Pete Bernoth, lead trombonist from Brisbane sextet The John Steel Singers, gives JOSH JENNINGS a few tips on fashioning a beer bong from a brass.

Somebody’s bound to fall ill when you’re plugging away in the recording studio long after even the sweat shops have switched off their lights for the night. It wasn’t quite time to read Tim Morrissey – vocalist/multi-instrumentalist for The John Steel Singers – his last rites, but he was under the spell of fever, shakes and disorientation when the band sent him home from the recording sessions that resulted in new EP In Colour.

“That was really worrying because we just weren’t sure what was wrong with him,” says the sextet’s trombonist Pete Bernoth. “He’s one of the main vocalists and it would have been missing something if we had to go without him, but thankfully he managed to get through it.”

Bernoth says the clock was at the forefront of the band’s mind throughout the recording of In Colour, which crams all the three-part harmonies and bells and whistles it can manage into four tracks of disarmingly catchy orchestral pop. Collectively the band plays drums, bass, guitar, keys, trumpet, cowbell, glockenspiel and trombone, and finds room for strings and tambourines on the EP too. Some sessions started at 11am and wound up at 3am but there's nothing tired-sounding about the music.

Bernoth says producer Scott Horscroft (The Panics, The Presets, Wolfmother) deserves much of the credit for the finished product.

“It took him a remarkably short amount of time to get the sounds that he wanted and the sounds were always top notch,” he says. “The first guy we recorded with didn’t really have that much of a producing role. He was more of an audio engineer and things got pretty unfocused – he was keen to let us experiment, which was good, but we just didn’t have that much time. But Scott Horscroft kept us a lot more focused. He wasn’t afraid to say if something wasn’t working, and he always had valid points.”

If you read the band’s bio, it sounds like your run-of-the-mill rom-com meet-cute type scenario that proved the catalyst for the germination of The John Steel Singers. Morrissey (the guy who got sick) was working at a Brisbane restaurant where he happened upon vocalist/multi-instrumentalist Scott Bromiley, who was still wiping the dust off his pants after moving to Brisbane from country town Mackay. Maybe Morrissey and Bromiley exchanged phone numbers – maybe they didn’t – but in any event, Bromiley started teaching Morrissey guitar (a note for the romantics: it was a shonky second-hand axe with nylon strings) and the subject of making a band must have been broached somewhere along the way, cause that’s what they did. Then others started showing up for band practice, and recruitment didn’t stop until the lineup numbered six.

“We didn’t have many beers on the rider and we needed to make best use of them. So I took two parts of my trombone and taped them together.”

A breakthrough happened for the band when the hook-laden ‘Strawberry Wine’ found its way onto Triple J. The group went on to win Triple J’s Big Day Out Unearthed competition, scoring a slew of festival slots and supporting the likes of Polyphonic Spree, Built to Spill and The Brunettes. The festival shows have been a unique gigging experience, Bernoth says.

“The combined backstage at festivals is really great. We were backstage at Splendour and got to meet Robert Forster; we’d met him once or twice before, but for only short amounts of time. We had a chat with him and watched his shows side of stage. It’s great being up close and personal with all these bands and hearing their music as they hear it on stage.”

Bernoth won’t have to wait long to play another festival. After the band’s November east coast tour, they’re booked to play the 2009 St Jeromes Festival.

So what happens on tour? While they’re no Motley Crue, Bernoth says, it was on tour that the “trombong” was conceived.

“I turned my trombone into a beer bong,” Bernoth says. “Sid from the Vasco Era said we needed a beer bong because we didn’t have many beers on the rider and we needed to make best use of them. So I took two parts of my trombone and taped them together; I definitely caused irreparable damage to my trombone but it was nuts backstage. It was a full-on party zone and I think people that came back there were a little bit scared.”

Bernoth speaks less enthusiastically about his day job as a casual labourer: He loathes the early hours and describes the work as “mind-numbingly fucking boring”. If there’s any way The John Steel Singers can become a full-time occupation, Bernoth says, he’s more than ready to acclimatise to the rock’n’roll lifestyle.

“The last month touring with The Grates was just like a month-long party. I got home absolutely exhausted, but the experiences you have are totally worth the amount of money you’re putting into it and the amount of sleep you’re not getting – given the fun you have.”

IN COLOUR TOUR

Friday, November 7
Peninsula Lounge, Mooroooduc, VIC

Saturday, November 8
Northcote Social Club, Melbourne, VIC

Thursday, November 13
Sol Bar, Coolum, QLD

Friday, November 14
The Zoo, Brisbane, QLD

Saturday, Novmber 15
Bon Amici, Toowoomba, QLD

Wednesday, November 19
Transit Bar, Canberra, ACT

Thursday, November 20
Hopetoun Hotel, Sydney, NSW

Friday, November 21
Hopetoun Hotel, Sydney, NSW

Friday, November 28
Jive, Adelaide, SA

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