IT’S a pleasant, surreal moment to walk into the room and see the four smiling faces of San Cisco looking back at you. They’re laughing as they try to teach their English PR agent Australian lingo, and she in turn is teaching them some of her own. Which is why instead of “G’day” Jordi (vocals, guitar), Josh (guitar), Nick (bass) and Scarlett (drums, vocals) greet me with an attempted “Orright”.
Not a bad effort at cultural adaptation for the WA kids who had only arrived in the UK a few days ago. Even better considering Nick has never even left Australia before.
They’re not just here to learn new words though; they’re on a mission to introduce their music to an international audience. And with their massive popularity in Australia, it shouldn’t be too hard.
For the minority of Australians at home and abroad who haven’t yet heard of San Cisco, they started producing some infectious pop tunes in Fremantle while still at high school and released their first EP Golden Revolver in 2010.
However, it was in 2011 when it all really kicked off with the release of their second EP, multiple gigs and festivals across the country and number seven in Triple J’s Hottest 100 for the instant hit ‘Awkward’.
2012 and it shows no signs of slowing down, with completion of their debut album as well as their first shows in America and Europe.
This also explains why we’re all sitting in a room in West London, and it would appear after a day of interviews and lots of coffee they are getting a bit of cabin fever.
As Jordi explains to Australian Times: “It’s all the extra stuff which is the worst, doing a photo-shoot, standing outside freezing for hours for a video, and travel, lots of travel.”
The others all nod in agreement at the last one, and Jordi adds: “But it’s cool to have a day off somewhere you’ve never been before and of course when we get to play our music.”
For Nick who is new to London and the UK, he’s been taking advantage of the opportunity.
“I had a look around yesterday, we went to Abbey Studios and I saw that big clock.”
The rest explode with laughter and yell “Big Ben”. It’s easy to see they are like a bunch of siblings spending a lot of time together, equally getting on each other nerves and having fun at the same time.
Scarlett, the only girl in the band, says tension usually spills over in the form of pointless arguments.
“We spent ages arguing about the safest car the other day,” rolling her eyes at the boys.
“And they were arguing about why there are different power points [in different countries].”
One thing there’s no disagreement about though is the love of playing music, and it’s easy to see for all the supposed glamour of touring, fame and the rock and roll lifestyle San Cisco are happiest when on stage or in the recording studio.
When I ask what has been the highlight of the past 12 months, they all agree it’s the completion of their very soon to be released self-titled debut album.
Josh, the quietest of the four, is happy to talk about this: “To have this big piece of our work completed and all the work that went into it is great. We’re just excited for other people to listen to it.”
And they just want to make more and more music. After the high success of ‘Awkward’ the band are looking to mature musically.
Jordi says the band are ready to progress past their old music, but it played its part too: “It’s kind of the music cycle, we’re over it but playing Awkward drives us to make more music and it helped us get where we are.”
It’s time for me to go; they’ve got a gig to get to and then are off to Berlin a few days later.
It’s seems it’s all about to happen for San Cisco as they enter the next stage of their music careers on an international level. However, at this moment, they’re still the kids from Fremantle who just love playing music.
Their self-titled debut album is set to release in May 2013. In the meantime San Cisco are releasing The Beach EP through Columbia Records in the UK on 10 December. For more information please visit: https://www.facebook.com/sanciscomusic
Watch the title track ‘The Beach’, filmed in Brighton, here: