INTERVIEW: The Rubens

Three brothers and a close family friend grew up surrounded by an array of charismatic music. They learnt how to play instruments and developed their own charming band. They're called THE RUBENS and they couldn't be in a better place right now.

They've recently announced their debut self-titled album to be released by their label Ivy League in September, with a national headlining tour to follow.

I had the pleasure of talking to the band's keyboardist Elliott Margin about how everything has come together so quickly, considering the boys only established themselves in February of last year..

The Rubens' current killer single titled 'My Gun' was also the band's first demo (check out the brand new video clip HERE). Sam wrote the song and eagerly waited for Elliott to come home from school to add his musicality to what was created so far. It was then handed to Zaac and the Margin brothers' good friend Scott Baldwin to complete the track. The whole thing was recorded at home and uploaded online in the hope that someone would listen to it.

“It was a long shot but we were hoping for Triple J when we first recorded that. And then when 'Lay It Down' got picked we were just kinda surprised. Like, we love that song but we always thought it was one of those songs that people didn't fully appreciate. It was one of those songs that, you know, you would hear the album and you kinda like love that song the more you listened to it. We didn't think it would be the one that grabbed people, we thought 'My Gun' would. So we were stoked about that, really, really happy. Yeah.”

Little did they know that the airwaves would enable 'Lay It Down' to be placed at #57 on 2011's Triple J Hottest 100.

After things started to take place, their success did nothing but grow.

Dean Tuza – a good friend of the group - met New York based producer David Kahne in France for an audio engineering seminar. He introduced Kahne to The Rubens with 'My Gun'. Kahne fell in love instantly and considered producing the band's debut; despite the fact that they were unsigned and had only just started playing live shows. This was a massive part of the band's career as the man has been known to work with the likes of Paul McCartney, Regina Spektor and The Strokes.

To get the ball rolling, lead guitarist Sam Margin flew over to New York to meet Kahne. “Yeah he went over with Dean Tuza, the guy that we know from our hometown. He was the one that hooked us up with David so those two went over there to get the whole recording process sorted out and make sure it was all ready to go before the rest of us got over there. There wasn't any point in all of us going and paying for accommodation for a whole month before when there was nothing to do kind of thing. We didn't have a great deal of money so we couldn't really afford that.”

Eventually things started to concrete, so the rest of the boys joined Sam to meet and record with Kahne. “It was amazing, kinda daunting at first. Obviously he's worked with all those huge names in music so it's kind of scary going to the studio and meeting him for the first time knowing all the work he's done. But that all went away pretty quickly because he just makes you feel comfortable. He's a really, really nice guy, down to earth, makes you laugh and stuff, just having a joke in the studio.. He just really loves music, he just loved recording music and we loved recording with him.”

For a band coming from Menangle (a small country town in New South Wales) it's a pretty incredible thing to consider how fast-paced the group's career progressed.

“It's just unbelievabe, you know, it's kind of ridiculous how quickly everything had happened. Especially cause we hadn't been together for very long, when we got over to New York it was kind of the time for us to really mature as a band and get a lot better at what we were doing because we realised how big everything had become, how hard we'd have to start working to make sure this album worked and everything cause we didn't have a great deal of experience. We had to really learn a lot very quickly. Yeah it was a bit stressful at times because you know there was a lot riding on our shoulders but we had a lot of fun recording the album for sure.”

Prior to any communication The Rubens had with Kahne, they didn't even know they were writing material for a record, “There wasn't really a process of writing songs for a record. We didn't really know we'd be recording a record, we were just writing songs for our live show and everything. There was never that type of pressure. It was kinda like we just wrote songs whenever they came to us.”

The band have already played all over Australia, selling out shows at venues such as Oxford Art Factory in Sydney and the Corner Hotel in Melbourne. Now with their debut coming out, the boys will again be hitting the road next month. I asked Elliott where they were most excited to visit.

“I think that something that us boys just continually talk about is the Forum in Melbourne, just because we've never been there but we've seen pictures and we're just blown away by the venue because it seems absolutely ridiculous that we'll be playing there. So I think the Forum is kind of high on our list for, you know, our favourite show or our most anticipated show. It's gonna be a big show in terms of production and everything as well so we're all very excited about that for sure. Forum and the Metro and then of course all the other shows as well. Especially regional shows because they're smaller and a lot more intimate, a lot more fun. You get to lose yourself a little more.”

Just this week the boys signed to artist management Umbrella Music, to support the boys for their biggest tour yet. “We were speaking to a lot of different people because obviously things are getting really big now. We need some big management on board and we met these guys and they were just really nice guys, so we hooked that up, and yeah it worked out well.”

After signing to Ivy League (Cloud Control, Youth Group, Alpine), the group gained a release date. The self-titled record will be dropped on September 14^th. “It's not really set out as a concept story it's just our songs that we like. Just The Rubens.”

Words by Hannah Galvin

LISTEN TO MORE NEW MUSIC HERE