no regrets Leonardo's Bride

Rip It Up, Issue 241, 1 September 1997, Page 14

no regrets Leonardo's Bride

IN THE BASEMENT OF MANIFESTO WINE BAR, SITUATED IN QUEEN STREET, Auckland, Abby Dobson of the Australian band Leonardo’s Bride is WAITING PATIENTLY SIDE OF STAGE WHILE MORE FM DEEJAY JEREMY CORBETT INTRODUCES THE GROUP TO THE SMALL INVITED AUDIENCE.

Leonardo’s Bride were in Auckland for three days midway through last month, on a promotional tour in support of their new debut album, Angel Blood, and on the morning of the showcase gig, played live on Kim And Corbett’s breakfast radio show. Corbett was impressed; “When I first heard Abby’s voice I got goosebumps”, he announces to the Manifesto gathering, “then I realised Kim’s finger was up my bum... anyway, there’s enough of me to fill my trousers, here’s Leonardo’s Bride...” Leonardo’s Bride formed in 1992, when Dobson and guitarist Dean Manning returned to Sydney following a 12 month overseas sojourn through Europe and North America. The duo financed each stage of the journey by perform-

ing in cafes and bars; Dobson explains the experience gifted her the self assurance necessary to front a band. “Nobody knows you overseas, so nobody’s going to subtly remind you that you’ve stepped over some imaginary line and you’ve become too much of a show off. You can expand your horizons and exercise a few different personalities that haven’t come out. I decided I was going to be in a band when I was overseas, and there was no one there to say, ‘you can’t do that’.” Leonardo’s Bride played their first shows in May that year. Prior to every gig, Dobson and Manning would mail out personal invitations to friends and acquaintances to ensure a good turn-out; “That was the only way you could get

another gig in the early days. The publicans don’t care if the music rocks the world, as long as they get people there to drink beer.” After independently releasing two EPs, Leonardo’s Bride were offered a record deal with major label, Polydor, but opted to sign with Michael Gudinski’s Mushroom Records. “We had a great relationship with Polydor, it was always assumed that we would sign with them. We negotiated the contract for ages, but by the end we had to turn it down — the contract was like a phone directory and they wanted our first born. We already had a relationship with Mushroom, we had friends there, we’d got pissed with a lot of them, so it was a natural process that Mushroom came to us and said quietly, ‘come with us’.. So we signed a four album deal with them.” Dobson pauses, then adds; “I know that sounds like it was a cruisy thing, but it’s been a struggle, it hasn’t been this fantastic yellow brick road that we’ve just skipped along to get to where we are now. We’ve worked hard and put a lot of energy into it.” After their New Zealand trip, Leonardo’s Bride are set to embark on a full scale national

tour of Oz. And across the Tasman, the marketing men at Mushroom are selling the band as the fresh-faced saviours of Australian pop music. Dobson, however, offers the proverbial ocker knockback to any ambitious ideals — she couldn’t give a shit. “I don’t have aspirations for the album, I just hope that people like it and have the opportunity to hear it, and that it makes them feel something. Singles charts and record sales, that is somebody else’s concern — I got into music not accountancy. “In terms of success for the band, I’ve never been very good at living in the future and planning what I’ll do next. I think if you stay sharp and ‘live in the now’, then at least you’re on your toes. I used to work in a job that made me pissed off from the moment I woke up. I’d wake, slam my hand down on the alarm clock, and there I was, pissed off first thing in the morning. Now I feel I’m one of the lucky ones, because I found that music is what I want to do, it’s fulfilling to me. I’m already stoked because I know I’m not going to be an old person with regrets.”

JOHN RUSSELL