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Music News Tamas Wells' Long, Strange Trip Monday, August 11, 2008 It’s been a long, strange trip for Tamas Wells. By Jeff Jenkins
It’s been a long, strange trip for Tamas Wells. The Melbourne singer-songwriter is an aid worker in Burma, where he made his third album, Two Years In April (Popboomerang Records).
Some of the lyrics are also quite a trip: But if you could receive in silence, you leave and love, never knelt these 19 paces from me/ And if I’d followed you in an open canoe and if I’d never liked the shirts with stripes and the news that I know you before you face all the doors ... “I think the lyrics have a bit more range on this album,” Tamas explains.
“Some of them are quite abstract and some of them are quite clear. Overall, there is a slight movement from abstraction to clarity across the course of the album.”
Tamas has also done a Japanese tour, where fans gave him origami, books and frozen flowers.
“I don’t think I ever got a gift from anyone or had anyone cry at a show in Australia,” he smiles. “Japanese music crowds are also extremely polite and orderly, so it will actually be kinda nice to have some irreverent hecklers in the hometown crowd.”
What is the story behind the title Two Years In April?
“The brief summary is that Two Years In April is a fictional story of a Melbourne girl from a fictitious urban-fringe suburb called Sanctuary Green who travels overseas and then returns home and dies in a tragic boating accident. The songs relate to different parts of her travels and return to suburbia over the course of two years. It is a little morbid, I know! Two years was also the amount of time it took to write and record the new album in Burma.”
Tell us about your work in Burma.
“I go to meetings. I talk about health. I write things down. I drive ’round for hours in four-wheel drives on bad roads. I type on a computer.”
How does living in Burma influence you creatively?
“The main influence is probably the isolation. There are so few opportunities to see bands or read Inpress magazine that you lose touch with the cut and thrust of the western music world. But, in a strange way, that is very inspiring, in that you begin to dissociate the things you are creating from a tour or a music market or other albums that are coming out. So, in some ways, I think the isolation of Burma was influential.”
Do you get any radio play in Burma on City FM?
“How do you know about Yangon’s hippest station? Unfortunately, they play only government-sanctioned Myanmar language songs ripped off from Chinese pop stars, who in turn ripped them off from ageing western pop stars. So there is not a lot of room on City FM at the moment, but I might do some advocacy with the government about getting better music on their radio stations.”
Has your album been released in Burma?
“Yes, indeed. Japanese promo copies have been distributed extensively to my neighbour, a work colleague and a Burmese grandmother, who said she wanted to do a cover version of one of the songs!”
If you’d like to heckle or give Tamas a gift, he’s playing on Friday at the Northcote Uniting Church, 251 High Street.
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