Far From Strangers: Van She

Van She has been on the scene since 2005, releasing an EP that same year and playing a string of shows both as headliner and support. August 2008 sees the release of their long awaited debut album, titled simply V, released on the label Modular.

Tomek Archer, on drums with Van She talks about the debut album.

“It’s taken longer than we expected definitely… if we recorded the first 12 demos and then made that the record it may have been better or it may have been a bit simplistic,” he says.

“We spent so long making it that it makes it out to be a bigger deal but at the same time it is just a record, we are looking forward to making another one. We are proud of it, totally, we finished recording a year ago and we can’t wait for everyone to hear it… I haven’t listened to it top to bottom for a few months… we hear the tracks week in week out when we play them and stuff. And it was nice to start hearing them on the radio and to hear people say ‘I heard that song and I hadn’t it before’ it’s really cool.”

Van She recorded the album in England, working with acclaimed Producer Jim Abbiss, who has worked with artists such as Massive Attack and Arctic Monkeys to name just a couple.

“He’s (Jim) really has done some big records. It was good to work with someone like that because now we know what you get from a Producer of that caliber. And going and working in a studio that is owned by one of the guys from the Kinks... it was just really good.”

So how did Tomek find working with a Producer?

“He definitely did some things that we would have done differently ourselves, for better or worse… We all kind of make music and produce music a bit as well and we all have our own opinions about how things can and should be done and how we like things to sound. We are not fresh out of school and we’ve all been making music for years and years,” Tomek says.

“For us we recorded and produced all the demos ourselves but we went over to London and basically went with Jim, lets play this together and make this a real record. He helped us bring some sonic clarity… and we actually used a lot of the recordings from the demos… the synth parts and a lot of the backing vocals, a lot of the effects… we re-recorded all the bass and the drums and guitars and some vocals and stuff like that, there was a mixture … even though Jim produced it there was a lot of our own character that stayed in the record.”

The list of gigs that Van She have played both in support and headlining is impressive. When I spoke to Tomek, the band had just returned from the stages of Splendour.

“We’re all in Sydney at the moment… we just came back from Splendour over the weekend, we have a couple of days of press and that kind of stuff and then Friday morning we are flying to Japan.”

So how was Tomek’s experience of Splendour?

“Splendour is awesome… it’s the best festival in Australia. There is a lot of good festivals but Splendour is great because it is just a one off thing and its in Byron Bay and it’s a great excuse to take the weekend off and go and have a holiday. We were pretty flat out but I saw bits of a few bands… a bit of Devo, Presets, Wolfmother,” he says.

I quizzed Tomek on the Devo experience for him.

“Yeah amazing… I think a lot of people were disappointed because it’s not always the best to see a band when they are past their prime. I just love their concept so much that it transcended that… They had their workman looking suits on, the big yellow suits and the red helmets and then half way through the show they started stripping and threw their red helmets into the crowd and throwing all their suits in and then they just had black t-shirts and shorts and big knee pads on… they are like the dorkiest guys ever but they have such great concepts.”

The next major festival Van She are set to play is Parklife. So is the band excited about playing the festival?

“Parklife is going to be a really good tour… there are some really good artists on the bill.”

Van She has supported a string of bands including Daft Punk, Pnau, Sneaky Sound System and Operator Please. Tomek talks about supporting Daft Punk.

“Modular brought Daft Park out, it was almost like a Modular Party with Daft Punk headlining. It was incredible, such a good opportunity for everyone on the label and they were such good parties and Daft Punk obviously have been such a big influence on the label but also on a lot of the artists as well.”

With Tomek mentioning the bands plans to head overseas to Japan, we spend a moment talking about Van She’s overseas adventures.

“We seem to be doing incredibly well in Japan – we’ve only been there once but we go again this weekend - it’s so amazing, they just lap it up, they are such passionate people (the Japanese). Last time we were there we played a couple of shows in Tokyo and went to Osaka and we had some amazing people looking after us and they put us up in amazing hotels and totally turned it on… we had such a good time…,” he says.

“When we tour and when we are touring hard we will maybe see a different angle of all the countries we go to…. In 2006 we traveled through America and we were kind of doing it under our own steam and it was cool and we didn’t play that many shows, it wasn’t like we were driving city to city across the country, staying in caravans or something we just flew to LA, San Francisco, San Diego, New York but still we were sharing rooms and all that kind of stuff and it is kind of good to look back on it and remember we were staying in that hotel… Hollywood Boulevard… it was pretty funny,” Tomek says.

“We had this crazy experience when we went to record the record. We were recording this time last year and what our management and the label did to help us pay for the trip, they sent us every weekend to different cities through Europe to DJ and play shows and stuff like that. Just before we went to London on the way there we stopped in Berlin for five days and we played this show at the Berlin Fashion Week under the Brandenburg Gate and we got put up in brand new five star hotel and it was amazing. And then we flew to London and Heathrow was a nightmare and we got there at 1am we turned up to where we were supposed to be staying and we were locked out. Sitting on the kerb… oh man 5 star to like no star and stayed in this tiny apartment which was cool, four of us in an apartment the size of a teenager’s bedroom for six weeks. It was good to get out, every weekend we went to different places,” he says.

“We all loved Berlin but maybe it was because of our experience there and we found London a bit tough … where we were stayed and we were a bit scrapped for cash… We loved Barcelona and Stockholm and Paris was really cool as well.”

Van She play:

3 Sep- The Chilli Lounge- Wyong
4 Sep- Manly Fisho’s- Manly
5 Sep- Fowlers- Adelaide
6 Sep- The Capital- Perth
7 Sep- Fly By Night Club- Fremantle
10 Sep- Peninsula Lounge
11 Sep- Karova Lounge- Ballarat
12 Sep- The Prince- Melbourne
13 Sep- Reality- Launceston
14 Sep- Curlys- Hobart
18 Sep- Cambridge Hotel- Newcastle
19 Sep- The Forum- Sydney
20 Sep- The Roxy- Paramatta
21 Sep- Hunter Valley Brewery- Maitland
24 Sep- ANU Uni- Canberra
25 Sep- Wollongong Uni- Wollongong
26 Sep- Bizzo’s- Carringbah
27 Sep- Parklife Festival- Adelaide
28 Sep- Parklife Festival- Melbourne
29 Sep- Parklife Festival- Perth
4 Oct- Parklife Festival- Brisbane
5 Oct- Parklife Festival- Sydney

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