Songbirds

"We're working on a lot of new songs at the moment,” Jason Leca confirms, when asked if the press blurb means that a new album is in the works. “Whenever we're not playing live we're working on new stuff. We don't like to play new songs until we really feel they're ready, so we actually have quite a lot of new songs that we haven't played [live] yet, we're still working on them.”

Kingfisha's debut took four years to arrive, a result that Leca's bandmate Drew Stephens noted [in this publication] was due to a concern with defining the band's sound correctly. With that first release now out of the way, the band are feeling more comfortable in moving forward. “I think once that album did come out, we were really happy with how it sounded and really happy with the producer Paulie D, with what he was able to bring out of us,” Leca says. “I think after you release that first album and put your sound out there, how you want to present it, that gives you a stepping stone to what direction you want to go in next. I think the next album… It won't be the same as [Kingfisha], that's for sure. But it definitely helps, I think. It's like anything, once you present something you can grow from that.”

Leca's own journey to dub/reggae began in an unusual place: British punk-rock. “I got into dub/reggae when I was 17 from a band called The Clash,” he explains. “That's where I sort of started from that perspective. And then that drew me to stuff like King Tubby and Lee Perry and I just really love the genre; and we all have a love for that kind of music, especially dub music. It's a very pigeonholed sort of genre, but we try to bring a songwriting aspect into it. It's an interesting medium to do songwriting in, because a lot of other bands I've played in have just been instrumental, so to do something [as a] very songwriter-oriented band in that genre is good, it's quite challenging.

“There are lots of different styles that have evolved from dub and reggae and there are lots of different genres that have stemmed from that as well. I've come from the background where I like to play a bit of post-rock and… You're kind of the sum of all your parts really. Everybody has a musical journey and you're grabbing a bit from here, a bit from there, and I suppose a lot of that will seep into the music you play regardless of what genre of music you are playing. We've all got various styles and backgrounds from the bands we used to play in [that we bring to Kingfisha], but that love of dub/reggae is definitely the glue in Kingfisha.”

With gigs booked around Australia until May, Kingfisha are looking even further afield for the rest of the year. “We're looking at going over to Europe hopefully – we'll be getting confirmation about that at the end of March,” Leca says. “So hopefully we'll be going over there for a couple of weeks to a couple of festivals, one in Hungary – we're really keen to get over there. Other releases… I don't know, we'd like to do a dub album version of our album actually,” Leca laughs, enthusiastically. “So that's something that might be on the cards in the future, doing some remixes of some of our tracks or getting other people to do it as well. And I think we're going to be doing a lot more writing this year, so that's heaps on the cards for us.”

Kingfisha will be playing the following dates:

Friday 22 March - The Hi-Fi, Brisbane QLD
Saturday 23 March - Sol Bar, Maroochydore QLD
Sunday 31 March - Fisherman's Wharf Tavern, Gold Coast QLD
Friday 5 April - Tanks Arts Centre, Cairns QLD
Friday 12 April - Spectrum, Sydney NSW
Friday 26 to Sunday 28 April - Apollo Bay Music Festival, Apollo Bay VIC
Sunday 5 May - Wide Open Spaces Festival, Alice Springs NT
Saturday 11 May - The Great Northern, Byron Bay NSW