“It could become an annual thing, under the banner of She Who Rocks. It doesn’t always have to be us and Baby Animals on it. It’s just like that’s the banner, and then you pick bands that work for it.”
The She Who Rocks tour featuring Baby Animals and The Superjesus kicks off at the Charles Hotel this Friday, May 22, (with Legs Electric) and Saturday, May 23, (with The Joy Evelation). SHANE PINNEGAR chats with Superjesus singer/guitarist, Sarah McLeod.
Baby Animals and The Superjesus are both Australian icons with strong female singers, and they’ve thrown out the offer for other bands with a female presence to put their names in the ring to support each gig of the tour, with The Joy Evelation and Legs Electric scoring the Perth slots.
It all adds up to a great line-up.
“Yeah, it is, yeah,” says Superjesus, singer/guitarist, Sarah McLeod. “We’ve been talking about doing it for so long and we’ve never played together. They are such a great band and the drummer and I have been best friends for 10 years, so it was funny to be standing on stage with him. But with The Baby Animals, who I’m massive fans of, to actually get to play side-by-side with them night after night and hang out on a long tour is going to be really fun. I can’t wait.
Was Baby Animals singer/guitarist Suze DeMarchi, a role model for you?
“Absolutely, are you kidding!” McLeod gasps. “Yeah. I went and saw her so many times and I was just standing there going, ‘oh, my God. This band is incredible’. It’s one of the reasons I learned how to play guitar.”
With plenty of bands around the country boasting talented female musicians, the potential is endless for the She Who Rocks brand.
“Yeah, exactly, which is what we’re trying to achieve here,” McLeod agrees. “We were hoping that, maybe, it could become an annual thing, under the banner of She Who Rocks. It doesn’t always have to be us and Baby Animals on it. It’s just like that’s the banner, and then you pick bands that work for it.”
McLeod says she sees this reunion and tour as a second chance for The Superjesus, who originally disbanded in 2004.
“I would like to think so, yeah. If not now, if this is not the second chance, then there is no second chance. It’s now or never, yeah. I feel like we’ve had chance after chance. If anything, this is our, 1, 2, 3, this is probably our fourth chance, to be honest. Only time will tell with these things. I always figured you just throw enough shit at the fan, eventually something will stick to it.”
The band are recording an EP for imminent release, and McLeod has also recorded an album with Tea Party frontman and adopted Fremantle local, Jeff Martin, under the name Black Diamond Express.
“It’s a really eclectic record – no song sounds the same,” she attests. “It’s just all about being musical. There’s no theme, it’s just song after song, we just picked the best songs. You wouldn’t know from song to song that it’s the same band, but it all ties together. It’s really random but an exciting body of work. We’re all pretty keen to see what people are going to think of it.”
‘The iconic Aussie rock chick’ is just one epithet that has been used to describe Sarah McLeod. She says her transition from well-behaved Catholic school girl student to rocker was supported by her parents.
“Well, my mum is quite theatrical herself,” she explains, “she used to be an actor and she’s been a television presenter. As much as she would’ve loved me to get a proper career, if that’s what you call it, I think she is awesome. She loves the thrill of being in the entertainment business, showbiz. She’s really supportive and she collects all the articles and she speaks highly of me in public to her friends. Which is nice, because I always think that she’s out there going, ‘oh, my God, now she’s done this bad thing’, but she doesn’t.”
Anyone who has seen The Superjesus live will attest that McLeod bounces around like the Energizer bunny.
“That’s because I give myself three vodkas, tops, and then I don’t drink until after the show,” she explains with a laugh. “Otherwise, I find that when I’m banging around the stage, I’m scared that I’ll fall over because you get dizzy. You’ve got to remain relatively sober.”
