infusion says...

Kristen Dagg caught up with Infusion's Frank Xavier on a hot Sydney day, in the flamingo coloured courtyard at the Darlo Bar. Kristen decided on beer, and then he got a cider. Kristen was jealous. Apparently he’s trying not to drink, so cider is a compromise. The silly season is punishing his liver.

Covered: The Hungarian club scene, getting nude at festivals and not wanting to join a band.

Kristen Dagg: So, Frank, tell us about your recent album release, All Night Sunlight?

Frank Xavier: Well our last album was in 2005, so it’s been a long time between releases. We were touring a lot so we couldn’t get any work done, and we were living in Brighton in the UK and we wanted to do a new album, so we basically shipped all our gear over there assuming we were gonna do some work. We were playing three or four times a week so we were all really tired all the time and we just didn’t end up doing anything, so we shipped all our gear home.

When we got home, we were all living together in Melbourne, but we were all working separately, as we all have our own studios and we were never getting together to write. So we ended up hiring a beach house in Anglesea near Lorne, in Victoria for a month. There would be no distractions, no mobile reception, no parties or events to go to like there were in Melbourne. We set up a studio and just worked really hard and came up with heaps of stuff.

Then we went on tour and when we got back we did a month on the Mornington Peninsula, in Victoria in the middle of winter. It was freezing cold and we just sat inside all day with the heaters on, working. There were no distractions at all and we got a lot done.
We managed to get out of our last record deal and thought maybe we could do this ourselves and we went full steam ahead. We got the engineer James Brown, who is legendary producer Alan Moulder’s protégé. He was doing stuff for Nine Inch Nails and Placebo. He loved the tracks and we just went from there.

KD: So you’re playing in Budapest for NYE, why did you choose that gig?

FX: Well, for the first time in 12 years we had NYE off, and we got this offer to play in Budapest and we thought, yeah, why not? We have a really big following over there for some reason. It’s going to be crazy though. Its 30 hours worth of travel one way for a one-and-a-half hour gig, and then 30 hours back. But it should be fun. Budapest is always fun. It’s in a huge stadium so I hope there will be people there! The warehouse parties we usually play there have around 4000 people so they’re pretty fun.

KD: There’s this whole other side to Budapest I never knew existed.

FX: Oh yeah, Eastern Europe is like that, no one realises. The party scene is huge. Australia just can’t compete - we are tiny in comparison.  We have more festivals though. We have festivals coming out of our nose.

KD: What festivals are you guys playing at this season?

FX: We have a hippy festival called Rainbow Serpent in Victoria. Do you know it?

KD: Is that the one where everyone gets nude around campfires?

FX: I hope so! I won’t get there after dark, so that’s a good thing.

It’s actually known worldwide, people are coming all over for it. It’s better known than Big Day Out and Good Vibrations internationally; people rave on about it. People from all walks go there, not just dance heads or trance heads or people into bands; it’s for those looking for a whole festival experience.

We’ve also got the Kiss My Brass festival in Victoria on the same day! So we are on there at five o’clock, then we have a three to four hour drive through the bush to get to Rainbow Serpent by ten, so it should be interesting.

KD: Wow; very rock ‘n’ roll. What’s happening next year for Infusion?

FX: Well the record has come out internationally so we are planning on a US tour and then maybe all the festivals in the UK. So, a lot of touring.

KD: How are you guys on the road together? Do you get along?

FX: It can be very hard - you do get sick of each other - but we never fight. We never fight!

KD: How about trashing hotel rooms?

FX: No we don’t do that either. I think that’s why people ask us back, because we are pretty easy to get along with. And cheap (laughs). No really, we are easy going. We just go somewhere and try everything; we want to really see the countries we go to. We always get them to take us to local restaurants and stuff and try the local food. I think that’s an Aussie thing. You see some of the big American acts, and often they just want a bucket of KFC and its like ‘Man! You’re in China! There’s so much amazing food!’ You have to absorb the culture. We are always up for trying the weird stuff.

KD: How did you guys get together?

FX: Well it was always Manny and Jamie; they went to school together and formed Infusion then. Manny is classically trained and Jamie was into soundtrack scores, and they started doing electronic stuff together.

I met up with them when they were in a band competition at Kinselas in Sydney.  Their keyboard broke during the sound check. I was working in a music store down the road and they brought it down to get fixed. They told me to come and check out the show and so I did and I was sitting there going ‘I like that song’. I had a little cassette tape that I taped off 2SER with some of their tracks on it, but I never knew what the songs were or who they were by.

It turned out we were all from Wollongong, and so we ended up getting together and playing down there. We did four or five songs over a two-week period. Then they had a gig at Big Day Out and they asked me to play with them. I had never been in a band before; I didn’t even want to be in a band. I was never interested in it, but it was pretty fun.

I started doing more gigs with them, and they lost a member and then it was just the three of us.

KD: So you’re a reluctant rock star?

FX: Well, yeah, they asked me to join and I said no at first. I had other things I wanted to do. I was studying electrical engineering, so I was focused on fixing gear and designing gear, not actually using it. But I changed my mind.

KD: Now, way out of left field, to give this interview a festive flavour, tell us: what’s the crappest Christmas present you have ever got?

FX: Ooh God I dunno. Oh, hang on. It was a CD pickerupperer. I don’t know what they are called, but it’s like a suction thing to pick up CDs so you don’t get your finger prints on them, that’s pretty crap isn’t it?

Infusion are playing at the Beach Road Hotel in Sydney on Dec 23, for further dates check out their myspace.

infusion, all night sunlight, rainbow serpent