Im Rahmen der Tour zum Album Conditions traf unruhr Lorenzo Sillitto, Gitarrist bei den Australien stämmigen The Temper Trap, in seinem eigenen (!) Backstageraum auf einem schönen gemütlichen roten Ledersofa, in Plauderlaune über endloses Touren, Grenzüberschreitungen und die Fußballweltmeisterschaft...
During their Tour of Germany presenting their new album Conditions unruhr met Lorenzo Sillitto, playing the guitar for the Australian band The Temper Trap. While sitting on a nice cosy red leather sofa in his personal (!) backstage room, we talked about endless touring, crossing frontiers, and the Football World Cup...
So far you've played at a few festivals. What was is like?
Well, Hurricane and Southside – even though it was the same line-up, there were complete opposite conditions: Hurricane was very dusty and dry and Southside very, very muddy. But it was great, the atmosphere was really good. At Hurricane in particular we played at a very good time, it was like at nine o'clock and at ten it was absolutely rammed. It was great to come back to Europe and play to such a good crowd but Germany is always being really good to us.
You seem to have quite a full schedule in front of you with a few gaps sometimes?
Yeah, just a couple of days. The next break is a four-day break. By that time it would have been six weeks continuous on tour. So it's important to kind of keep those days free. I mean we have a partners and it's important to us to try and keep a little balance between life on the road and that.
Do you manage to go back home?
Not to Australia. We live in England, in London, so it's a lot easier for us. We're actually lucky because we'll play Glastonbury on Sunday and our next show is in London.
On Myspace you have this motto "We shall succeed where science fails"...
Uhm, basically I guess science has proven a lot in the last hundred years but we'd like to hopefully prove, you know, that there's something higher than biology. Maybe not necessarily in a religious way, butwe can maybe do something that the forces of nature actually don't allow.
What's you favourite explanation of the band name Temper Trap?
It's basically that when you're angry and you have a really bad temper, you're trapped in that temper. I would say temper is negative.
Then I would go one step further and say it means that YOU trap the temper and people can be happy. Ah, that's a good one, I like that!
The single "Fader" has been played on the radio very often during the last months here in Germany, so could you explain the story or the ideas behind it?
I helped a bit writing but I wasn't actually the creator of that song. It was Dougy and Toby, but what happened was we had a lot of songs and we felt that we needed something that was a little bit more up-tempo. So we wanted something that was very catchy and very up-beat just to kind of break away from what we were doing at that time. So that's how that song came about. It was probably the hardest song to record, to get it right in the studio. A lot of things broke down during the recording, the monitor desk, that console was ruined and it was renamed the fader room.
And it is about trying to protect yourself from being harmed?
Yeah, for details you'd have to ask Dougy, but he actually doesn't remember the context in which he came up with that.
Can you tell us a bit about your CD Conditions? How would you describe it to someone who doesn't know it?
I would say it takes you on a journey from one point to the end and then kind of has its ups and downs and ends in a crescendo. Even if some of the songs are fairly moody and lets say a bit melancholic and dark at the end the underlining theme of the album is that there is an element of hope and that you can move forward. We also wanna encourage hope.
I would like to ask something about your home town Melbourne. I was there last year and got some hints by someone. What would you recommend?
Well, you tell me what they recommended and I'll tell you whether it's a good thing or not.
I don't want to influence you, so some interesting places?
(Lorenzo talks about places where to go shopping, roof top bars, one even with a cinema showing older cult movies, St. Kilda, the quarter where he lived) I guess you went to St. Kilda? That's where I used to live, near the beach and at summertime it's really good, there's some good bars and also quite bohemian. And if you wanted to get out of Melbourne, the Great Ocean Road is one of Australia's greatest kind of sights to say, and it's a long road that winds around the ocean.
Few weeks ago I heard an interview with you on Einslive. I think you learned some German phrases? Something about food?
(lacht) I'm shocking at German. I was there but it was probably Dougy, he's pretty good with languages.
A toast?
Prost?
What would any than cheers be in Australia?
Up your bum! Get it up ya!
Another topic: We happen to be in the same group in the World Cup that's going on at the moment... What do you think about it so far?
Look, I think, the World Cup is in disarray, no one knows who's gonna win or who's gonna do anyway. Germany beat us and then Germany lost. We've been a bit unlucky. But unfortunately, sorry boys, we played pretty badly as well. It's very interesting because it's not the same people. Obviously Argentina, Brazil they're gonna be in there. England, Germany, Spain might not gonna make it, France definitely not... (we both have to laugh)
That was it! Thank you very much.
Well thank you very much!