Angus Dowling from Babe Rainbow

0:03Hello and welcome to the special episode of the Monaco Weekly. I'm Fernando Augusto Pacheco, and for today's show I speak with Australian musician Angus Dowling from the psychedelic band Babe Rainbow. We talk about where the band was formed and their upcoming EP Juice of the Sun.

0:31Angus from Babe Rainbow, what a pleasure talking to you. I'm a big fan of the band. I love the vibes. It takes me to Byron Bay in Australia. But first of all, remind us from the beginning of Babe Rainbow. I know you were one of the founding members. When was that? Tell us a bit more, Angus. Yeah, the band started maybe close to nine or ten years ago. Just a few local lads. We all worked on a farm together. And naturally just became good buddies and best brothers. And now, yeah, 10 years later, we've got a band kicking on. I mean, it's literally kicking on. I know you're about to go to the U.S.

1:12for a tour in a selected places as well. And it's quite interesting. I mean, I know you're based in Australia. There's a lot of kind of influence from there. But you became a little bit of an international band in a way. We just have a lot of similarities with American West Coast Californians in particular. and just seem to naturally parallel each other. So we kind of spend a bit of time there and always pick up something, come bring it back here and share the love. Well, exactly. And you mentioned the Americans, but there's even more to your music. There's a little bit of kind of surf pop from France as well.

1:51For this, right? Yeah, no, right, very right. I like that you brought that up. Yeah, because I definitely see the connection because I like this kind of surf pop from France as well. But in the new EP Mushroom, tell us a bit about the influences of that EP in particular. Yeah, we were just trying to experiment with some newer sounds and different sort of skate landscapes and textures and stuff like that and breakbeats and drum machines and a little bit more sort of electronica in there. and that kind of just went through our crystal and came out the rainbow.

2:58And even the festival that you're playing in the US, will there be mainly new tracks? Are you going to play some of the old ones as well? Tell us a bit more about Rainbow Rock in general. Yeah, so it's something we've always just liked the sound of, Rainbow Rock, getting a little community of great artists together. And it just, yeah, eventuated, manifested over in LA, which is cool, a good place for it. Ideally, we'll do it back in Australia too, in Byron, to see how things flow. But yeah, so it's just some great up-and-coming artists, mainly LA-based, I'm pretty sure. Just sort of hand-picked by us and some buddies over there.

3:37And we're really excited because we've never seen any of the acts before either. So I think it's just a nice little collective of rock and roll. And by the way, talking still about the Mushroom EP, one of my favorite tracks. I don't know, for some reason I love Obsession. You know, there's a gentle breeze in there. I love it. Yeah, yeah. We try to keep it calm and relaxed these days as we're getting older. And that's just sort of something our kids, you know, will listen to. And they can sleep tightly, you know, knowing those groovy tunes. So, yeah, something a little bit less performance-y. It's a nice aspect to the album, to the EP.

4:20and one thing because actually Angus I am going to Australia for the first time this year late October and I'm considering going to Byron Bay tell us about something about the place how special it is because in a way even the name of the band is kind of connected I mean to the region perhaps I'm not sure if it's exactly Byron Bay but I know there's a coastal town with the name right yeah yeah yeah no definitely it was established back in the 70s a group of college students and uni students moved up from sydney and they just found an old town and bought all of the shops and created this cooperative and had a huge festival called the aquarius festival in 73 and that just mushroomed into this whole vibrant rainbow community around here and where we've just sort But it's still alive and strong 30, 40 years on.

5:11So we're just sort of carrying on the flame. You're going to have a great time. I think you should definitely come here. Well, just because you said it, I will go now, Angus, as well. Who knows? You told me that maybe Rainbow Rock could go to Australia, right? Yeah, yeah, definitely. Sooner or later, I'm sure. But the landscape is so inspiring around here. So there's areas where the hippie is called Psychedelic Valley, where they used to have rock and roll and magic mushrooms and all sort of wonderful, natural, organic highs just popping up everywhere. It goes hand in hand with music, this place.

5:50By the way, one thing that I'm enjoying about Babe Rainbow these days is that you're releasing, I know you released an EP earlier this year. Now there's another one. It's nice. Perhaps, you know, you're not quite there yet for a full-on album, but, you know, I think EPs is such a great thing for the fans, right? Do you enjoy that kind of strategy of releasing music via EPs? I think so. I think generally, historically, putting together albums takes a lot longer time for some reason. And possibly we've just got a bit more savvy with audio equipment and stuff like that, but it seems to be just much fresher experience putting out four songs at a time and just not over-engineering a whole album.

6:33but it's definitely going to come that in the end but yeah, it's been a lot funner just sort of keeping the pulse going That's fantastic Alyssa and Angus, a pleasure talking to you thank you so much for chatting with us No worries, my friend thank you so much for the call No problem and yeah, maybe I'll see you in Byron Bay I'm very excited Yeah, hit us up Very excited to go We'll be here Nice, my friend

7:07That was Angus Darling from Babe Rainbow. Their EP, Juice of the Sun, will be out on the 22nd of September. The show was edited by Sarah Nicol and I am Fernando Augusto Pacheco.