Bull-IT Not Fade Away

Michael Tomlinson of Yves Klein Blue chatted to Chris Beaumont about the young band’s rapid blossoming and the upcoming Big O festival.

Fading away is not an option for Brisbane indie rockers, Yves Klein Blue.

The band is named after French artist Yves Klein’s famous blue paint, International Klein Blue (IKB), hoping to emulate the paint’s famed trait – eternal lustre.

“The remarkable thing about IKB is that, while most paint fades and loses its sheen, this paint has a special resin so it just doesn’t fade, it always looks fresh,” said lead singer, guitarist and “enthusiastic amateur” art fan, Michael Tomlinson.

“It’s kind of a metaphor. A lot of music we like is from 30 – 40 years ago and is still popular today, like IKB, it doesn’t fade with time. That’s the kind of music we hope to make,” he said.

It’s a positive frame of mind with which to embark on a musical career.

It has been barely three years since high school jam-buddies Tomlinson and guitarist Charles Sale linked up with bassist Sean Cook and drummer Chris Banham at the University of Queensland to form Yves Klein Blue.

Since then the young four-piece have been caught in a relentless updraught that is carrying them to dizzying heights in the music scene.

In 2007 they were scooped up by prominent label Dew Process (home of The Living End, The Grates, Sarah Blasko and Bernard Fanning) after they were named a Triple J Next Crop artist and then took out MTV’s Kickstart competition.

With Dew Process, YKB began to unfurl their wings and achieved lofty praise for their EP, Yves Klein Blue Draw Attention to Themselves.

The band then spent six weeks in the United States late last year to record their debut album, which is due for a mid-year release.

“I can only describe it as ultimately challenging and ultimately rewarding,” remarked Tomlinson.

“The stuff we came up with over there was beyond what we thought we could do.”

With a band name embedded in artistic foundations, it’s little surprise that Tomlinson’s creative process for making music ends up as a collection of shapes and drawings on paper.

“A song has different parts and layers, it has beats and crescendos and stuff like that, so for me it’s easier to map it out visually,” explained Tomlinson. “It’s like those mind maps we used to do in school. I can’t really write music, but this works for me - no one else understands it”.

It’s this kind of abstract creativity that accentuates the band’s sound, which Tomlinson and his fellow band members determinedly ensure doesn’t “adhere to or regurgitate any genre”.

Regardless of where critics peg them on the generic spectrum, YKB’s infectious blend of pop-rock rhythm, danceable beats and countless influences seems to entice fans to cross boundaries of musical taste, making the band a valuable and versatile addition to festival line-ups.

They are already festival veterans with Big Day Out, Splendour in the Grass, Great Escape and Pyramid Rock under their belt, and St Jerome’s Laneway and the Big O beckoning early in 2009.

The Big O, which will hit Australian university campuses during Orientation Week, will be a ‘coming home’ of sorts for Tomlinson, a former law student, “just don’t tell the bus driver though, I still use my student card to get around!”

Tomlinson says the band is keen to tour with heavyweight British headliners The Music and The Fratellis as well as fellow Aussie talents Ben Lee, Bluejuice and The Cassette Kids.

“I’m looking forward to it big time,” he said, “the bill is incredible – it’s great to be touring with The Fratellis again – it’s going to be a lot of fun.”

One stop on the Big O tour familiar to Tomlinson and co. is the University of Sydney Union’s Manning Bar.

It was there Yves Klein Blue rocked a stage-melting set at Purple Sneakers New Year’s Eve House Party, alongside the likes of The Teenagers, Sparkadia, British India and Bluejuice earlier this month.

“It was probably the best New Year’s I’ve ever had,” enthused Tomlinson.

“The whole place had such a great atmosphere, everyone was going off and although we were there to play a set, we felt like we were a part of the party.”

“Also, we’d just flown in from Phillip Island and we were so relieved to be back in Sydney – no more arctic winds ripping our faces off!,” he laughed.

Playing to a fervent horde of students at Manning gave Tomlinson time to reflect on his two years as a student and although now a sought-after musician, he says university was an important time.

“I really enjoyed it, I probably wasn’t ready for all the studying involved, but the social experience was fantastic - I made a lot of good friends during my first year at uni,” he said.

“It’s great because everyone has kind of broken free from the yoke of high school and has more freedom.”

“Playing to students is always good - we were students when we first started playing shows – even if it was just on the Boardwalk [at UQ],” he said.

It’s a long and taxing trek from the Boardwalk to the U.S. and back, but like the paint that inspired their name, Yves Klein Blue don’t look like fading away anytime soon.

The Big O hits Manning Bar on 27 February.

Check out more info at www.manningbar.com

taken from: http://www.usuonline.com/Publications/The_Bull/Bull-IT_Not_Fade_Away.aspx?t=1