Husband and wife duos are notoriously difficult to pull off, but that didn’t deter The Sirens of Venice’s Craig and Camilla Jackson – they’ve even roped in a bunch of family members too. DARREN LEVIN reports.

When Gersey’s Craig Jackson met actor/singer Camilla Davis it wasn’t exactly love at first sight. “I instantly liked her, she thought I was an idiot,” says Jackson of their first meeting at a Youth Group gig at Melbourne’s now defunct Punters Club in 2001. “It took me four years to convince her otherwise.”

The pair married in 2006 and began making music because they couldn’t afford to do anything else. After roping in some family and a couple notable friends in The Underground Lovers’ Vince Giarrusso and Jed Palmer, The Sirens of Venice’s debut self-titled album was born. Released last month through Speak N Spell, it brims with soaring melodies, epic crescendos and spectral backing vocals (courtesy of Camilla), but it’s also imbued with the kind of spaciousness and restraint you’d expect from a record produced by the guy behind Rushall Station. The band has since swelled to eight members, mostly family, who help flesh out the record live. But as Craig Jackson candidly told M+N over the phone from Melbourne – Camilla was scheduled to join, but she was recovering from the flu – it’s not a case of too many cooks, as long as they’re the ones calling the shots.

How long has the album been in the works for?
Milli and I started writing it back in about 2006, but of course we didn’t think it would go anywhere. We were just messing around on GarageBand. It took on a different thing when, all of a sudden, there were a dozen songs that started sounding really good. The quality was still fairly GarageBand-ish.

So the initial demos for songs were a bit more rough and ready?
Very much so. You couldn’t really call it garage, though, because there wasn’t a band. It was just Milli and I messing around with drum loops and synths and me playing guitar very poorly, because I’m a bass player. Once we got Jed [Palmer] and Vince [Giarrusso] on, and Steve [Griffiths], who plays drums on the record, we got together and recorded it.

So is that how you and Milli spend free time together? Instead of watching Masterchef you’ll have a jam?
[Laughs] Yeah, we’ll just got into the back room. In those early days that’s how we entertained ourselves. We were so broke it was ridiculous. We couldn’t go out, so we may as well play music and entertain ourselves.

How long have you been married?
Just over four years. We just had our fourth-year wedding anniversary. It was a quick marriage as well. We just got together and within six months we were married. It was a whirlwind.

Has being married helped or hindered the creative process?
Sometimes [laughs]. I think I get on Milli’s nerves a lot with – how can I say it – my creative process. Hers is fantastic!

And what does that “creative process” entail?
Sometimes it’s procrastination, sometimes it’s a bit bullish I suppose. But it works. We have a process we stick to. It’s fun.

Are most your songs, or is it a genuine collaboration?
Nah, it’s a genuine collaboration. She would come up with a chord progression and a melody, I’d write some words, and then we’d sit down and literally jam the songs out between the two of us, and then mess around with them with the wonderful GarageBand. I hope Apple executives are reading this interview and give us full endorsements. [Laughs]

“I love the male-female dynamic and working with your wife is perfect if you can pull it off, which I think we do.”

They read everything…
I hear they do! [Laughs]

What did the two of you play on the record?
I played bass. I tried playing a bit of guitar, but my playing was way too loose, so Jed plays the guitar on the record. He’s an amazing guitar player, and I’d love for him to be in the band, but he’s a little too busy to be messing around with us. Milli and I sang, and Milli may have played some guitar on there. Steve drummed, and we kind of convinced the girl who plays violin in the band to write all the strings, and we got another girl called Zoe to play most of them. There were no rehearsals. It was put together in a bedroom and then in the studio, and it was a really quick process too.

How did you fit so many people in that one room?
[Laughs] Rosters.

So there’s now eight people in the band?
There are eight people in the band, yeah. We started off wanting to be in a band that played along with a lot of technology, but as we started to move forward, we realised that more people was the way to go. We’re going for that angle until it fails miserably, and then we’ll think of something else.

And the members are stretched out all over Australia?
We’re all in Melbourne these days, but the bass player Neil [Morrison] is from Glasgow; [drummer] Steve [Griffiths] is originally from Adelaide; Milli, her brother Charly [Davis, guitar], MC [Marie Claire Davis, violin/piano] and Victoria [Thaine, mellotron/piano]are all from Coffs Harbour. Myself, and the guitar player [Mark Farrell], are the only two original Melbourne people.

