Erratic: Funk That.

Erratic play the Orient Hotel on Thursday, the National Hotel in Toowoomba and the Sands Tavern in Maroochydore on Saturday. Oscillate is in stores now.

Sydney groove funk outfit Erratic’s debut long player, Oscillate (with it’s pumping single Future Funk) found the band instant acclaim in their home town, and it’s now being shopped around for an overseas release. Brisbane audiences get their first taste of the quintet this weekend. Guitarist Shet (short for Shetland Pony – he wouldn’t elaborate any further…) gives an insight into the band’s inner workings.

How did the Erratic sound all come together?

“Scriv, the guy that does all the samples and all the loops, is really into electronic music. He just creates all these wicked funky beats and we just put together all these riffs over the top of it. When we recorded the CD, a lot of the instruments were played live in one take, and then we just built them on top of what Scriv had already done. It’s all composed around that really.”

Is that how things work live for the band as well?

“Live we use a like a sequencer, drums, guitar, bass, percussion, and Scriv plays keyboards and decks.”

Sounds like a full rock line up…

“Yeah, it’s a real live sound. You can still go balls out, but it’s still a constant kind of think behind it. There’s a lot of improvising in the songs – you can give or take different things. It makes it different each night.”

I understand the band are currently shopping yourselves around to a couple of UK labels, what’s the story there?

“Our manager just got back from a couple of months over there, and she got some really good feedback from a lot people at Sony and Virgin, those kind of guys. They really liked the album, so hopefully we can follow that up now. It’s really positive, so we’re psyched.”

How long ago was Oscillate actually finished now?

“We recorded it back in December last year. Some of the songs we’ve had kicking around for about three years. We started writing together about three or four years ago, until we got up to the level where we had enough material for a live set. It really started coming into shape late last year. It was pretty much all done in our home studio on a Mac.”