Frente. An antidote to angst.

Some periods of one’s life are more vivid in the memory than others. For me , one of those times was the early 90’s. It was a turbulent time for us, and it was a turbulent time for music. The hedonistic era of “Hair Metal” was coming to an end, and the juggernaut of Grunge was dominating the airwaves. Triple J had just gone national, and the world of independent music was accessible to a larger audience in Australia than ever before.
Grunge changed the face of music. Its darker themes, and anti establishment , cynical idealism spoke for the disenfranchised , forgotten youth of Generation X , loudly and unapologetically.

Then there , all of a sudden, or so it seemed, was Frente.
If Grunge smelt like teen spirit, Frente was a PotPourri of positivity and good vibes. They were like a palate cleanser, an antidote to the intensity of the day, with intelligent lyrics, upbeat and interesting melodies, and sweetness that was palatable, like organic honey instead of saccharine, and Chai tea against a backdrop of black roadhouse coffee

I recently got a chance to chat with Angie and Simon from the band.

Thirty years on, they have lost none of their passion and enthusiasm for their craft
Simon: “The name is a Spanish word that means “Front” or ‘forehead’. We came together as a group of people who wanted to do something, but we weren’t necessarily people that you would expect to do something together. We didn’t really know each other, and we weren’t part of the same scene, so we were like a “front”of people.

Angie: “We were a very eclectic group of people. We all had strong ideas, but they were different strong ideas. This mix is probably what was responsible for our sound”
Simon: “I know that there’s a bunch of people who wouldn’t be expected to like, but we were very song based, and we tried to make our songs accessible to people, so the style was secondary to our desire for people to have something to take home that was just for them. I have friends that are full on metalheads that like the band. I think it was always about us making a good song. It doesn’t matter what the haircut is”.

There was one track on “Marvin the album” that was definitely very different in both composition and lyrical content than everything else on that album. It was titled “Cuscatlan”,
Simon: “Its a word from El Salvador. It means ‘land of precious things’ It was the 80s, and I followed a girl to South America, and we ended up going through Nicuagra, El Salvador, Guatemala and places like that, and they were in the middle of awful civil wars, in which a lot of regular people were getting caught up in the violence. It was a really bad time for a lot of people who did not deserve bad times.
I was young , fresh out of school, pretty idealistic, and I was around riots and things, and there were some nasty people doing some nasty things to Mums, Dads and kids … just regular people who didn’t deserve nasty things. Thats kind of where that song came from. The world can be a brutal place. Hopefully it is getting less brutal as we go along. Its not a political song, it’s an emotional song”
Angie : “We worked really hard on that song to create the feel”

I asked Angie how it felt to achieve so much in her very first band.
“I have a lot of feelings about that, actually. Its interesting in hindsight. At the time, because it was my apprenticeship, and I wanted to be involved in the writing and everything, but I had never even held a Mic before. Of course it was very exciting, but in a way it was kind of a rude interruption to my development as an artist. I look back now and realize how lucky I was to get that out of the way (Laughs)
I don’t think I write with the audience in mind, but it’s almost impossible not to let that external voice have an impact on your creativity. It is a different perspective”
Angie’s vocal style has an authentic quality that has paved the way for a run of Australian artists after her to sing in a more natural style, without the American influenced vocal inflections that were almost par for the course previously. It’s notably Australian, without being ocker or folksy.
“I remember just really admiring people from other countries who sang that way. People like ‘The Sundays’ and ‘The Pogues’, who had very strong accents in their music and knowing that was something very important to give us transparency, and for me as an artist who basically started from zero.”

I enquired as to the naming of “Marvin the album”
Angie: “We wanted to name it like our awkward child”
Simon: “It was a spur of the moment thing. It came from Ange. The more we thought about it though, the more we saw a lot of positive associations with the name.. Marvin Gaye, Marvin the Martian, Marvellous Marvin Hagler, who was a phenomenal boxer, Marvin the paranoid android from Hitch-hikers guide… there were just a lot of positive associations with the name”.
Looking back, I would have liked to get more deeply involved in the production side of things. At the time, we had lots of resources and time to record it.
“We work by the ‘Dolly Parton’ rule, and that is ‘It takes a lot of money to look this cheap. Translated, it takes a lot of hard work to sound this simple. I don’t often get to discuss the intricacies of doing the hard yards in songwriting or rehearsal”
Angie: “we got asked recently about rehearsal by the young guy that works at our rehearsal space; He said ‘You guys rehearse more than anyone I have ever seen’.
“We value rehearsing so much. In ‘Cuscatlan’, for example, we worked really hard on that stop/start groove that had a latin feel, but was kind of a heavy groove. The timing took a lot of rehearsing, just to get that feel how we wanted it.”

When asked if audience reaction to their material met expectations, or if there were any surprises, they had this to say

Simon: “There was more stuff on ‘Shape’ that I was surprised with, really. People really liked the song ‘Air’ which was the last thing I expected to have mass appeal. It was quite an introspective song, but it’s a lot of people’s favourite.”
After what seems like a significant hiatus, where Angie pursued solo works, including a stint on cult smash T.V. series, “Buffy the vampire slayer” and the band went their separate ways creatively, there is some new material in the works, and it has rekindled their enthusiasm.

Simon:“How lucky are we to play music? , though. Its where art and science come together. Its the most satisfying thing. It transports people and makes them happy. Its a language we can all speak, and we can all speak it together”
Angie: “That’s when it’s the most satisfying, because when you’re really pushing yourself, and all the endorphins flow, and you have some challenges, and you’re working your arse off, when you walk off stage, you just feel so great.”
“We jumped at the chance to come to Cairns. We have always enjoyed the crowds and the enthusiastic feel of the place.”
You can catch this great act at The Tanks on Saturday, March 23rd. Tickets are available from TicketLink.

Noel Keid

Photo by Sarah Walker

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