British India

Their latest release, Nothing Touches Me,sees the four passionate Melburnians back where they belong – riding the airwaves and out on the road. I caught up with their affable frontman Declan Melia during some well-earned downtime in Sydney earlier this month.

“I’m enjoying the beautiful weather while we have a few days off,” Melia smiles. He has a softly spoken charm that puts you at ease and makes you believe he’d be just as comfortable discussing the works of Jean-Paul Sartre as he is in front of thousands of screaming fans.

“We’re all feeling really good. When we toured for Nothing Touches Me earlier this year, the album was so new it almost didn’t feel real, whereas this time around we’re more used to the setlist,” he explains. “The material has already been tested and we know what works and what doesn’t. “So we’re a lot less tense and we’re able to enjoy ourselves more.”

It may be a surprise to hear Melia express doubts about British India’s music, but it’s their drive to produce albums they can be proud of that sets them apart from others in the pop/rock world today. “I look at successful music, and sometimes the lyrics feel like they’re an afterthought,” Melia says. “You can get tricked into this mentality where you think that stupidity sells or that the lowest common denominator stuff is what it takes to get yourself heard on the radio, or to get 80 million downloads.

“Our credo from the beginning is to always try to be the antithesis of that. Especially in this country, pop music should be intelligent and clever – we should aim a little higher. I hope we never fall into that trap. Songs don’t need to be stupid to be accessible.”

Clearly Melia knows a thing or two about songwriting, as all five of British India’s studio albums have debuted in the top ten of the ARIA charts. However, life hasn’t always been so rosy. Despite the success of the band’s fourth album, Controller, in a 2013 interview Melia revealed British India had almost reached breaking point. “After the release of our third album, Avalanche, we all decided to take a holiday, but it was the worst thing we could have done,” he recalls.

“Shock [the band’s former label] went broke and our studio got flooded. It felt like the perfect storm, and for the first time we had shocking writer’s block, which has never happened before, and it coincided with us moving into a new studio. So it was really hard not to get into a superstitious headspace about how the change in vibe had affected our ability to write, and we got really fearful that we wouldn’t get it back.”

Not only did they get it back, they returned with a vengeance. Controller went gold and British India sold over 35,000 copies of the hit single ‘I Can Make You Love Me’, with the track earning them a place in triple j’s Hottest 100 for the fifth time. “The moment that Controller came out, it reaffirmed everything for us. It really did feel like the beginning of British India part two.”

With a newfound passion and dedication around the band, Melia says the weeks spent in the new studio working on another album were an incredible time. “The writing of Nothing Touches Me was just a dream. Everyone was in a really good headspace – the ideas were coming from all four members of the band. It was a real pleasure to write and it comes through on songs like ‘Suddenly’ and ‘Angela’ – they’re more joyous than anything we’ve done in the past, and I think it was just reflecting the feeling of the band.”

While Melia seems happy and contented to soak up the sun, sand and sounds in Sydney, he admits his heart lies closer to home on the Surf Coast of Victoria. British India are planning to wrap up their year of touring with shows in Lorne, Barwon Heads and Mornington. “It’s a good way to cap the tour off. We just look at it as a holiday at the end of the year. Lots of people are around the area for Christmas and we love the pubs there, so we might as well get up and play a few songs!” he laughs.

“We don’t think of tours as big business ventures, like planning some military coup to conquer target markets or anything – we just love to play and it’s been pretty well documented that we’ll play anywhere that will have us! We just like to play as much as possible.”

Indeed, British India pride themselves on the ability to connect with a small audience at an intimate gig, or blow the speakers out at a sold-out festival. “It’s really important for us to retain the ability to do both,” Melia says. “I don’t think anyone wants this band to become a stadium act that can only play with a big backdrop and the most deluxe amps, because our best shows these days hark back to when we were playing at tiny pubs and clubs when we were first starting out.”

Ten years on, and 2016 is already shaping up to be a big year for the friendly four-piece, with their first scheduled show of the New Year set to take place at Tasmania’s Party In The Paddock festival alongside The Preatures, Violent Soho, Spiderbait and Tkay Maidza, among others.

“As far as New Year’s Eve is concerned, we’ve got the night off and are left to our own devices – but we’re looking forward to playing in Tassie in February,” says Melia. “It’s going to be huge!”