Image: Restless Leg – supplied.
Author: Bradley Cork
Comprising members of bands like Peabody, The Exile Co and Bluebottle Kiss, Restless Leg are a blend of rock with a penchant for the angular. Their songs are short and sharp, delving into the Dunedin sound playbook while also dipping into the sunny Indie Rock that recalls bands like The Go-Betweens.
Like a lot of great bands, Restless Leg formed out of happenstance with a need to make something new. As singer/guitarist Ben Chamie tells me, Both he and Jarrad Harrison had some downtime from Peabody with their lead singer Bruno Brayovic travelling overseas. Once Fiona Whalley joined on bass, it backed Ben into a creative corner as he plays bass in Peabody. ‘Jarrad and I started mucking around. Fiona Whalley is an old friend of mine and she’s played in a bunch of bands (The Dillemas, The Exile Co., Sick Fizz) so we asked her to join on bass. That made me pick up the guitar and vocal duties by default so we started getting together just for fun. We’d been together for a couple of weeks and then a friend asked us to play at a party and we seemed to just have a lot of gigs from there.’
Later adding in Adam Taylor on guitar, the line-up was solidified and while their formative bands have a heavier or punk aesthetic to them, Restless Leg have an immediate sunniness that may not be found elsewhere in their other projects. ‘The songs are very concise and quite classic/traditional sort of song structures but they also benefit from the other styles and experiences that Fi, Adam and Jarrad have had. Jarrad’s played in lots of heavier sounding bands so he’s able to do that if we wanted him to but he’s such a good time keeper and such a solid base to build our songs on. Fi’s more from a garage punk kind of background. Adam has played in so many bands and brings indie rock infused with country so there’s a bit of everything in the mix.’
Following the release of their last album, 2021’s Dream Buffet, the band were hit with the heaviness of lockdowns and other creative roadblocks at the time. ‘Coming out of that 2021 lockdown and subsequent lockdowns and things, I just stopped writing. I was artistically constipated and it just wasn’t happening. It took me a while but once the band was able to come back together and start playing shows again in 2022-2023 and we were able to write again, I was able to start to feeling more inspired. A lot of shows were cancelled with the last record which was all a bit disheartening.’
Fortunately, with being able to reconvene, play shows and return to jamming in a room together, the songs that make up the follow-up record Dance Around My Head were formulated and recorded exceptionally fast, making the band kick into productivity. ‘The songs were written over about a year, recorded at the end of last year into early this year and mixed and now it’s coming out. Once we got into the studio it was all pretty quick.’ Recorded over 5-6 days and mixed over a similar amount of time, there was an ease with which the combination of collaborators gave for a concise set of sessions. Enlisting Jamie Hutchings as well as Jay Whalley from Frenzal Rhomb to produce and engineer respectively with mixing duties for Tim Kevin made the process all the more eclectic. ‘We did 4 days with Jay and 2 days in Tim’s studio. It was an interesting mix with Jay and Jamie working together, they got along really well and worked together really well and had a lot in common musically with this mutual love for Aussie punk. It was quick.’
If singles ‘Sow A Little Seed’ and ‘Stay Gold’ are anything to go by, the album shows a great deal of chiming yet punchy indie rock that doesn’t intend on overstaying its welcome, with ‘Sow A Little Seed’ the result of splitting two songs up in order create more cohesion. As Ben is one of the primary songwriters for both Restless Leg and Peabody, he still finds the process fascinating after all these years.
“You can work on something and it doesn’t quite work out but then something else comes along and there’s a part from the initial idea that will fit neatly and solves that song. You’ve just got to remember that you have those bits. It’s funny, I’ve been writing for a long time and it doesn’t get any more rational in a way. It’s such a bizarre thing. I get a lot of enjoyment out of it and it’s interesting hearing how other people do it as well because it’s got such a personal experience and touch to it.”
– Ben Chamie
Dance Around My Head is also the inaugural first release from the new subsidiary of Perth-based label Love As Fiction, the new Matt Tutt-run imprint Sinister Porpoise. ‘Matt’s such a great guy so we’re grateful that he’s putting this out. It’s a big effort to get albums out physically. He’s big on the quality of the pressing too and very hands on, so a very good person to work with.’ While Love As Fiction focuses on bringing older releases to life on vinyl, Sinister Porpoise was created for the intent of releasing new music, something which encapsulates the energy of Dance Around My Head.
catch Restless Leg on their Dance Around My Head tour:
- 22nd June – Link & Pin, Woy Woy NSW
- 23rd June – The Junkyard at the Grand Junction Hotel, Wonnarua Land/ Maitland NSW
- 29th June – Station Bar + Woodfired Pizza – Gundungurra Land/Katoomba NSW
- 5th July – Lazybones Lounge, Gadigal Land/Marrickville NSW
- 27th July – MONA Lawns (afternoon show), Muwinina Land, Berriedale TAS
- 27th July – Polish Club, Mouheneenner land, New Town TAS
- 3rd August – Sonic Sherpa Records (afternoon show), Yuggera land, South Brisbane, QLD
- 3rd August – It’s Still A Secret , Yuggera Land, South Brisbane QLD
- 1st September – The Brass Monkey, Gweagal Land, Cronulla NSW
- 14th September – Nighthawks, Wurundjeri Land, Collingwood VIC
- 21st September – Elton Chong, Mulgoa Land, Penrith NSW
- 13th October – Frank’s Wild Years, Mulgoa Land, Thirroul NSW
- 19th October – Lazy Thinking, Gadigal Land, Dulwich Hill NSW
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