Fruit flying once again
Like the all-girl, all-singing fictional band in Josie And The Pussycats, Fruit is essentially a blonde, a brunette and a redhead.
A lame comparison -“ no doubt -“ but it’s about the closest link there is between the hard-travelling US festival circuit favourites Fruit and the current swag of made-by-television musicians.
Sam Lohs, Mel Watson and Susie Keynes are famous for their road trips. Since the three first played together almost 10 years ago, they’ve barely stopped moving.
On the back of their new album Burn, they’re heading off again, from their joint hometowns (Melbourne and Adelaide) to the rest of the East Coast and on to North America.
Without a breakthrough single and lacking a huge profile, Fruit have nevertheless managed to perform in front of hundreds of thousands of adoring fans and sold something like 75,000 albums independently.
Fruit comes in two forms: three-piece and five-piece (Yanya Boston and Brian Ruiz are Fruit’s part-time rhythm section). Their music is built on harmony and strong song-writing, and the band’s long history is obvious at their live shows.
They complement each other musically, and personally they seem to get on pretty well too.
I think that each of us has a very strong vision of what Fruit is about, Keynes says.
It is about embracing three different people’s music, and it is about harmony. The time we’ve spent together is longer than any relationship that any of us has ever had.
Spending as much time on the road as at home is hard, Keynes says, but the band loves having an endless summer -“ in the northern hemisphere in the middle of the year and the southern hemisphere for the rest.
Australia is so laidback, she says.
When you’re travelling through North America it’s like the places have a pulse you can feel. There are so many people, so much traffic, so much energy going on. When you come back to Australia you can literally hear wind rushing through the trees, and it’s a much more gentle experience.
Fruit is performing on Friday 13 May at The Vanguard, King St, Newtown, from 8pm. Tickets: 9209 4614 or online at www.moshtix.com.au
