Temper Trap – Interview with Toby Dundas : Music Interviews

It has been quite an interesting year for Melbourne’s Temper Trap. After having a modicum of success in their native land Melbourne’s own Temper Trap thought that they would be best served with an indefinite sojourn through the UK to establish their delicately emotive harmony-rock.
Some time later and with legions of adoring fans back in the UK, The Temper Trap have also managed to inflict their catchy melodies and amazingly pure vocal harmonies on even more soon-to-be fan worldwide. Watch Out For’s Chris Wood was lucky enough to catch with drummer Toby Dundas to discuss Prince, the rigors of touring and Kevin Sheedy.

How does the experience of playing in front of family and friends affect you?

It’s a different experience. To see those smiling faces in the crowd, it certainly helps with the pressures of performing in front of the people you don’t know.

So what would you say makes you more unsettled: playing as a headline act at a Glastonbury type thing? Or playing a small intimate bar with only a couple of hundred people?

The bigger stages are a little easier because there is that separation. When you’re playing a tiny club the people are right up in your face, and that certainly breeds a level of intimidation and pressure. You’re really exposed and out-there. I guess you can hide a bit on a big stage a little more than the smaller ones.

Dougy (Mandagi) has alluded to the fact that he likes the bigger shows for much the same reason. Did you only notice this once you started to get these bigger shows?

It wasn’t until we had that experience playing those bigger shows that you kind of see the difference in audiences. All bands grow up playing small venues with no stage and a few people milling about and hopefully getting an audience and stuff. It’s a whole new experience when you start playing festivals.

After releasing Conditions earlier in the year (last year), how would you chart your growth in popularity over the relatively small amount of time since?

It’s really increased significantly since we’ve come to London. I guess the biggest shows of our own that we did before we came over here were The Corner (Melbourne) or The Annandale (Sydney).
So we came over to London playing really small shows again to like 100 people. We played our album launch to 800 people. And we’ve got our December show, which is kind of like our ‘farewell show’ before we get back to Australia, which is also sold out with 1400 people. So it’s grown pretty significantly in the 6 months since we left.

Does the band have any pre-show ritualistic-type things before a show?

There are a lot of vocal warm-ups before a show, trying to get them warmed up for all the harmonies. There’s also a lot of stretching. It’s kind of a physical show. We try and put a lot of energy into it. Just before we go on stage we all get together in a huddle and get our minds in that space to try and give a good show.

Does anyone give a rousing half-time-like footy speech pre-show?

Our manager Danny is mildly obsessed with Kevin Sheedy. So he’s been known to throw out a few Sheedy-isms as moments.

So that keeps you focused does it? [Laughs]

[Laughs]…either that or it just breaks the tension because we all laugh at him!

Off the stage, what do you guys get up to on-tour to maintain that level of energy to fully embrace the rigors of touring?

We’re really lucky because we were friends before we were band-mates so all the hard-times and such, we can do our best to laugh them off. So, the long hours in the van, and the loading and unloading of gear…we stet out to make a few laughs out of it.
We’ve just started watching The Wire. That passes the time like nothing else!

What do you prefer out of touring and recording?

Personally, I prefer recording. I’ve come from a sound engineering background so the studio has always been a magical place for me. I really like it. But I know some of the other guys really hate it. Doing shows is fun, but the touring part can be quite hard sometimes because you’re away from your family and friends. So if I was going to pick one, I’d go with recording.

Given your background of sound engineering, do you get a chance to strut your stuff behind the mixing desk?

I tend to create a lot of sounds. A lot of the sounds you hear on the record I made on the computer. And in the studio just messing around with peddles. Jim has been a help. He’s really good at that stuff. I’ve definitely learnt a lot from watching him make sounds and stuff. But I leave it to the professionals when we get down the real job of mixing.

Sweet disposition has featured in quite a few TV shows and various TV promo’s. Is there something you think it should be endorsing that it currently isn’t?

I can’t really think of anything, but I was really into the footy finals promo’s. I’m a Melbourne supporter so it was nice vague involvement in the finals. That was a bit of a funny one.

I wouldn’t worry about it too much, Melbourne will be up and going soon enough.

Yeah, hopefully we do get a few good draft picks and Luke Ball sneaks across in the pre-season draft. [Laughs]

With the overall sound on the Conditions, U2 is an obvious influence. Are there any other influences that people may find surprising?

Probably Prince is one that certainly influences Dougy’s (vocalist Dougy Mandagi) vocals. His music has an amazing underlying groove. I think that’s something we try and hide in our songs too. Certainly not to the same effect as prince, but it’s something to aim for.

David Bowie is another one that maybe people might not necessarily think straight off the bat. Certainly in terms of influence, we tried to write an album that kind of crossed genres and mixed styles together…something that wasn’t the same thing over and over again. And over his career, Bowie was very good at experimenting and trying different things out.

What’s on the cards as far as new material?

We’re trying, I suppose. We’re pretty tired on the road…we’ve got a pretty grueling schedule. But we’re all writing stuff on our own. I think we’re going to try and do a few weeks in Australia when we’re back and take a bit of a break. We’ll go back to the little studio we had in Surrey Hills and work on a few songs so we can change the set.

What’s one song in history you wish you could have written?

Suzanne by Leornard Cohen.