Latest / HEAVY Music Interviews / 25 Years Of TRIP (TYCH) With JEFF BURROWS From THE TEA PARTY

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25 Years Of TRIP (TYCH) With JEFF BURROWS From THE TEA PARTY · HEAVY Music Interviews

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  All right. I am Jeff Burrows. I'm drummer percussionist for the band at
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  the tea party. We are heading out on tour to celebrate our twenty fifth
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  anniversary and I'm called Triptick that came out in nineteen ninety nine. Our bass
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  player, keyboard player, multi instrumentalist Stuart Chatwood aka Chats is ready and anxious
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  to get out there. And then of course Australia's adopted son, Jeff the
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  Cap Martin is he's we can't find him today, but that's okay. Yeah,
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  somebody in Australia has kidnapped the singer as we do, so you're stuck
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  with the drummer and I'm sorry, but hey, you get all the dirt
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  this way, so it's good. Might always a pleasure to talk to the
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  drama mind. Has he got it? B Jeff? Today has been really
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  good. I had a weird sleep last night and I think it's finally hitting
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  me that, you know, we're getting to go back to our second home.
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  It's been five years or a little bit more, and honestly, I'm
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  just chuffed it's and I honestly could not get to sleep until about three thirty
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  last night and I'm thinking, I got so much to do today, so
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  I'm a little tired, but I'm all jazzed up because you know, I
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  get to talk to the legs of yourself. That's good, A very sweet,
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  I'll be mate, very nice to say. As you mentioned the tea
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  Party return to Australia for the trip tick twenty five. So this June for
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  Runner shows starting in Perth on June sixteenth, and you go through Adelaide,
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  Melbourne, Sydney and Wollongong and finishing Brisbooe on June to twenty fifth. That's
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  a bit far away, mate, I know. So maybe got any shows
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  between now and then to warm up or are you just coming in eat?
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  No, we were each so with this tour, it's not like a top
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  to tail sort of album sequenced show. We're going to play eight or nine
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  including some of the deeper cuts that we've never even played before, mixed with
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  some other B sides and deeper cuts, and of course of the hits,
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  but we'll have We've got still what a month and a half or two months
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  still to rehearse on our own, which is great and which I've started,
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  and we have a five days worth of production in Australia when Stuart and I
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  get there, I believe on these seven or so and then. Yeah,
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  and we've got a couple of days for writing as well, because we've got
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  ideas that we've started working on. So everyone's pretty happy. Plans are set
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  in place, marketing's in motion, you know, the deal, all the
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  fun stuff. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. You mentioned before that it'll be
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  your first time out here in five years. You haven't been to austray since
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  twenty nineteen, So what's changed for the tea party between then and then and
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  now? I think I can honestly say it's probably an appreciation for, you
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  know, where we're at, what we've been afforded, the types of shows
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  that we get to do. You know, we've been doing this for over
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  thirty years now. And ask me thirty years ago if I thought that I'd
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  still be able to travel abroad and play shows in front of people who love
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  our music and sing along with us and so on, I never would have
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  thought that it'd be possible. So I think being grateful, more communicative,
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  and the fact that you know, it's easily the best job, if you
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  have to call it that, in the world. So you know, there's
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  no complaints here. It doesn't even really get harder. It kind of gets
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  a little bit easier because you don't worry now about back in the day we
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  would cross Canada in a van. We've crossed Canada thirteen times in a van
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  before we even signed, and you didn't know if you were making it to
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  the next town. Canada is a lot like Australia. I mean, you're
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  going from Perth to Adelaide in a van. That's essentially Vancouver. It's a
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  Calgary in a van, and it's brutal, and there's overnight drives. After
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  the show, you're still sweating because there was only one hotel, it was
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  already done. There's no shower at these tiny little clubs. So things get
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  a little bit easier as you get a little bit older, and I don't
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  know, I think we've moved in quite well. Of course, this story
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  is celebrating the twenty fifth anniversary of the album trip Tick, which was also
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  your first number one album in Australia, so it makes it a little bit
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  special doing it here. Yeah, I didn't even know that, so thanks
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  for that. I didn't know we had to eny Moore, but I mean,
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  you know, we could say that about Triptych in Australia, But Australia
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  has always been, honestly, at some points better than home country because you
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  know, it's just such a wild Like when we tour in Canada, if
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  we have a crazy wild night, it's always like that was so Australian.
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  I believe that, you know what I mean, Like Edmonton, Montreal.
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  There's a few places in Canada that it's just like, holy shit, that
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  was that was so Melbourne, or that was so Adelaide. You know.
