It doesn’t seem like too long ago that Two Hours Traffic was winging their way around the country with Dead Letter Chorus, yet already the Canadian band is planning a return journey. I caught up with the band’s lead singer/guitarist Liam Corcoran to chat about the upcoming tour with The Jezabels, the album Territory, and spending time in Oz.
You’re touring Australia soon to support The Jezabels. Are you looking forward to those shows?
We are very much looking forward to the Australian tour supporting the Jezabels. I absolutely love their sound and they are very sweet people. Not to mention that the shows are selling out everywhere.
The Jezabels played with you recently in Canada too, so are you psyched to be hitting the road with them again?
We got to play six or seven shows with the Jezabels in North America and we were honored to have them play with us. I think our Canadian fans were blown away by the group and I can’t wait to see them perform on their home turf.
Have they promised to show you any of the sights?
I know that Sam from the Jezabels grew up around Byron Bay and he has promised us some surfing lessons. It’s probably going to be pretty ugly on our end, because we will be first-timers, but what the hell? You can’t pass up an offer like that.
You’re really successful in Canada, so what’s it like to step out of the spotlight a bit and become the support act?
Being a support act in a new country is kind of like starting all over again. You are back playing for people who have never heard of you, and if you don’t give them something special they won’t even remember the name of your band by the time the headliner comes on. It can be scary but it keeps things fresh. It’s easy to get complacent when we play a successful tour in Canada so getting out into new areas is vital.
This isn’t your first time touring Australia, as you co-headlined a tour with Dead Letter Chorus earlier this year. What made you want to come back so soon?
It wasn’t necessarily our idea to come back so soon, but as the Dead Letter Chorus tour came to a close, the people at ABC and CodeOne were already pitching the tour with the Jezabels. We thought they sounded really cool and everything fell into place.
How have the Australian audiences responded to your music?
We had some really nice nights in Australia last time around. We seemed to get a good response in the bigger cities: Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane; but some of the smaller towns were fun as well. For our first time in the country I think we did alright.
How do you approach those shows where crowds have likely come out to see someone else?
For an opening act, it’s all about the setlist. You only have a short time on stage, so the set has to have a nice flow to it. You want to play your most hard-hitting material, the stuff that you think can get a reaction the first time around. It’s always a battle, but if you can put together four or five decent songs in a row, the crowd will take notice and you can start to win them over.
You’re coming out here to support the release of your album Territory. What can you tell me about it?
Territory was released about a year ago in Canada and since then it has been released in the United States and Australia. For the American and Australian release we have added bonus tracks from our previous record, Little Jabs, so if you buy a copy, you will get a good overview of what we’ve been up to for the past four years. The songs on Territory are a little edgier in terms of production value and lyrical content whereas the bonus tracks from Little Jabs are very sunny and immediate.
You enlisted Joel Plaskett as your producer again for the album. What does he bring to the recording process that keeps you coming back to him?
While we have grown as songwriters, Joel has grown as a producer. With each release, we feel that we understand each other a little bit better. When it came time to make Territory, we looked at our options and decided that Joel was still the best man for the job. The record didn’t get a massive response in an industry sense, but I still think we accomplished something musically.
After this Australian tour, what else is in the pipeline for Two Hours Traffic?
After this tour is over, we will be taking some time off to work on new material. There may be a short US tour in February, but aside from that we will be trying to figure out where we want to go on our next record.
Two Hours Traffic kick off their tour with The Jezabels tonight in Wollongong. You can catch these two great bands at the following shows.
18 November 2010 – Harp Hotel, Wollongong
19 November 2010 – Gaelic Club, Sydney
20 November 2010 – Clarendon Guest House, Katoomba
25 November 2010 – Bended Elbow, Geelong
26 November 2010 – East Brunswick Club, Melbourne
27 November 2010 – Edinburgh Castle, Adelaide
28 November 2010 – East Brunswick Club, Melbourne
29 November 2010 – East Brunswick Club, Melbourne
1 December 2010 – Great Northern Hotel, Newcastle (headline show without The Jezabels)
2 December 2010 – Spotted Cow, Toowoomba
3 December 2010 – Great Northern Hotel, Byron Bay
4 December 2010 – The Troubadour, Brisbane
5 December 2010 – The Zoo, Brisbane
Image used with permission from Stephen Green Consulting