Georgia Fair (01/12/2013)
“Definitely the longevity, sticking through the hard times. So I guess that’s what really success is, to keep on doing what you love. That’s what really redefines success to me.”
To many, the term ‘success’ has multiple different meanings. To some it’s the money in their wallet or bank account; to others it’s the happiness and wellbeing of their lifestyle. For Ben Riley and Jordan Wilson of Georgia Fair, it’s their enduring friendship and the continuous spoils of music that amounts during their journey together. And while some artists and bands like to create that sense of maturity as they produce new material in order to compensate their journey from the soul. For Ben and Jordan “It’s become more immature,” as Jordan elaborates, “We’re trying to anyway. To become more childlike, it really helps with the creativity.”
Fresh off a national tour with the Paper Kites, Georgia Fair latest string of shows also includes the famous SXSW (South By South West) held in Austin Texas earlier this year. “We love going over to the states, so it’s always sad to leave. It’s always a great time.” While still relatively low key, the duo has found a steady but growing fan-base in the US. “We get good reception over there. We haven’t played too many shows yet, but we done both our records there and we’re going to keep going back. But the Americans seem to like us in general.”
For those who are unfamiliar with Georgia Fair and their music, Jordan describes it as “Two artists exploring their own lives, artistic ventures and collaborations.” In terms of genre, “Probably the folk-kind of genre” as Ben explains’ “Since as soon as you pick up an acoustic guitar you kind of get label that these days, so its quite a broad genre.” He continues, “But we feel like our music is constantly changing, so whatever genre we put in, it will probably change as well.” And while the two may have different roles, both share a dual mind-set of the emotions they wish to evoke in their listeners. “I think healing is a good one. If I could say what our music is it’s healing. You get some sense of healing, even if it makes you feel uncomfortable. In a general sense, song writing is a healing process. It helps you cope/heal with life, I guess.”
Released two years after their first album, ‘All Through Winter’. ‘Trapped Flame’ had overseen a major difference in tone and scope, as the boys wanted an album more orientated towards their own perspective of music. “I say we’re getting closer to try and create the vision that we have in our head. There is definitely an element to wing it, but we are getting closer to our own.” Development for the album began in mid-2012, when the duo returned back to US and worked with producer Ted Hutt, who had worked with the likes of The Gaslight Anthem, Old Crow Medicine Show and Dropkick Murphys. And while they used Bill Reynolds to produce their first album, ‘All Through Winter’, Ben and Jordan saw a major contrast between the two. “There were definitely some massive differences and some really nice similarities. Both are sensitive men and definitely the best for us, but they were definitely different. Bill was a lot more spontaneous and we were kind of throwing it all together and ‘All Through Winter’ kind of came together with whatever we managed to get. Whereas Ted had more of a vision of the sound he wanted, mixed with what we wanted. We kind of knew we were going to get more with Ted, which isn’t necessarily a better thing though.” Ben continues, “We seem to attract very open characters, they were both very open to us. We seem to attract that kind of thing, so I don’t know if that’s them or us. But they both don’t drink which is kind of different from us Australian men.”
While Hutt had a far more structured development process compared to the duo’s carefree attitude, the pathway for ‘Trapped Flame’ was agreed unanimously. “Well we had a good dialogue, at the start we really set out what we wanted we wanted to do. He is the type of guy who has a punk background and made a lot of rock records, so he definitely had that in mind and that was one of his expectations. We tried to find a balance because we like to keep it a bit looser, so we hopefully found some balance there.” As to why they chose Hutt instead of the several other producers they were eyeing during the pre-production of ‘Trapped Flame’. “He came back with ‘I love this song, this song.’ He was definitely one of the most passionate compared to the other producers. We spoke to a few and we did it pretty similar to the last record. We had a few people we were interested in, had a few conversations with them and you just get a vibe and talk about your favorite records and what you want to achieve with this, what he thinks of the demos and everything. Just finding them on a personal level and finding out what they’re like, just going on that vibe and gut feeling. I mean that’s all of what you really got, a few Skype meetings and the next thing you know, you’re over there doing it with them, so you really got to trust your instinct.” As Ben finishes, Jordan continues, “With Hutt, we talked a lot about the records that we liked and that helped us go, alright, this guy is in the same ballpark and we like to take a bit of a punt. Going to LA, meeting a guy, making a record, sounded like a really fun thing to do. Especially from a guy that who we haven’t heard of before, instead of using some guy because of his name, I think there’s something in that as well.”
Since the release of ‘Trapped Flame’, the reception for the album has risen steadily and although reactions were mixed about the album’s overall direction, the boys remain unfazed about the criticism as Jordan explains. “It’s been kind of mixed because we were trying to do something a little bit different from the first record. So people who really liked the first record were a little bit challenged but we’re not trying to stay the same really, we trying to be where we’re at. But we had some really positive reviews, nobody has said it sounds like the last one, so that’s a positive thing, that’s all we need really.”
As we neared the end of our interview, I decided to digest further into the duo by requesting an unusual question; ‘If Georgia Fair were human being, what part of the body would the duo make up?’ With baffled looks on their faces, Ben and Jordan gave me an answer you would expect from the Georgia Fair couple. “I would say I’m probably the empty space in between all the organs and Ben is probably all the organs that makes everything happen. So Ben is the heart and the mind, but I’m what’s behind that, which is I don’t know. I’m the dark matter.”