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  So we're we're very much looking forward to it. It's gonna be such a
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  gem. I can't wait. Man, it's gonna be great. Personal.
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  You sort of touched on this a little bit more, but I want to
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  go into a bit more detail. Like the presonal says that they're going to
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  be exploring the album on a more in depth basis, So what do you
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  Well, there's some songs that we haven't even performed live and to be able
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  now that I've started rehearsing for this specifically, it's not like it's difficult to
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  to relearn it or anything like that, but it's just it wakes up these
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  the muscle memory of these songs that. I mean, some got half written
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  in studio, some were mostly written, some were changed in studio. I
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  mean, just like every other band. But the fact that we're going in
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  and we're doing songs that some were never even performed live for us is just
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  it's exciting for me because bands, like any other gig, I guess,
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  you can fall into a rut and you just don't want to become a parody
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  of your own band. You want to challenge yourself. And we recently did
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  some more symphony shows in Canada and literally a day and a half rehearsal with
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  these orchestras. And at first we were you know, of course the nerves
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  were flying and so on and so forth. But then after a while,
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  you're like, this is pretty fucking amazing. You're challenging yourself. You're in
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  your you're in your fifties, and there's not many things in life that puts
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  you to the test when you're when you get a little bit older, and
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  it just kind of elevates that whole you know, say, wow, like
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  you get the fis so on your arm, your hair stick up, and
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  and you just feel that much better about being able to do something. I
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  mean, I see that with a lot of the band, the heavy bands
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  out right now that are coming back out, and I'm like, good on
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  you, man, Like if you can get that shit done, then right
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  on, like your Sepulteeros and your pan Terrasmuf, good on them, like
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  get out there and bang some heads because for them a lot of this is
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  new again and at an older age, you just have to kind of assess
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  the situation, assess your physicality, adjust and provide. And when I see
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  that, it just makes me happy because there's zero reason for anyone to have
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  to retire for music and just be like Charlie wattson and pass away and the
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  band moves on, you know, with all the love in the world to
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  Charlie, you know what I mean, Like, why there's no need.
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  This isn't sports, this is art. You know, Painters don't quit.
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  Why quit? You know, just have a great time. And I love
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  it, especially with the heavy bands. I'm like, right on, man,
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  give it now. I want to talk more about these songs that you
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  find that have never been played before live, Like there's a reason I haven't
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  been played before live, Like it is it hard to whatever that reason is?
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  Is it hard in any way? To be able to do it now,
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  Like I suppose it be things he did in the studio that to be
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  how to replicate live. Yeah, so you're right. For me, not
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  so much because drums are drums. I mean, there are added percussions on
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  certain things, but for Jeff and Stewart, particularly on this record where there
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  was quite a bit of overdubbing and so on Jeff's singing, playing rhythm then
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  going into a solo. When he goes into a solo, Stuart's on bass
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  and then the bass keyboards with his feet take over the rhythm portion of the
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  guitar. And then that's up to them to be doing this, And it's
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  a bit of like inviting them into my world because drummers have to do four
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  limbs at a time NonStop anyway. So for them, I just kind of
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  smirk and have that our man, good good luck fellas. This is what
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  I got to do every day. But I suppose you know what I mean,
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  Jeff, Jeff like in Zi and Stuart like in to looking at a
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  picture or a painting and squinting your eyes and then drawing the primary colors out
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  of it. So you know what I mean. So if you've got a
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  mountain scape, you're going to see the white caps, a little bit of
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  the gray rock and the blue sky. So those are your primaries. You're
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  going to pull those and you're going to make those most evident in the performance.
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  So once we get back together as a whole, then we'll decide,
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  you know, or we'll figure out what is sounding best, because I know
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  they're both working on those types of situations right now. It's pretty cool.
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  Wow, And twenty five years is a long time in music, broy.
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  So do you think that Trip Chick has actually stood the test of tom musically?
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  I get asked this now and then, and I I mean, I
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  see online that people say that all the time. It's a little you know,
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  they're all of our babies, But I don't think there's really there's not
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  too much on any of our records that stand out as being like, you
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  know, some of the Gray albums in the eighties, for example, have
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  the craziest, most off the wall keyboard sounds, and you're just like,
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  oh god, no, you know what I mean, It's just like no,
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  no, So we don't have anything like that, because you know,
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  we'd always chose to use traditional instruments, whether they're from the west to the
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  east. And when we did do more of an electronic style record, we
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  were using you know, old cards and loading up sounds and so on.
