A Talk With Rivertribe

Rivertribe were in Melbourne, Australia during the summer to recouperate after their very hectic 2003. A depleted band (of only two members: Mike Lane and Simon Lewis) played a gig at the Elizabeth Street markets to an appreciative crowd. Australia Correspondent Joel Stebbing caught up with Mike and Simon after the gig for lunch.

Joel Stebbing: Mike, when was the band formed?
Mike Lane: The band started about five years ago, playing on the street on my own playing didgeridoo/drums, started running a few tracks/loops, a few friends came along and Rivertribe was formed. It was very much a band that grew up from an on the street thing.

Melbourne-based?
Mike: Yep, this is where we started (Elizabeth Street Markets), right on this spot. It’s a good opportunity in terms of street performance. This is one of the best spots in the world, people from all over the world come to this spot, so it has built an international career for us because a lot of festival organisers and various scouts from other countries hear us play then book us for gigs. We meet all kinds of people.

Simon, how did you get involved with the band?
Simon Lewis: I was doing my own thing-chillout ambient music selling it around the place, bumped into Mike around the scene and we started talking and kind of hit it off. They asked me two months before Rivertribe was due to go to Canada and the U.S. for six months to join. I was ready to travel, it was all meant to be and the rest is history.

It is slightly restricting by the title (Christmas), but it's a good listen any time of year.

For the U.S. readers, Simon, what do you play?
Simon: I play keyboards, melodica all keyboard instruments and handle the technological side of things.

Biggest influences for the both of you?
Mike: Whenever we answer this, we get in trouble.
Simon: (Laughs) I listen to a lot of world music, probably in the electronic scene. I like Kash Kalay, Nitin Sawney. I listen to a lot of jazz as well.
Mike: Peter Gabriel, for sure. I guess Peter Gabriel is inspiration in terms of what we do, to bring ethnic sounds and instruments. He has kind of pioneered that so he is an inspiration in terms of doing what we do. The sort of instruments that we play, all that.

What places have Rivertribe played recently?
Mike: We’ve done three tours with Rebecca St. James around America, we’ve done a lot of big festivals in Canada, Singapore. It’s mainly been North America. We’ve just finished a tour of India, which was great. We did four shows in three cities.

Do you find that you pick up instruments along the way?
Simon: Definitely. What we could carry as we are fairly restricted, we would have bought heaps more but we already had our gear for the tour. We met a guy in India called Baloo, a well-known percussionist in the south of India. He took us to music stores, got us good deals and generally showed us around.

How did you get a record deal?
Simon: We have a deal with Elevate Records in Nashville.
Mike: We were playing at a pre-Olympics concert. Rebecca St. James was out here (in Australia) and her dad saw us play and contacted us not long after that and said would we be interested in a deal. We talked on and off for about 12-18 months. I visited them in Nashville and we finalized it from there.

Are your albums recorded in Nashville?
Mike: No, we record here. We’ve got a studio. It's a mudbrick house. The guy who has done all our production work until the most recent project we did, Simon's come into the team and has been working a lot more on the production side of things.
Simon: We’ve done a little in Nashville. We recorded all the violins for our last album (Christmas) in a hotel in Nashville.

Were you inspired by being in Nashville?
Simon: Everyone was busy and the studio we would normally record in was busy so we thought we’d do it here, it's nice and relaxed. Rented out two hotel rooms and went for it. We find weird and wonderful places because it's difficult to record, because the other half of the band live in North America. It's a killer commute.

How do you approach writing songs?
Simon: Lately, it’s been heavily groove based. A groove that we like, we build it round there. Sometimes we might have a concept like one of the more celtic type tunes we were playing in Canada and Montreal, we knew they liked to dance so we added a real dance groove to the celtic influence. We combined all those elements and it worked. We just throw ideas together. There are not a lot of rules, which is good. It’s not your normal instrumentation, its fairly restricting with the didgeridoo, as you’ve only got one note unless you want to change didges through the song.

Mike, how did you learn didgeridoo?
Mike: My brother sent me a couple as a gift. He'd been playing for a while and thought I might be interested. I've been playing in bands for a lot of years as a bass player and was looking for something new.

Did you study music?
Mike: No. I'm one of those guys who studied in high school, playing in bands since I was 10. I haven’t had any classical training.

Simon, where did you study?
Simon: Melbourne University for four years. I did a lot of world music. The head of the department was a musicologist, so we got to do Japanese, African drums, Indian classical—you could do anything.

Where is your favorite place to play?
Simon: I’d have to say America and Montreal. The festival there last year was huge. The audience were into it, really enthusiastic. We plan to go to Europe this year.

Finally, how did the Christmas album come about?
Simon: It was a conspiracy with Stuart Favilla and the record company. (Laughs)
Mike: Stuart’s our producer; he just loves to work. He was looking for a job and the record company mentioned doing a Christmas album. Honestly, we weren’t keen but once we got going, working with the arrangements, it was a lot of fun and I think the result is excellent. We pulled off some really nice arrangements I think. It is slightly restricting by the title (Christmas), but it's a good listen any time of year. We worked hard at achieving that. I think we put the ball in the net.