Q & A with Caulfield’s Ned Jankovic

Sydney’s Caulfield are in the thick of a cross-country tour to promote their debut album Clarity In A Sea Of Confusion. Somewhere along the way the band’s guitarist Ned Jankovic found time to chat to me about life on the road, the album, and the band’s exciting live act.

I’ve heard your music described as punk, hardcore, and alternative whatever that term means these days. For the uninitiated, how would you describe your sound?
Heavy breakdowns, huge melodies, delays that can make the Edge from U2 cry … ha. It’s mainly a mix of different styles but if I had to “categorise” it, it’s post-hardcore which is a style that mixes hardcore but with a more melodic element to it.

You guys have all been in other relatively successful bands before. What does that experience bring to this new outfit?
It brings a lot of things, better ways to tour, other, newer methods of promoting the band to the songwriting itself. Having all that experience helps the band progress in the right direction

How did you all come together?
Myself, Mahan and Andrew had a band around five years ago. Sadly the band disbanded but about a year and a bit ago we just started to jam again and here we are! We found Brad and Colin from ads on the net, but funnily enough we all knew each other from the scene.

You’ve just released your debut album Clarity in a Sea of Confusion. What can you tell me about it?
This is a record we are all very proud of. So far we have had an amazing reaction, and this CD translates well to our live show, which is what we want. This CD represents us to a tee. The title itself means a lot to us. We were searching for so long and this band is our Clarity. It’s brought us together to write some kick ass music.

I’ve heard this CD described as the perfect introduction to your band. Why do you feel that way?
It has so many styles/elements. Future releases, we can go any direction. We wanted to show people that we aren’t afraid to experiment a bit and I think we were successful with Clarity.

You’ve supported some great bands this year but you’re finally headlining some shows through this month and the next. How does it feel to step up as the main event?
A bit nervous, but it won’t stop us from kicking some ass at the shows. We are still relatively a new band so we still have a lot of ground to cover and new audiences to introduce the band to. The shows themselves are amazing and we are playing with some killer bands so these shows are going to be special!

You’re covering so much ground this tour, from east to west, so you must love being on the road. Why do you find it so appealing?
Still wondering that myself! Honestly not sure why, but just love every aspect about touring. The drives are always fun, you get to hear some insane stories. The people we met on tour, the little towns we get to stop at, even when we have to sleep on the floor, that’s always cool cause we stay with good friends so its always chilled. I can go on, but just to be able to travel is what I personally love and gets me away from the nine to five.

How do you keep the shows fresh when you’re clocking up so many kays?
Changing the set list every few shows always helps. Also since we are writing so much, we always put in new tracks in our set. Also, we have never been the band that plans our live show as in performance wise. We are a very intense band, we move around a lot, so the show itself never really get stale, but does cause some injuries.

Victoria seems like a surprising omission from your touring schedule. Can fans down south expect some shows in the near future?
Of course! We all love Victoria, and are working hard to do some shows there! Hopefully early 2011.

After this tour wraps up, what’s next for Caulfield?
More and more touring, alongside writing new material. Just keeping everything fresh.

If you haven’t caught up with Caulfield, you can see them at the following shows.

17 December 2010 – Old Gaol, Mt Gambier
18 December 2010 – Black Market, Adelaide
23 December 2010 – Bull and Bush, Baulkham Hills
6 January 2011 – Rosies, Brisbane
7 January 2011 – The Fort, Brisbane (All Ages)
8 January 2011 – Miami Shark Bar, Gold Coast
13 January 2011 – Hot Damn, Sydney
15 January 2011 – Crest Hotel, Sylvania
16 January 2011 – The Wall, Sydney (All Ages)

Image used with permission from AAA Entertainment

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