Link to our Facebook
Link to our Instagram
Link to our TikTok

INTERVIEW: The Babe Rainbow

19 June 2014 | 5:37 pm | Alean Penaflor

Rainbow Bay's psychedelic outfit The Babe Rainbow chats to us about their latest single and more ahead of their east coast tour.

10372157_577869785661667_7507267494544485295_n

Angus Dowling, Kool Breeze and Dr. Elliot Love-Wisdom; these are the three 'purveyors of all things good and right in the world', of the kaleidoscope tinged and blissfully magical band of THE BABE RAINBOW.

Brimming with '60s nostalgia in both sight and sound, the Rainbow Bay guys have a new tune called 'Secret Enchanted Broccoli Forest' along with a handful of shows in support of its release. Ahead of their mystical east coast tour, vocalist and drummer Angus had a quick chat with us about their latest single, vegetables and his penchant for croissants.

Plug into the latest music with our FREE weekly newsletter

You’ve recently released your third single ‘Secret Enchanted Broccoli Forest’. What’s the story behind that?

It’s a recipe in this cookbook that we all like and we just started playing blues and Kool Breeze has this big sitar and it was a muck-around song. It just turned into a holy mantra.

So did the video just come along with it? Was it easy for you guys to think of a video to go with it?

Oh no, not at all! I mean that was really lucky that that came together. Sam [director] - was just around visiting. He just had this cool camera and everyone just fooled around. That was lucky, that video. It’s nice though, if you watch it, it’s got really nice colours in it.

Yeah it does, so it just naturally came together then!

Yeah, I mean we were all just at the café in Byron and he was there filming stuff and we just went out there.

Like you said before, the single came from a cookbook that you guys were reading.

Yeah we all work together on a farm and it’s just like a vegetable farm and we just do the harvest out there. It’s the best cookbook that one.

So do you have a signature dish that you love to cook?

I’ve been eating a lot of pumpkin lately. The pumpkin risotto’s pretty good.

Is that your favourite recipe at the moment?

I don’t know, it’s so hard not to change it every night and experiment. Zucchini soup’s pretty good, Elliot’s pretty good at making soup.

You guys are about to embark on five shows on this tour coming up.

Yeah baby! It’s gonna be so good! I’m so excited.

What can we expect from your live shows?

Everything! - I’m in the bookshop right now in Murwillumbah and we’ve built this cool studio inside the bookshop and it’s this little room, like this box. There’s only three of us so we can fit in this little room filled with rugs all over it, so we can play during the day because it’s above a bank. Anyway, we’ve got this whole new set worked out and it’s just going to be really sweet.

So you’re bringing that kind of atmosphere to us.

Yeah I think we’re just developing our sound, it’s nice though, it’s nice in here. I didn’t think we’d be able to do it, but I think we’ve done it.

So this will be the band’s first tour of the East Coast?

Nah, I mean I guess that doing a single – that’s such a weird sound it sounds like someone’s singing. Do you hear that?

The whistling?

No, it sounds like someone else is singing or something. It’s like static, I don’t know. Hey, you know what is so cool? Radio hams. Have you ever heard of a radio ham?

No, what’s that?

Well it’s like, I’m not exactly sure but it’s kind of like an old term for someone that tunes on set frequencies with a big radio thing and they bounce signals off storm clouds and like tune into things and can talk across and stuff.

Do people still do that?

Maybe - but we’ve written a song about it so, anyway you’ll hear that.

What’s the song called?

It’s called ‘Radio Ham Blues’

‘Radio Hand Blues’

Radio Ham Blues. The word ‘ham’ is so bizarre.

Wait, are we saying ‘Radio Ham’ or ‘Radio Hand?’

Ham! H-A-M.

As in like -

Meat!

Okay, that is a lot weirder now than I thought!

It’s cool though, isn’t it? I don’t know, it looks weird on paper [though].

So apart from that, what else does The Babe Rainbow have in the works? Is there any new thing in the planning?

Yeah, we’ve got this cool video that Sam made that we made an instrumental sort of song for it, that’d be cool. But I guess the main thing is - I think it’d be a good time to go to America at Christmas.

Is there a particular reason, musically, that you guys are going to America?

Oh no, I just think it’d be great. I mean I’d love to go to Paris as well, but I like the California music as well, California sound.

What is it about the California sound?

It reminds me of this surf movie that I like called ‘Pacific Vibrations’. It’s just like California in the ‘70s and these hilarious like long, blonde haired dudes, real sunburnt, taking off on wild waves and there’s big parties on the beach. Anyway I think it’d be good, maybe not, so who knows?

Just cruising through, your hair flowing in the wind kind of thing.

Looking around would be nice, I’d like to go to the art galleries.

What about Paris, you said you were interested in going to Paris as well.

Oh yeah I’d love to go there, there’s this French restaurant just downstairs from us here in Murwillumbah called The Blue Frog and we pretend that it’s Paris - and they make the best croissants, ever! And I reckon I’ve tasted croissants so many times and these are the best ones ever. But, I haven’t been to Paris.

THE SECRET ENCHANTED BROCCOLI FOREST TOUR

Saturday June 21

The Workers Club, Melbourne

Wednesday June 25

Beach Road, Bondi

Thursday June 26

Brighton Up Bar, Sydney

Friday June 27

Black Bear Lodge, Brisbane

Saturday June 28

Miami Shark bar, Gold Coast

Words by Alean Penaflor

SEE ALSO: