Ozmusic Interview, August 2003

On a sunny afternoon in Melbourne, Min Chips' Julian Patterson has just come back from an afternoon of housespotting. Yep, a pushbike, a camera and fibro houses are enough to keep this boy happy. Why? "I'm just interested…I don't know", he says coyly. "It's something I've been putting off- just collecting pictures of houses". Cute. Just as cute (and I don't mean 'ugly but interesting' or puppies and kittens sleeping on each others' tummies) is Minimum Chips' new EP "Gardenesque". Driven by the sweetly understated vocals of Nicole Thibault, the 4 tracks are compact and well crafted, with a certain personality about them that requires a few listens to grasp, but once you're in you're hooked. Thinking person's pop.

So, is 'Pop' how Minimum Chips like to be described? "Yeah. We're always trying to write pop songs, and that's the main idea behind it all" Julian explains. "I just think there's a slight misconception about pop-- that it's just like a throw away, candy kind of thing. But I tend to think of pop, or good pop, being really quite experimental and really hard to do. More cutting edge". Certainly, the band have that edge about them, marked greatly by Julian's own contributions on guitar and glockenspiel, the later of which gives the band a unique, but at times mystical sound. What's the dynamic when the band writes? "It's all been really different. Sometimes we write on our own and bring it to the practice room, and sometimes we just write together. It just depends, song by song, if it's work! ing or not", Julian concludes.

Although "Gardenesque" is the band's new offering to those of us girt by sea, its production was actually twofold. Recorded as part of SBS's "Whatever" sessions, the CD was recorded live, in one day. As Julian explained, "This time last year I guess, SBS were offering bands around Australia some recording time, so there were a number of bands, including us, who got to go into the studio for a day and record three or four songs. So we did that, and one of our songs is on the SBS compilation. We were pretty happy with how the recordings came out and wanted to put them out. There was also some kind of pact between SBS and Film Victoria, so we (would) go in and record at SBS and at the same time a bunch of filmmakers are invited to make videos (for what's been recorded). The filmmakers just basically chose a song and did a film clip for it"! Were any Minimum Chips tracks chosen? "Yeah. It was track 2 on the EP, "Sunny Spot". The filmmaker had this idea, he had this idea previously, but the idea was for a teenage party, a game of 'spin the bottle'. It's pretty dero, it's very different from what we would do I guess (laughs). But it's interesting. But yeah, we like it. It just would be the sort of thing we would have (thought of) doing. But we like it in a detached kind of way" Julian says.

I ask if "Whatever" is a bit like Triple J's "Unearthed", which makes Julian laugh again. "We have been around for a while, so it's hard to say we've been unearthed!" he says. As "Gardenesque" is Min Chips 6th release (or so), I take his point. Starting in Brisbane in 95 and then moving to Melbourne where they're now based, last year the kids released "Portfolio", a compilation CD of bits and pieces they had hanging round from last century. "(Portfolio) is mostly home recordings done on four-track, from about 95-97" Julian explained. "And most of those releases were put out on vinyl or split 7 inches, or were one-off compilation tracks, so I guess the idea was just to compile all those tracks, master them properly and then put them onto a CD". Nice work, considering most bands save a rarities CD for when their career's on the! decline. Was it strange looking back while the band was very much alive? "Ah, well, it's kind of nice to look back (laughs), and it's kind of nice to put an end to a few things. Just for the chance to move on, seal it away on a CD and get on with new stuff". So, on with the new.