Waikiki: Home Run.

Waikiki play The Healer on Friday, Livid at the RNA Showgrounds on October 12 and The Zoo on November 16.

The world of indie rock in Australia isn’t the easiest thing to break into for a new band, with most quickly fading into obscurity. Newcomers from Sydney Waikiki are turning that rule on it’s head, bursting onto the Australian rock scene with the first single New Technology, and quickly following up with a tour de force album I’m Already Home. I caught up with lead singer Juanita when they were up in Brisbane supporting No Doubt, and had a lovely chat about the trappings of fame, their inspiration and plans for the future.

“It’s very cool, very very cool” offers Juanita when asked about their upcoming show that night with No Doubt. “They’re not my favourite band in the world, but I definitely dig what they do. The new stuff is far more catchy than the old stuff, it’s got a lot more bite.”

Waikiki have only really been around the scene for a couple of years now, and one would imagine this sudden success could be quite overwhelming.

“I don’t know if I’d call it whirlwind success. It’s been two or three years of working very hard and trying to be successful. It’s nowhere near as easy as you’d imagine.”

Indeed not, in fact one would think the opposite really. Clawing your way out of obscurity, playing hundreds of shows and finally releasing a long player is no-ones idea of a walk in the park. And after all that, are Waikiki happy with their debut album?

“We recorded at the Milkbar in Sydney as well as two songs at SingSing in Melbourne. We did the whole thing in three weeks to record, and then just a week to mix it all. We tried to get a different sound in every song we did, but still like to be quick with the whole process. There is only so long you should spend on stuff. It’s sounding great too, they had all these awesome old valve amps in the studio that we used, and I think everyone is really pleased with the sounds.”

“It’s our first album and it’s really exciting to have it. I don’t know how it’ll go, really. The singles have been going really well, the support Triple J have been giving us in that department has been really great, but the whole album is a different thing. There’s only three or four single like poppy tracks on there. The rest is a lot slower and sparse and moody, and has more depth to it. It’s very eclectic and not just a whole album of pop songs. I’m more nervous about the fact that it’s our first album and I’m not worried about selling a trillion copies, I’d rather set our selves up to be well respected and to lay the foundations for the future. We could have one really great pop song, have a whole day of fame, and then it’d all be over. We want to do this for a long time, so we’ve got to be clever about it.”

So Waikiki aren’t aspiring to Andy Warhol’s 15 seconds of fame?

“No, we’d rather have at least an hour, if possible. I think the only way to do that is through good music. Even if you’ve only got that one song that’s great, you can still come up and back it up. Look at Radiohead with Creep. That was a huge track, and everyone thought that was the end of Radiohead. But they re-invented themselves and came back with OK Computer, which broke rules and re-affirmed their place as a fantastic rock band. We want to do the same kind of thing, and keep our sound moving forward. With the limited resources we’ve got we’ve created the best thing we could, and hopefully we’ll keep moving forward. We are already thinking about our next album and looking towards the future.”

“I’d love to explore different creative boundaries as we move forward but still keep it within the boundaries of writing good music. That’s a primary concern of me, when you’ve grown up with bands like Dylan, The Beatles and all that kinda stuff it’s all really tattooed on your brain.”

One can definitely here the Beatles in Waikiki, but I’d even go so far to suggest Kim Deal and the Breeders, and maybe even Frank Black and the Pixies.

“That’s quite funny really, as none of us own any of their albums and don’t really know their work at all. We get a lot of comparisons to them, so I suppose that’s a compliment. That’s strange really, and proves we’d have the same sound anyway, regardless of what bands have come before us. I think music continuously feeds off each other, taking influences from all over the place. That’s the only way it can grow. We just kind of feel like babies still, finding our way thru things at the moment, but it’s all going to be OK. I’m excited about it all, and looking forward to growing with the music.”