Last time the BRAG caught up with Sarah McLeod, she was in the company of The Tea Party head honcho Jeff Martin. The pair had cooked up a collaborative single, ‘Man The Life Boats’, which united McLeod’s hooky melodic capacity with Martin’s known affection for Eastern-inspired riffing. A tour followed, as well as the promise of more recordings in the future. But alas, it’s more than 12 months later and we’ve heard nothing else. The good news is that – along with Baby Animals drummer Mick Skelton – McLeod and Martin have completed an album. What’s less encouraging, however, is that the details of its release are entirely up in the air.
“We were supposed to put it out at the beginning of this year,” says McLeod. “One thing leads to another and it just keeps getting pushed aside and shuffled around. To be honest, I really don’t know when we’re going to put it out. But it’s really good, so I’m sure we’ll get it out at some point. Everything may change in that band. It’s this ever-morphing beast. At any given day it could go in any direction depending on people’s moods.”
This uncertainty will surely frustrate fans hankering for a follow-up to ‘Man The Life Boats’. But to be fair, McLeod’s not been slacking off lately. Already this year, she and Skelton have been performing duo shows around the country, and next week she’ll kick off a national tour supporting From The Jam. That band is the work of Bruce Foxton, who was the bassist and occasional lead vocalist for UK mod-punk band The Jam. Essentially, Foxton is fronting a trio and pumping out all of The Jam’s hits. Understandably, McLeod’s pretty excited about the shows. And she’s not the only one.
“My sister Leah, she’s a couple of years older than me and she was just obsessed with the ’80s punk English sound,” McLeod says. “She steered my musical influences for most of my teenage years. I told her that I was doing this tour and she was so excited. I’ve finally worked out how to impress my sister.”
McLeod originally planned to play these shows backed by Skelton, but a last-minute alteration means she’ll take the stage alone. A seasoned acoustic performer, she’s unfazed by the change of plans.
“I’ve developed a percussive thing going on with my right hand with the acoustic guitar,” she says. “Even when Mick’s not there, I’m still doing it anyway with the right hand. It’s about percussive acoustic and big, belting singing. It’s a pretty rocking show. I get a sore neck from playing acoustically. I’m the only person I’ve ever known that comes away with a sore neck from sitting on a stool playing acoustically.”
Once the tour’s over, McLeod will step back into the role she’s most famous for: as the frontwoman of alt-rock four-piece The Superjesus. Throughout May, the band is hitting the road alongside its Oz rock predecessors Baby Animals. Instead of making it a complete nostalgia fest, The Superjesus have a new single due before the tour kicks off.
“I’m excited about it,” McLeod says. “I just put the vocals down for it last night, so I’ve now got the vision of what it’s going to be. I was a bit of a doubting Thomas, but now that I’m starting to see it fall into place I’m like, ‘Ah, OK, we do know what we’re doing.’”
McLeod penned the as-yet-unnamed single with Superjesus guitarist Tim Henwood. McLeod and Henwood have written plenty of songs together in the past, but this track came together in a rather different manner.
“When we first got back together two years ago, Tim and I started writing straight away,” McLeod says. “We wrote five songs in two weeks because we were really excited. Then we just never did anything with them. Of late, when we decided we’re actually going to release something, I wrote another three. I threw a song into the works, which was a track that I’d written a few years ago on acoustic guitar. Tim took it away and re-did the instrumentation and made it a bit darker. Strangely enough, that’s the one everybody’s chosen for the first single. I’ve never done it like that before.”
It’s nearly 12 years since The Superjesus’ last LP Rock Music came out and a whopping 20 years since the band formed. Keeping afloat in the music biz can impose a gruelling workload, and McLeod’s definitely looking out on a busy year. Still, when taking stock, she resolves that sticking with this music caper wasn’t such a bad move.
“I work all the time, and you can only see half of it. The stuff that I have to do behind the scenes to get all the music prepared is an obscene amount of work. But on the flipside of that, do you really call it work? Sitting around jamming, getting drunk, singing to people – it’s not really work. It’s just a lot of the same kind of partying. When you weigh it all up, I can’t complain. I think I am blessed to do what I really like doing and be able to do it for a living and still be seen as somewhat relevant, which is quite hard to do when you’ve been in the business this long.”
Sarah McLeod is supporting From The Jam at the Factory Theatre onSaturday March 7.The Superjesus will appear alongside Baby Animals at the Metro Theatre on Saturday June 6
