Major Leagues, consisting of Jaimee, Anna, Jake and Vlada outta Brisbane have been making quite the impression both locally and internationally with their dreamy, guitar-y garage pop.

Having shared stages with Wild Nothing, Beach Fossils and local folks Bloods, they’ve got a brand new EP and are about to go gallivanting around the country on their very first national headline tour.

Elizabeth Elias caught up with Jaimee Fryer, who happened to be spending the hot Brisbane arvo in the company of some beer at a local joint. In between discussions of said beer and talking about the weather, they got a chance to chat about the upcoming tour, post-breakup song writing sessions on the studio floor, and what happens when you get a bunch of mates to eat things in front of a video camera.

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You guys have been going really well, locally and internationally, touring and your Weird Season EP coming out, what’s it all been like?

Yeah, it’s been awesome. We’ve had so much support from Brisbane and what not, what can I say? There’s been a lot of local support from other bands. We’re quite tight knit with other bands in the area, so that’s been really helpful. I feel like probably 99% of my friends happen to be in a band or just playing music anyhow, so it’s pretty cool.

How did you guys come together?

We always make up a different story for different interviews, I think Jake always jokes about us going into a fuel station and getting fuel together, and that’s how we met. Yeah anyway, that’s totally not true. But I think it was mutual friends, and we were in another band previously and we weren’t all happy and ended up making music that we did enjoy writing, so that’s how we basically started out.

What was the process of recording your EP like, what’s the band dynamic like?

We were basically in a friend’s basement, Sean Cook, and he sat there with us for three days and we performed each song. Anna only brought like,shells into recording or three songs, one of them was a shell and she hadn’t even written the lyrics yet, so while Jake was putting in the drums she was writing in the lyrics, it was sort of after a hefty breakup, she was just feeling really inspired to write. I think that’s what she does best, she’s amazing with lyrics. She’s just very talented.

Having put together the song so last minute, you must coordinate together pretty well. Do you have a set vision or idea of everything you wanted as you went in or did you kind of see how things go?

I don’t even think we had any idea what we were doing when we got into it. We were kind of going in on a limb. We jammed together, and we ended up having a really good time and we thought if we went in with just the shell of the song that we would be able to gel with each other and jam it out. But yeah, I think we’re good like that because we’ve been playing so long, that it’s quite easy to gel. And we hated Endless Drain at the start. I wrote this really horrible guitar riff and everybody thought it sounded like a circus song so we got rid of that and re-recorded it completely, and got some feedback in there and made it a lot more grungier and less circus like, I suppose.

And you recorded with Sean Cook, from Yves Klien Blue and Miro Mackie (Little Scout). What was it like working with them?

They’re actually the loveliest people ever. It’s almost like, I don’t know if you’ve ever been to church before but you just walk into church and like everyone will be like super friendly to you and like ask you a billion questions and act like they’re your best friends. When I met Miro Mackie, for the first time he was the friendliest lad, almost like he’d been a best friend that I had just been catching up with.

You’ve been doing quite a lot of touring, Bigsound, supporting Wild Nothing, Beach Fossils, all that, do you guys have a highlight or particular story from that?

Yeah totally, it was so fun. We ended up hanging out with the Beach Fossys afterwards and that was something I never thought we’d do. We had been major fan girls of them forever so it was pretty sweet. And they played an amazing set as well and I was just infatuated with their set. I think we all just stole little things from their set that we can all somehow work into our own set. Very inspiring.

And congrats as it’s your first headline tour, what can audiences expect from the shows? Apart from the music that is.

Yeah, we’ll be playing some instruments, and yep… No, we’ve got a couple of new songs in the works. We’re sort of working towards doing an album this year, so we’ll be playing a few of those songs, and we’ve definitely been working on our performances. And especially with going on tour we’ve built up our confidence a lot and I think we all take in everything that happened at previous shows. Even just going out and seeing other bands play as well is just really inspiring. So I guess that’s what to expect, some new songs, a couple of chicks jamming on stage and Jake banging the drums.

I heard that when you supported Bloods you played the Daria theme song, that’s awesome! You should probably make that a regular thing.

I wish we could keep doing it but I feel like people would get bored of it after a while. But yeah, we’re playing an Australia Day show soon and we were kind of looking for suggestions of what song to play at it, like you know that Great Southern Land song. You know the one?

Yep.

[Both sing ‘Great Southern Land’, like in the song.]

It’s a perfect Australia Day song.

We were thinking of that because it’s obviously a classic but I don’t know. What do you think we should play? Have you got any suggestions?

Anything by John Farnham.

Anything by John Farnham. Yeah, exactly. I’ll definitely put in a word for John Farnham. Always a winner.

You could even go like, Go Betweens or something.

Yeah totally! Yeah, exactly.

The clip for Teen Mums is awesome. It seems like it was a lot of fun to make. Did you just get a whole lot of mates and tell them to eat things?

Yeah it was all Jake’s idea, he definitely took the reigns on this one, and we were like ‘oh, we all like eating food’, and we really do, we get together and make dinner all the time but he was just like ‘everyone bring your favourite food and were just gonna eat in front of a camera, be here at this time’. So everyone rocked up and indulged in what they wanted, and that was the clip. In slo-mo. There’s nothing better than watching someone eat something in slow motion.

And Jeremy Neale was in it too! You toured with him last year that must have been a lot of fun.

Yeah he was with Sean Cook. They were indulging on a piece of chicken together. It was really amazing. Yeah, he’s incredible on stage, he’s got an amazing stage presence, and he always puts on a really amazing show so, yeah it was heaps of fun.

What was the last live show you went to?

On New Years, I went to Falls Festival, and I watched Big Scary, and I’ve always heard them on the radio and what not, and then I saw them live and I was blown away. The drummer, I don’t know her name but she’s incredible, somehow she can keep a drum roll going at the same time as doing a harmony which is like, an incredible talent, so they were definitely a highlight that I’ve seen recently.

You said, you’ve got a new album coming up, tell me a bit about that. Who are you going to record it with, where are you going to do it..?

We have no idea yet. Right now we’re just thinking about writing the shells and then doing them later, but right now I think our main focus is just the new EP that we released, we’ve got it on vinyl now, so I’m actually really keen to just buy myself one as a souvenir, just so I can say I have it on vinyl.

Shouldn’t you get your own record on vinyl?

I guess so but I don’t really know how it works. Yeah I’m sure I can help myself out and get a free vinyl. I don’t know, maybe if I’m lucky I can throw in a shirt as well, wear my shirt around town. I’m totally joking. I hope you can pick up any sarcasm that I’m trying to get through.

Yep. What else is next for Major Leagues?

We’ve got the tour coming up, we’re coming to Sydney, we’re playing at Brighton Up Bar on February 8. So that should be sweet. And also FBi lunch break at FBi Social, on Wednesday 5th Feb, so we’re really looking forward to doing that and it’s all ages as well. Anybody can come!

WHO :: Major Leagues
WHAT :: ‘Weird Season’ Tour with The Ocean Party
WHERE :: Brighton Up Bar, 1/77 Oxford St, Darlinghurst
WHEN :: February 8, 8pm
HOW MUCH :: $13.30 From Oztix