thinking and now everything’s much better. One of the main focuses we wanted in this album was to have as much of the live sound as possible, so we tried to stick to that very closely. One of the main things was keeping it really raw.”
Fitz and Robinson say this tour will be extra special because they have decided to document their time on the road, including their collaborations with the choirs.
“We’ve got a few videos we’re doing and we’re planning to record all the different choirs and put them together at the end on a big video,” says Robinson. “We only came up with the idea to do it recently. We’ll probably do the footage ourselves. “I think we’ll do a wee bit of a documentary on it.”
After The Rainis out now through Planet; andHat Fitz & Cara appearSaturday January 28 at The Basement, withGuns For Choir, The Fossickers.
