Lincoln Le Fevre and the Insiders get competitive
Like a lot of great musicians, Lincoln Le Fevre has ideas about music. Not the vague, ecstasy-high fluff that we hear from the Australian Idol set like “music is what I feel in my bones”, but concrete theories about what music is, and what it’s supposed to be. “There are so many ways to value music.” Lincoln told A Fine Line recently. “Some see it as art, where the avant garde needs to constantly seek to break new dogmas; some as a thing to feel and dance to; others see it as a display of technical proficiency where learning to play music is not much more than a couple of little boys trying to see who can piss the highest at the urinal.”
Lincoln’s new group, the semi-eponymous Lincoln Le Fevre and the Insiders, don’t shy completely away from the urinal piss-match of guitar solos. But a cursory glance at their myspace reveals that the music has more to it than schoolyard shenanigans: namely, great pop hooks, an alt-country vibe and a good dose of down-the-pub storytelling. This last aspect is no accident: “for me [music is] about communicating something, and telling a story.” Says Lincoln. “I'm not much of a lyrical poet, so my songs usually have one quite literal meaning to them, but I try to give them depth. Sometimes they're autobiographical, but mostly they're just stories.”
In “Best Friends Girl”, one of the group’s myspace tracks, Lincoln tells the archetypal story of the bloke smitten by his mate’s missus. The plot is simple, with an obvious twist and a happy ending backed by a campfire acoustic riff, but the song is great because it’s sung in the first person, allowing Lincoln to explore the blokey delusion with which the protagonist denies his forbidden crush. Notwithstanding the country music aping plot arch, there’s something very Australian about this song. Lincoln explains: “I grew up as a bogan, maybe, but nowhere near the country.” The alt-country tag sits uneasily with him: “I love alt-country, and it has certainly inspired the new sound, but it's a totally appropriated persona. It's just an opportunity to tell stories in a context.”
That context is inevitably Australian, and Lincoln belts out his tunes in a distinctive Aussie accent that avoids the cringe-inducing twang of Missy Higgins. It says a lot about the American origins of rock music that this was a conscious choice by Lincoln, who originally sang like a Californian and had to train himself to sound like an Aussie when he picked up a guitar: “I'd have to slowly read the words aloud and listen to the accents and inflections, and then try and speak them in tune before singing them. It took a few months before I'd really nailed it, but now if I listen back to old college recordings, I cringe.”
***
Lincoln has been something of a stalwart of the Tassie music scene in recent years. In addition to front-manning Fell To Erin, Lincoln has worked his production and studio skills on Red Rival, The Scandals and Enola Fall, all the while teaching music to college kids. If that sounds stressful, it is: “I burned out pretty hard a couple years ago and didn't really want to play music any more” Lincoln told me, “and most of that came down to all the frustrations that go with the business side of things.”
In order to curb those frustrations, Lincoln, a born n bred Tasmanian, is taking more of a Holiday Isle approach to things lately: “I don't really want to 'make it' in the traditional sense anymore, so I can't see any real need to uproot” he confesses. “[Tasmania] is such a beautiful place to draw inspiration from, and frustrating as a small-town mentality can be sometimes, it seems to prevent the kind of rockstar egos that a bigger city might breed.” The isolation of Tassie has other perks too: “I wouldn't have had nearly as many opportunities anywhere else either.”
Those opportunities seem to be picking up for Lincoln and the Insiders lately, having been featured on Triple J’s Unearthed and building some hype on their aforementioned myspace. But in the arch-conservative, attack-dog vicious Australian music industry, this isn’t to say that it’s smooth sailing: “I'm recording [our] album in my lounge room with a bunch of hired and borrowed gear” admits Lincoln. And though he would be more than happy to free up some lounge space and record a high quality studio album, Lincoln isn’t waiting for it to happen: “If a record company offered me a contract, I've got no reason to turn it down, but I'm not exactly expecting any phone calls.”
While the phone remains silent, Lincoln Le Fevre and the Insiders’ debut album is taking shape. When I spoke to Lincoln, he’d been busy recording. “I just finished doing some banjo parts tonight” he said “We've got most of the tracking out of the way now, I've just got a bunch of singing to do, then I'll be able to start mixing.”
For anyone with an interest in trad rock, alt-country or Australian music, the album is going to be worth a squiz: “I think I have ADHD sometimes” says Lincoln. “If music is about those four things I mentioned before, telling a story, smashing some shit, making you want to dance and playing a meeedley-meedley guitar solo, then I want to try and cover as many of those things as I can to make it feel like a complete record. Jesus, I sound like a wanker, don't I?”
“This time round I'm trying not to worry too much about [business] shit; being a solo project the financial burden is only on my shoulders, so I can do what I like, and if I go broke, then fuck it.”
