Huon
by Bill Meyer

"This sort of music isn't a career option," says bass and guitar player Andrew Withycombe, "so we may as well have fun. We're all friends anyway." He's talking about Huon, his pop combo with bassist Ellen Turner, singer and multi-instrumentalist Mia Schoen, and drummer-vocalist-putative leader David Nichols. If pedigrees matter to you, Huon's breeding is impeccable. Different band members have been in most of Australia's finest indie-pop bands, including the Cat's Miaow, Hydroplane, the Cannanes, Crabstick, Blairmailer, Sleepy Township, and Driving Past. They can tell you what's wrong about being in a band; between them they've been screwed by record labels, toured themselves sick, and been so bored and frustrated that they had to quit their own bands. The Melbourne-based quartet's already gotten all of that out of their system, so none of it happens in Huon - the group is mercifully free of bad vibes and infighting. "It's not," Withycombe explains, "one of those bands where you're fighting to get your song played." Instead, it's the kind of band where no idea will be shot down out of hand.

"Huon is a good way to get a lot of interesting things done that in other bands would be seen as too hard or difficult or treading on band members' toes," says Nichols. "Like the disco record - I've never been in a band where you'd just say one day 'let's make a disco record' and everyone went OK. Usually everyone would go 'but what about...' or 'we have to finish X first' or 'I hate disco' or, worst of all, 'just like X did last year'. Or the concept would be lost in the making. "He's talking about the 10" mini-album "Disco Square" [555 Records], which Huon recorded in a week last year when 555 honcho, disco enthusiast, and number one Huon fan (so much so that he even released "Discoverooster," the 8 years in limbo second LP by Nichols' old band Crabstick) Stewart Anderson came to Australia for a holiday.

But each of Huon's four full-length albums abounds with the fruits of such flexibility. Inspired by anything-goes ensembles like Alternative TV and the Red Krayola, they don't even try to establish a consistent group sound. Each disc has some of the skittery drumming and propulsive six string strumming you'd expect given their past affiliations, but it might also include trippy loops-based grooves, wobbly new wave keyboard instrumentals and turntable collages. When they play live, which mostly occurs at Melbourne's Empress Hotel, Withycombe and Turner's twin basses carry the melodies as much as Schoen's uplifting singing and Nichols' more downcast vocals. Schoen's guitar and keyboard add texture to the limber tunes. "Huon is thoroughly flexible," Nichols continues. "I would not say there are no egos, but there have been Huon tracks which are just me, or just Mia, or various combinations of band members and sometimes outsiders. It's really not a matter of everyone has to be on every song, all the time. I would be perfectly happy if Mia, Andrew and Ellen made a Huon album without me. I wish they would, actually, I'd love to hear it. I could make a Huon album that would be nothing but drums.

"The word Huon is an artifact of Nichols' sojourn in Tasmania - he lived there for a few months in 1995 and 1996. It's the name of an indigenous pine tree as well as the appellation adopted by individuals who are proud to be Tasmanians (a notoriously parochial bunch) - think "kiwi" crossed with "redneck." The group evolved from the touring version of Blairmailer, Nichols' band with his brother David. When they toured the west coast of North America in 1994 the brothers recruited Withycombe and Bart Cummings, both of the Cat's Miaow, to fill out the sound. When Nichols left Tasmania, quit the Sydney-based Cannanes, and moved to Melbourne in 1996, he and Withycombe resumed their partnership. Schoen joined up in late 1997 and Huon was born. Their first audience was Withycombe's four track. Recalls Schoen, "Huon started as a recording project with Andrew and David being the primary force. They set a cracking pace, which lead to four albums being released before we'd played the equivalent number of shows. The other bands I've been in and am in have put in the hard slog of the live circuit before recording anything." "We have taken a different approach to a lot of local bands by not playing much and releasing our records overseas." says Withycombe. "A lot of muso types just see us as elitist wankers because we don't play much and release our records overseas."

Huon's first album, "Epic" [555], was released in a vinyl-only pressing of 300 early in 1999. Next came the CD "Songs For Lord Tortoise" [Animal World]. Its title is a misremembering of the name of the Cramps' first record. Nichols saved for nearly two decades after he first heard it, waiting until he could give it a proper home. The disc features crucial contributions from several guest players, especially Frustrations guitarist Julian Teakle and cellist Bianca Cranwell. The group's current line-up cohered when they recorded "Hung Up Over Night" [555]. Says Turner, "I joined Huon for the third album because they thought two bass guitars would be a good idea. A live show was organized just after that so we worked out a live set with the same line up and I have just stayed."

That live show, supporting New Zealander Alastair Galbraith, was the genesis of their latest album, "Answers To Lucky" [Animal World]. Says Nichols, "We had a live set that we wrote basically because Alastair was coming to Australia and wanted us to support him. So we did. Then we had a whole lot of songs that we figured we may as well record. We were playing quite well by that time and it was all kind of together, and we were trying for a kind of 70s style record-in-the-country type feel. Which we gained, I think." Now that they've been bitten by the live bug, Huon's considering the possibility of touring overseas. Possible destinations include New Zealand, Europe, Japan, and Florida (Animal World's home state). Nichols, who toured enough with the Cannanes, is reluctant, but the rest of the band is keen. "I am really not crazy about the touring/ travelling thing," he asserts. "But Mia really wants to do it, and Huon is about the only one of her bands that ever could. Andrew wants to travel again. I imagine Ellen is reasonably into the idea."

Reprinted from The Bob magazine