Not drinking too much before a gig was one of the key lessons indie rocker Josh Pyke picked up from the whirlwind experience that surrounded the release and tour of his debut album. Jordana Borensztajn reports.
“The first album was the first time I had done big shows and heavy touring, and you just get into a world where every night they give you a bucket of booze,” Pyke explains, at Nova’s studios in Melbourne.
“I had to learn to be a bit more professional because up to that point playing music had just been pure fun and escapism from daily life, but when that actually became my daily life, I had to learn how to not go off the rails. After that, it was a process of learning how to manage my life and my time as a touring musician which has its own set of challenges.”
With two gold-certified records to his name, clearly Pyke has nailed any challenges he’s come up against so far. His first delivery Memories & Dust peaked at the fourth highest spot on the ARIA Album Chart for eight weeks, and his sophomore effort Chimney’s Afire reached the third highest spot for two weeks.
Pyke says he didn’t feel pressure to create a second record that would out-do his first – but it’s great it turned out that way. “I try not to think about those sorts of benchmarks when I’m writing the songs, but definitely, when the songs had been written, I knew what to expect so I was prepared for the work, in terms of promo, which helps. And the fact the first album had done quite well helped the second one debut higher,” he explains.
“It’s been full-on. It’s been a full year since it came out but it’s still going strong. I feel very proud and it’s definitely an achievement. These days it’s even harder to sell records because of downloading.”
Even more of an achievement for Pyke was being a key member of the White Album Concert with Chris Cheney, Phil Jamieson and Tim Rogers back in August. To celebrate the 40th birthday of The Beatles’ incredibly influential masterpiece The White Album, the quartet hit the stage for a national tour.
“It was great. It was a real trip. We signed up for four shows and it kept on selling so we ended up doing 14. For me, it was great to be in the company of Tim Rogers and Chris Cheney and Phil Jamieson. Those guys are far more established than me and far more experienced, so it was a real kick for me to be presented on those guys’ level. It was an honor to play. The music was great, the band was great, and the crowds were amazing,” he says.
“Chris and I weren’t used to performing without guitars and that made me very nervous. I was watching Tim and Phil every night, and how confident they were on stage, and I tried to man up and follow their lead. It was really good.”
Now it’s time for Pyke to shine solo. Despite touring Chimney's Afire for close to a year now, Pyke says he doesn’t tire of his songs and has a system in place to keep the energy levels high. “I still love it. I have this fallback mechanism if I ever start to get sick of playing songs. I just start to think about all the other things I could be doing. I’ve had so many shitty jobs in my life so I just think about that and go ‘You could be doing this.’
“I write my songs from a personal standpoint so if I ever start to take the songs for granted I just start to think about what they’re about and remember what inspired the songs and it brings me back to why the songs were so special to me in the first place.”
As the final tour run for Chimney’s Afire, Pyke will be splitting his show up in a way that is guaranteed to suit all of his fans. “This tour is a bit different from other ones. I often get told after shows that people like it when I play solo or people like it better when I play with a band. It’s usually 50/50 so this tour I’m going to play one third of the set solo, one third acoustically and stripped-back, with instruments like a toy piano, mandolin and maybe a ukulele, and then the last part of the set will be with a fun band. It’s giving everybody what they want. Because this is the last bunch of shows for the Chimney's Afire record, I wanted it to be a celebration of a broad range of my music, presenting it in all the different ways I have over the last few years.”
Photo: Getty Images/gaye Gerard
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