And they’re all mostly family?
Yes, yes. There’s Charley and MC, who are married, and Charley is obviously Milli’s brother. Victoria and Milli grew up together. They’ve known each other since they were 10 and have been best friends since. They act more like sisters than friends. And Neil is Victoria’s partner. So that’s six very close couples there. The drummer [Griffiths] and guitar player [Farrell] aren’t related, but six of us is pretty good I think!

With so many relationships in the band, is there potential for conflict?
Well, it’s been pretty smooth so far. They’re all listening to what Milli and I are saying, so as long as that continues, it’ll be OK. [Laughs] Although the next one could be a real Fleetwood Mac record!

How did it balloon out to eight members?
I think the reason Milli and I started writing songs together, kept writing songs together and pursued making it into an album, is because we just had a really good feeling about the whole process. It felt really good. When we were putting together a band, especially with the couples, we’re people that hang around together a lot in our spare time, so it felt good. It felt right. We found something for everyone to do, and then we just plugged in the parts we didn’t have. That’s how it became big, organically.

How did you hook up with Vince?
I’ve known him for years, because Gersey were playing with The Underground Lovers all those years ago. We really loved that band. Vince and Jed did a remix of a Gersey song off that last record that we did [No Satellites]. What they did with it, completely changed it. It was incredible. So I harassed Vince for about six months to get involved. He was making films and he wasn’t sure how his time would turn out. But it turns out we had a window of six months, he was right into the songs. He and Jed are amazing to work with in terms of their ideas, their knowledge of music and production, and how to achieve really positive outcomes for the songs. It was really great working with those guys.

Did they shape the songs into what we hear now?
As far as the arrangements go, they had a big say in some of the songs, but also in reinforcing some of the ideas Milli and I had as well, and bringing those to the fore.

*Admittedly, I’ve been listening to [The Underground Lovers’ 1996 album] Rushall Station a lot lately. This record has a similarly ethereal and evocative vibe. Was it an influence?**
Yep, that’s the one … Dream It Down and Rushall Station were two of my favourite albums of all time and that’s where I wanted to go with these songs. Not to rip them off, but to have that feel. So when you name-check an album, it’s probably best to go to the people that actually did it. It was really good too, because Vince was playing Underground Lovers songs, and Jed was playing in the band. But yeah, you got it in one: Rushall Station. And Dream It Down, of course.

And those female harmonies. There’s something very Underground Lovers-esque about them as well.
Well, Milli’s got such a sweet voice. Putting it in that ethereal box really suits her. I’ve always been a fan of that male-female, duet-y kind of vocal. I tried it once with Gersey, but it was shut down rather quickly. I love the male-female dynamic and working with your wife is perfect if you can pull it off, which I think we do.

Milli doesn’t sing lead vocals on the record. Do you think she will down the track?
Yes. She was meant to have one song on the record, but she felt that it didn’t fit with what was going on with the 10 songs here. On the next one she’d definitely take more of a singing role. Well, I would love her to.

Your involvement with Gersey is well documented, but what’s Milli’s musical background?
Milli was in band in the ’90s in Sydney called The Sizzleteens. When she was in Melbourne she played in a band called The Movie. She had a solo thing called Milli Davis. It was real pop kinda stuff.

Was that on [Melbourne label] Popboomerang?
It was on Popboomerang, so that’s where her background was. But once again I took all of her chord progressions and turned them into a dark indie rock thing, which she’s happy with at the moment. [Laughs]

I’d hate to bring it up, but are you worried about the iSelect ads [Camilla starred in those “tossin’ possums” insurance ads on TV] bringing some unwanted attention on the band?
No, no. We’ve kind of dealt with it over three or four years, but she’s finished that now. They’ll have a different ad campaign and people forget ad campaigns pretty quick. She’s an actor as well, and as you know, actors sometimes do ads to make money and get exposure, so they can go on and do something more meaningful. Hopefully that ad has been a vehicle for her to launch her acting [career] a bit more, and if there is attention on the music, hopefully people will come to that and hear the music and like it for the music, rather than it being by the “iSelect Girl”.

Craig, I have to ask, have Gersey’s shows with Pavement paved the way for a full-scale reunion?
[Laughs] There’s a lot of talk about it … We played a show at The Toff [in Melbourne] at the beginning of the year. It was a lot of fun and a lot of people turned up, so that was great. There’s talk of maybe making another record, but we’ll have to wait and see how that pans out. I don’t want to disappoint or get people’s hopes up at this stage. We had an absolute ball playing again. It was like back when it was when we first started playing together. That’s really positive. I think the chances [of a new album] are very good.

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The Sirens of Venice’s debut self-titled album is out now through Speak N Spell/Inertia. It’ll be launched at Spectrum in Sydney on Saturday (July 24).