Steve Merry (The Fumes) Goes Solo and Gets Interviewed

With some time under his sleeve and a road well-paved, Fumes singer-songwriter Steve Merry is playing a handful of solo shows in greater Sydney. Soulshine gave him a bell for a quick chat about his plans for the next little while.

After eight years of releases and touring, Sydney duo the Fumes have become a staple of the Australian independent music scene. With their 2006 debut record ‘Guns of Gold’ thrusting them into the limelight and onto the road, The Fumes had built a solid and loyal fan base that was only strengthened by last year’s release, ‘Sundancer,’ a rollicking journey of an album that has won significant adoration. The result of all that has been an almost never-ending tour, seeing them cross the country more times than you have abacus beads to shift back and forth. Now, in March 2010, having just finished a tour alongside US alt-country meistro’s Calexico, the Fumes are settling down for a little while. Speaking from his home in Byron Bay, guitarist and songwriter Steve Merry paints a picture of the week to come, a week that is barely settled at all.

“At the moment I’m just trying to sort out a few solo shows…mow the lawn when it’s not raining and look after a two and a half year old,” he says, “then I’ve got to pack my car and leave first thing in the morning to drive ten hours to Sydney with a piano and a few different guitars.”

Therein lies the busy schedule that splices the dossier of a suburban male with one of Sydney’s hardest guitarists, but is that busy lifestyle something that he revels in?

“Well, it’s what I’m pretty used to doing. I try to stop every now and then and go fishing or surfing, but there’s always something. We’re looking at heading to the States later this year, but everything’s still up in the air. We’re trying to get some grants together so that can happen, but there’s a lot of work involved in that.”

Once Steve Merry rolls into his home town of Sydney, he gets thrust straight into the thick of things, with a Fumes show at the Beach Hotel on Wednesday the 17th of March, followed by a solo endeavour that takes him to the Vanguard on Thursday, the Brass Monkey in Cronulla on Friday and Bulli’s Heritage Hotel on Sunday night. The solo shows are an extremely rare moment in sport, but something that seems like a must-see for Fumes and music fans alike.

“It’s a lot more mellow and intimate; it’s more of the song-writer’s stuff…it’s a lot lighter going I suppose. It’s not so much acoustic, I’m still playing electric guitars and a resonator, but just not at a flat out pace. There’s a couple of cover songs that I’ll play, a Townes Van Zandt song and a Nick Cave song, a bit of a piano ballad and some country style things that I’ve been working on…a bit of poetry [laughs.] It’s good, I’m enjoying it. If I can make a bit of money out of the shows then I’ll head down to the studio and record a solo album…which is pretty much how it works now.”

It’s an approach that Steve seems to find refreshing amongst the hard-arsed, hard-touring realm of the Fumes, one of the most powerful yet musically appropriate acts that Sydney has to offer.

“I started off doing this y’know? Then after a while I hooked up with Joel [Joel Battersby, drummer of the Fumes] and we turned into a flat out band. It’s kind of deconstructing it again now, which is fun and good for a change. We’ve been doing that flat out for eight years now…it’s just cool to sit down and put a different light on it, it’s just adding on to what we do. I guess what I’m trying to say, is that if you want to try to make a living out of this, you’ve gotta kind of extend yourself a bit more than staying with just one thing.”

“I’m totally pumped about it though. Joel’s just been messing around playing some different stuff and he lives down in Melbourne, so he’s gonna do some different stuff down there while we have some time. We finished most of the touring of the album that we did and are now looking at heading to the States, so we get a bit of down-time from the Fumes for a month or two, so it’s kinda cool to do something with that. I’ve done a few solo shows over the years, but they’ve always been a last minute thing where someone’s called me up the day before and I’ve had nothing organized. When you get up there and blunder it, it’s not much fun…but I’ve been working on it a fair bit this time.”

So with the pressure of the endless tour relieved for a short while, his hands on his guitars, fingers on a piano and a few solo dates to come, Steve Merry is adding a new chapter to his life’s biography, one that you’ll only get three shots at seeing for now. At the end of the day, one of the most refreshing thing about musician’s like this is that it’s not solely about making a career, a lot of it is just creating something to do.

“Yeah, that’s it…it’s too hot up here to do any work outside anyway. Apart from mowing this fucking lawn. Doesn’t stop growing.”

You can catch Steve solo at the Vanguard, Newtown on March 17th, Cronulla’s Brass Monkey on Friday the 19th and the Heritage Hotel, Bulli on Sunday the 21st.