Like a lot of great musicians, Lincoln Le Fevre has ideas about music. Not the vague, ecstasy-high fluff that we hear from the Australian Idol set like “music is what I feel in my bones”, but concrete theories about what music is, and what it’s supposed to be. “There are so many ways to value music.” Lincoln told A Fine Line recently. “Some see it as art, where the avant garde needs to constantly seek to break new dogmas; some as a thing to feel and dance to; others see it as a display of technical proficiency where learning to play music is not much more than a couple of little boys trying to see who can piss the highest at the urinal.”
Lincoln’s new group, the semi-eponymous Lincoln Le Fevre and the Insiders, don’t shy completely away from the urinal piss-match of guitar solos. But a cursory glance at their myspace reveals that the music has more to it than schoolyard shenanigans: namely, great pop hooks, an alt-country vibe and a good dose of down-the-pub storytelling. This last aspect is no accident: “for me [music is] about communicating something, and telling a story.” Says Lincoln. “I'm not much of a lyrical poet, so my songs usually have one quite literal meaning to them, but I try to give them depth. Sometimes they're autobiographical, but mostly they're just stories.”
In “Best Friends Girl”, one of the group’s myspace tracks, Lincoln tells the archetypal story of the bloke smitten by his mate’s missus. The plot is simple, with an obvious twist and a happy ending backed by a campfire acoustic riff, but the song is great because it’s sung in the first person, allowing Lincoln to explore the blokey delusion with which the protagonist denies his forbidden crush. Notwithstanding the country music aping plot arch, there’s something very Australian about this song. Lincoln explains: “I grew up as a bogan, maybe, but nowhere near the country.” The alt-country tag sits uneasily with him: “I love alt-country, and it has certainly inspired the new sound, but it's a totally appropriated persona. It's just an opportunity to tell stories in a context.”
That context is inevitably Australian, and Lincoln belts out his tunes in a distinctive Aussie accent that avoids the cringe-inducing twang of Missy Higgins. It says a lot about the American origins of rock music that this was a conscious choice by Lincoln, who originally sang like a Californian and had to train himself to sound like an Aussie when he picked up a guitar: “I'd have to slowly read the words aloud and listen to the accents and inflections, and then try and speak them in tune before singing them. It took a few months before I'd really nailed it, but now if I listen back to old college recordings, I cringe.”
***
Lincoln has been something of a stalwart of the Tassie music scene in recent years. In addition to front-manning Fell To Erin, Lincoln has worked his production and studio skills on Red Rival, The Scandals and Enola Fall, all the while teaching music to college kids. If that sounds stressful, it is: “I burned out pretty hard a couple years ago and didn't really want to play music any more” Lincoln told me, “and most of that came down to all the frustrations that go with the business side of things.”
In order to curb those frustrations, Lincoln, a born n bred Tasmanian, is taking more of a Holiday Isle approach to things lately: “I don't really want to 'make it' in the traditional sense anymore, so I can't see any real need to uproot” he confesses. “[Tasmania] is such a beautiful place to draw inspiration from, and frustrating as a small-town mentality can be sometimes, it seems to prevent the kind of rockstar egos that a bigger city might breed.” The isolation of Tassie has other perks too: “I wouldn't have had nearly as many opportunities anywhere else either.”
Those opportunities seem to be picking up for Lincoln and the Insiders lately, having been featured on Triple J’s Unearthed and building some hype on their aforementioned myspace. But in the arch-conservative, attack-dog vicious Australian music industry, this isn’t to say that it’s smooth sailing: “I'm recording [our] album in my lounge room with a bunch of hired and borrowed gear” admits Lincoln. And though he would be more than happy to free up some lounge space and record a high quality studio album, Lincoln isn’t waiting for it to happen: “If a record company offered me a contract, I've got no reason to turn it down, but I'm not exactly expecting any phone calls.”
While the phone remains silent, Lincoln Le Fevre and the Insiders’ debut album is taking shape. When I spoke to Lincoln, he’d been busy recording. “I just finished doing some banjo parts tonight” he said “We've got most of the tracking out of the way now, I've just got a bunch of singing to do, then I'll be able to start mixing.”
For anyone with an interest in trad rock, alt-country or Australian music, the album is going to be worth a squiz: “I think I have ADHD sometimes” says Lincoln. “If music is about those four things I mentioned before, telling a story, smashing some shit, making you want to dance and playing a meeedley-meedley guitar solo, then I want to try and cover as many of those things as I can to make it feel like a complete record. Jesus, I sound like a wanker, don't I?”
“This time round I'm trying not to worry too much about [business] shit; being a solo project the financial burden is only on my shoulders, so I can do what I like, and if I go broke, then fuck it.”
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