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  So it wasn't very to the time to the time of the recording, you
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  know what I mean, Like we don't use the latest and the greatest,
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  We never have. We just used the tide tried, tested and true techniques
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  in recording. We try to do the drums always on two inch tape,
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  et cetera, et cetera, and then from there we just we just go
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  on. So it's always going to sound sonically very nice. And I don't
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  think it really ages all that much. I mean maybe the first album,
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  spunder Souls aged a little bit, but I'd be interested to hear what that
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  sounds like remastered very well, you know how about personally, like that was
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  half a lifetime that was all done, so like find those songs in now,
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  like does it can you still connect to the twenty five year old self?
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  I guess when you're doing it at all. So I was speaking to
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  an interview earlier, and the one of the coolest things is when management and
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  everyone starts put piecing together all the promotion items and so on, and they
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  get a hold of the photographers that shot us twenty five years ago, and
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  you get these photos. It's just like a time capsule and it feels like
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  you're right there again, and you're like, I've never seen this, and
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  you know there I am at the bar, no one has a cell phone,
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  I'm opening a bottle of wine. And then you see another shot and
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  Jeff's singing his ass off in the studio and Stuart and I are at the
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  board, and you've never seen these photos before. So that kind of stuff
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  is probably the best part of bringing back that, you know, twenty five
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  years ago feeling because we were only gosh, I was thirty and the boys
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  were twenty nine at the time. And although I mean, god, my
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  oldest son is turning twenty nine this year, so that puts it into perspective,
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  but it never feels like that, do you know what I mean?
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  Like, I don't know how old you are, but twenty five years ago
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  it doesn't feel like that. But when I was a kid and they used
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  to say, oh, back in the sixties, I used to think,
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  Jesus Christ, the sixties are eons ago, and now people the nineties are
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  further away from the sixties was when I was a kid, and it doesn't
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  feel that long ago at all. So I don't know what's happened to society,
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  but it's pretty cool being able to, you know, pull out this
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  piece of music and to perform it again just like it was intended to be
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  when we first released it. There's something special about that, because you know,
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  I just don't want to be a band that writes this and tour is
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  the album and so on. If you've got a collection, much like a
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  visual art collection, that goes on tour and people go to enjoy it because
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  they have certain memories of that song. They were in high school, their
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  first kiss, their wedding song, they're a funeral song for a relative.
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  All of that stuff plays such an important part in it, and for us,
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  it's just it's magical because it just doesn't It doesn't feel like twenty five
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  years ago, like time is the weirdest thing. And I hope I'm not
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  sounding like an old guy because it's just strange to me, because you know
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  how fucking weird it is, because it doesn't seem like it. I don't
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  know if it's because I'm in a band. I suppose if I worked in
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  a factory for twenty five years, maybe it'd be like Jesus, that's been
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  a long time. Whereas this, Yeah, you know, I don't know
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  the album as a whole, like tripchick mate, Like how looking back,
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  how significant was that in the tea parties career. I think it's quite signific.
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  And that was the final album of the nineties for us, and we
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  did an album every other year. We had our Indian ninety one, Splendor
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  ninety three, Edges ninety five, Transmission ninety seven, and this in ninety
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  nine. And when you think about it, how prolific we were at that
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  age and how much fun it was. And I mean, I don't want
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  to get in trouble, but without being tied down as much as you do
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  get to be tied down later into your thirties, forties and now fifties with
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  family and providing and paying bills just like everybody else. Back then, it
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  was you know, let's get in the fucking van and go and here we
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  go, and you're writing. You start writing at eight at night. Before
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  you know it, it's seven in the morning and you're still jamming out.
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  And that is the beauty of being in a young band and being able to
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  do it. So the significant I think is that was an era that closed
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  off an era for us, and I think I think it's very significant,
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  and I look back on it with great honess. It's such a cool thing
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  to think about, you know, five records and ten years pretty pretty cool.
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  Yeah, speaking of those five records in ten years, night like,
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  how would you study that the band's sound changed from yourself sooted debut in ninety
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  ninety one through that album in ninety nine. Oh, every album it's just
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  like, we're gonna start here, I'm gonna take a left turn at Albuquerque,
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  really like a right turn over to Sweden. It was everywhere, it
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  was all over the map. It was nice to not sound like a band
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  and not not throwing any band in particular under her bus. But some bands
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  have that as their sound and that's the way it's going to be and boom
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  boom boom, boom boom, and they have great success. For me,
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  particularly if I'm going to be just talking about myself, I loved the fact
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  that, you know, we weren't afraid to do a softer song or a
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  heavier song, or a really heavy song, or a song where I'm just
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  sitting out or I'm playing tabla, or I'm playing a different type of percussion,
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  because some drummers are just like, no, I'm the drummer, I'm
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  playing drums. It doesn't bother me at all. So I kind of liked
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  the fact that each album, you know, the first the indie album was
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  trying to find our sound. The first real Emi Capitol Records album at Spider
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  Sola's was quite bluesy, and that came naturally because we grew up right across
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  from Detroit City and the blue scene is huge. And then then we started
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  touring and we started getting into all of these indigenous style instrumentations and tunings and
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  so on. And then we got into that and then we were like,
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  you know what, let's switch it up again. And then, you know,
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  we went more electronic, but we went more classic electronic. We didn't
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  go for the sounds of the day and so on. And then then we
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  wound up going back to almost our high school years where when we were listening
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  to eighties music. Comparing it to Triptych, there's a lot more melodic and
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  it was a lot more of a mish mash between heavy and soft and dark
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  and light. So it's been a that was a very nice decade. I
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  mean, I couldn't have asked for anything more. You know, great band,
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  great records, great marriage, great kids. You know, I had
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  the world by the ass. I still do. I'm very fortunate. But
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  you got to think that that was quite the decade for old JB and the
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  band. Now you mentioned all of those changes, I was just in that
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  decade, like there's been another twenty four years of music in between aside from
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  the period you had off. But when it comes to doing your live set
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  up right, like that difficult? Is it? Because you've got so many
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  different styles and contrasts and emotions that you with your music, Like, did
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  it be hard to get it following? Wouldn't it? Like you'd have to
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  put it? Really is? Stewart is the one who usually puts together sets.
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  But that's I think that's a problem that a lot of bands run into.
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  And we are one hundred percent guilty of one tour trying to please the
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  fans too much, which means because sometimes you'll have your hardcore fans that are
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  at every show and they don't want to hear Heaven coming down and again they
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  don't want to hear Temptation again. And I get it because I have bands
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  that I've seen a million times and I'm like, oh, this one again,
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  but I still don't care. But then then you have the majority of
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  the crowd who don't go to every single tour. They've got kids, they
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  got work, they got this and that, and if they get to see
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  every five to ten years, they do want to hear that song that was
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  a hit and they were in high school or you know, it reminds them
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  of something. So it's always a challenge. It's a challenge for every band,
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  especially when you know your catalog gets a little deeper than three albums and
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  that's kind of where we're at. But you know, that's a good problem
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  to have, I guess, and I just let Stewart deal with it and
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  pass it on chat. Would Chats fill this up? Man? Forget now.
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  I've got the pleasure of seeing the Tea Party a couple of times over
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  the years. And your live show is always, like I say, it's
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  atmospheric, it's intense, it's brilliant. You've got a lot of going on.
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  But what about party in twenty twenty four, what's your live show life.
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  But what can fans expect? You know what, it hasn't changed much
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  from the energy point of view. I was about ready to kill Jeff and
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  Stewart on the last run because the first four songs were just bangers, and
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  I'm like, okay, how about we do two bangers and we slow it
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  down just slightly and then we get back into it just to catch the breath.
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  But no, it really hasn't changed. The energy is still there.
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  I think I think Jeff's turning into a better front man, because i mean,
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  let's face it, he's the face of the band. He's got he's
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  the person out front. He's got great communication skills. He loves to talk
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  to the audience. Sometimes we have to tell him to stop talking, just
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  get home with a song. But you know what I mean, He's got
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  this great dynamic between crowd and communion, between the band and the audience.
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  And so the energy level is still there. We still smile a lot,
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  we laugh a lot. I know I laugh a lot because you know,
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  I'm in the back looking at these skinny asses and just having a good time
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  and watching the people in the front row having a great time. So I
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  don't think the energy's gone. I think we've learned how to, you know,
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  take it on a bit of a journey throughout the night, you know,
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  embrace those slower parts, bring it down, let everybody breathe so that
• 20:59
  they can get back into it. And then once they've just settled down and
• 21:02
  they're all chill, you hammer them over the head with a big one again.
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  So it's kind of cool. You kind of grow into that role of
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  you know, orchestrator and and the person leading the orchestra conductor. So I'll
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  go right, Thanks very much for Thomas's been an absolute pleasure of getting to
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  know you, moll brother. I'll be the Brisbane show, so hopefully I
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  Mike in front. You're going to be bris