Despite their pop-jazz roots, Elana Stone maintains that she and her musical cronies still “rock the gigs pretty hard”. And how.
Elana and Co. have just released Your Anniversary, an eleven-track pastiche of pop, rock and jazz/lounge. Elana tells us about the process…
“Long!” the lady exclaims. “It was a three-year process; it was not planned that way, it just turned out that we had to decide to go to Europe and tour in 2006 rather than record, which was the right decision at the time. At the end of all that, a couple of members actually got married, I ended up briefly moving to Melbourne, I actually thought the band wouldn’t continue…there was some inter-band conflict, I was in Melbourne for eight months, I moved back up and finished the album. We started and everyone was keen, I was happy. It was fun”
“We’re academically trained musos; a couple of us are dropouts [laughs]” Elana explains, on the origians of her musical companions, “but we all went to music school; we’re all big jazz heads but grunge and rock and pop get a look in as well. We’re all really into music; we end up with a mixed pot of music, which is hard sometimes, because we’re impossible to market to people. We straddle a couple of different universes”
So how did the songwriting of Your Anniversary come to be, in all its loveliness?
“Generally, I’m not a consistent songwriter; I find it have to get to a point where I feel pressure. I have something happen or I’m just in a gray mood and wanna write and feel musical, or I have some musical idea I wanna put words to, it comes from an idea where writing is a cathartic outlet, when I don’t have anything to write out, when I’m happy or well-adjusted, it can be a lot harder”
“I’ve written a song on this album which is more about my sister than me and her experience with her partner, and there’s another song I’ve written from another singer- songwriter’s perspective…you just have to pick an idea that’s strong and make it fit with the idea of the music; sometimes it can come from nothing, sometimes it can come from the bottom of your heart. It is an important skill to hone. I don’t think of myself of lyricist, I just do it but I do really enjoy it”
Though there are no shows at the minute (which, being the festive season, is understandable), Elana promises a real rip-snorter when the gigs come around.
“It’s a pretty involved kind of show; our shows are basically centred around ourselves as people; a showcase of all the shit we love to do; rock, jazz, I do a bit of Janis shriek stuff, some croony Joni stuff, it’s a varying show. It can be an emotional rollercoaster ride, but we also we like to dress up and have fun.”
Your Anniversary is out now independently.
http://www.myspace.com/elanastoneband