Jason Cheung
To many, the term ‘success’ has multiple different meanings. To some it’s the money in their wallet or bank account; to others it’s the happiness and wellbeing of their lifestyle. For Ben Riley and Jordan Wilson of Georgia Fair, it’s their enduring friendship and the continuous spoils of music that amounts during their journey together. And while some artists and bands like to create that sense of maturity as they produce new material in order to compensate their journey from the soul. For Ben and Jordan “It’s become more immature,” as Jordan elaborates, “We’re trying to anyway. To become more childlike, it really helps with the creativity.”
Fresh off a national tour with the Paper Kites, Georgia Fair latest string of shows also includes the famous SXSW (South By South West) held in Austin Texas earlier this year. “We love going over to the states, so it’s always sad to leave. It’s always a great time.” While still relatively low key, the duo has found a steady but growing fan-base in the US. “We get good reception over there. We haven’t played too many shows yet, but we done both our records there and we’re going to keep going back. But the Americans seem to like us in general.”
For those who are unfamiliar with Georgia Fair and their music, Jordan describes it as “Two artists exploring their own lives, artistic ventures and collaborations.” In terms of genre, “Probably the folk-kind of genre” as Ben explains’ “Since as soon as you pick up an acoustic guitar you kind of get label that these days, so its quite a broad genre.” He continues, “But we feel like our music is constantly changing, so whatever genre we put in, it will probably change as well.” And while the two may have different roles, both share a dual mind-set of the emotions they wish to evoke in their listeners. “I think healing is a good one. If I could say what our music is it’s healing. You get some sense of healing, even if it makes you feel uncomfortable. In a general sense, song writing is a healing process. It helps you cope/heal with life, I guess.”
Released two years after their first album, ‘All Through Winter’. ‘Trapped Flame’ had overseen a major difference in tone and scope, as the boys wanted an album more orientated towards their own perspective of music. “I say we’re getting closer to try and create the vision that we have in our head. There is definitely an element to wing it, but we are getting closer to our own.” Development for the album began in mid-2012, when the duo returned back to US and worked with producer Ted Hutt, who had worked with the likes of The Gaslight Anthem, Old Crow Medicine Show and Dropkick Murphys. And while they used Bill Reynolds to produce their first album, ‘All Through Winter’, Ben and Jordan saw a major contrast between the two. “There were definitely some massive differences and some really nice similarities. Both are sensitive men and definitely the best for us, but they were definitely different. Bill was a lot more spontaneous and we were kind of throwing it all together and ‘All Through Winter’ kind of came together with whatever we managed to get. Whereas Ted had more of a vision of the sound he wanted, mixed with what we wanted. We kind of knew we were going to get more with Ted, which isn’t necessarily a better thing though.” Ben continues, “We seem to attract very open characters, they were both very open to us. We seem to attract that kind of thing, so I don’t know if that’s them or us. But they both don’t drink which is kind of different from us Australian men.”
While Hutt had a far more structured development process compared to the duo’s carefree attitude, the pathway for ‘Trapped Flame’ was agreed unanimously. “Well we had a good dialogue, at the start we really set out what we wanted we wanted to do. He is the type of guy who has a punk background and made a lot of rock records, so he definitely had that in mind and that was one of his expectations. We tried to find a balance because we like to keep it a bit looser, so we hopefully found some balance there.” As to why they chose Hutt instead of the several other producers they were eyeing during the pre-production of ‘Trapped Flame’. “He came back with ‘I love this song, this song.’ He was definitely one of the most passionate compared to the other producers. We spoke to a few and we did it pretty similar to the last record. We had a few people we were interested in, had a few conversations with them and you just get a vibe and talk about your favorite records and what you want to achieve with this, what he thinks of the demos and everything. Just finding them on a personal level and finding out what they’re like, just going on that vibe and gut feeling. I mean that’s all of what you really got, a few Skype meetings and the next thing you know, you’re over there doing it with them, so you really got to trust your instinct.” As Ben finishes, Jordan continues, “With Hutt, we talked a lot about the records that we liked and that helped us go, alright, this guy is in the same ballpark and we like to take a bit of a punt. Going to LA, meeting a guy, making a record, sounded like a really fun thing to do. Especially from a guy that who we haven’t heard of before, instead of using some guy because of his name, I think there’s something in that as well.”
Since the release of ‘Trapped Flame’, the reception for the album has risen steadily and although reactions were mixed about the album’s overall direction, the boys remain unfazed about the criticism as Jordan explains. “It’s been kind of mixed because we were trying to do something a little bit different from the first record. So people who really liked the first record were a little bit challenged but we’re not trying to stay the same really, we trying to be where we’re at. But we had some really positive reviews, nobody has said it sounds like the last one, so that’s a positive thing, that’s all we need really.”
As we neared the end of our interview, I decided to digest further into the duo by requesting an unusual question; ‘If Georgia Fair were human being, what part of the body would the duo make up?’ With baffled looks on their faces, Ben and Jordan gave me an answer you would expect from the Georgia Fair couple. “I would say I’m probably the empty space in between all the organs and Ben is probably all the organs that makes everything happen. So Ben is the heart and the mind, but I’m what’s behind that, which is I don’t know. I’m the dark matter.”
Jason Cheung