Evil Surfer

The most modern music we heard was Tom Waits.”When Stein turned 16, she discovered pop, though even then her interests were tasteful: Juliana Hatfield, Lemonheads and Nirvana.”I struggled because there wasn’t a lot to rebel against, my parents were cool and listened to cool music. “We wanted to let the music breathe and get away from our urban environment, so we tracked down this beautiful house. Glenn was brought up in the outback so was familiar with space, but we’re not so it was very special. I wouldn’t want to walk around there at night; I do get kinda scared.”I wonder if this was crocs or poisonous spiders. Pleasingly, Stein describes them as “monsters and creatures you dreamed about as a child”, chiming with the album’s classically Gothic sensibility, especially on “In The Woods”.Another family member has a deeper impact on the album. Stein is happy to admit the influence of her father Peter – a songwriter in his own right – in where she has ended up. I went to a very religious Jewish school and that affected my outlook.

It’s a lot to deal with at an early age, a hell of a burden all those emotions and laws.”Just as important is the chemistry between the group’s members. Stein and her brother Joel had been in a series of bands with drummer Glenn Moule since their teens. It was only when they found bassist Brendan Picchio they realised that they had found a quartet of like-minded people. “We had a shared love of music and knew exactly what we wanted.”They left Sydney for a country house outside Melbourne to spend a month honing Stein’s songs and recording their demos.

Elsewhere, Stein’s striking imagery – bones and stones, the wood and the sun – suggest someone with a strong visual sense, something she happily admits to.”Everyone in the band is really influenced by films. It’s this very ethereal energy and I really want to create that in my music.”There is certainly a lot of energy in forthcoming single “Setting Sun”. On first listen, the rousing chorus gives it the feel of a life-affirming anthem. Closer inspection reveals an admission that the world is crap and not worth doing anything about.

“Patience is all you need/That and the courage just to be” would be the key lyric. “It’s the only song where I’m not singing about a personal experience, it’s more a general feeling about the universe. Trying to deal with the gravity of all the world’s problems.”Quite a Zen way of looking at the world.”I was feeling Zen when I wrote it,” she laughs in surprise “I’m fascinated by that kind of thing. They are the perfect medium in the way they combine imagery, music and expression.”Stein is a fan of Donald Sutherland and Jane Fonda in the Seventies conspiracy classic Klute – “I like strange films, they’re like pieces of music” – and Luc Besson’s twisted thriller L?.”I adore French films. They’re all personal songs, it’s just the way I express myself. I tend to respond strongest to extreme emotions.”There is a telling line on “A Ballad For The Bleeding Hearts”, “Love isn’t love ’til you bleed”.