Something for Kate
Something for Kate are an Australian alternative rock band, which formed in 1994 with Paul Dempsey on lead vocals and guitar, and Clint Hyndman on drums. They were joined in 1998 by Stephanie Ashworth on bass guitar and backing vocals. The group have released seven studio albums: both The Official Fiction and Desert Lights topped the ARIA Albums Chart; while Beautiful Sharks, Echolalia and Leave Your Soul to Science reached the top 10. Two of their singles have reached the ARIA top 20: "Monsters" and "Déjà Vu". The band have received a total of 11 nominations for ARIA Music Awards in 1999, 2001 and 2003.
History
1994–1997: Formation and early years
Something for Kate were formed in 1994 in Melbourne by Julian Carroll on bass guitar, Paul Dempsey on lead guitar and lead vocals, and Clint Hyndman on drums. Dempsey and Hyndman were school friends from Padua College, Mornington Peninsula; Carroll successfully answered their advertisement in music stores. The trio played their first gig on 12 September 1994 at the Punter's Club in Melbourne, changing their band name from Fish of the Day at the suggestion of the venue's booking agent, Richard Moffat. Dempsey recalled that they performed because they "just wanted to make an abrasive, staccato racket, like electrical machinery." He explained that the group's new name was inspired by his dog, Kate – he had been left a shopping note, to buy "Something for Kate". As for the dog, Dempsey's mother sold Kate, the family's Jack Russell, "They told me she ran away... I think they were a bit tired of her escaping out of the back fence. My mum let it slip about a year later. She let the dog out of the bag."The band built a varied fan base in Melbourne and recorded a demo tape that sold out of multiple pressings. In 1995, Sony Music's A&R, Chris Dunn, signed them to the Murmur label, which had picked up teenage rock band Silverchair a year earlier. He said one song, "Slow", was particularly appealing: "That really triggered the whole thing in me. I kept on playing this song over and over again. I just thought it was a really good song for such a young person."
Something for Kate released a seven-track extended play, ....The Answer to Both Your Questions, in May 1996. It was produced by Greg Atkinson and appeared both on CD and as a hand-decorated mini-LP. An Oz Music Project reviewer described it as "a critically acclaimed debut release and started catching the ears of punters around the country." During August and September of that year, they undertook the Unipaloser Tour of national universities with label mates Jebediah and Bluebottle Kiss.
In October they followed with a single, "Dean Martin", also produced by Atkinson, which received frequent airplay on youth radio network, Triple J. A limited edition five-track EP, Intermission, was hastily assembled from leftover recordings and released in March 1997, quickly becoming a collector's item. Jasper Lee of Oz Music Project declared that it "shows the vast potential for Melbourne band... Dempsey's voice proves that under the thick layer of the morbid rock guy, that a emotionally-brittle heart lies within."
In February 1997, the band recorded their debut album, Elsewhere for 8 Minutes, at York St Studios, Auckland, with producer Brian Paulson, whose credits included Wilco and Slint. Carroll, who had recently married, quit the band to live on a rural property, but agreed to remain for the sessions, he was replaced on bass guitar by Toby Ralph. Greg Lawrence of WHAMMO website described the album as "the glorious debut" which "showed, early on in this band's career, the depth of emotional range at the disposal of songwriter and singer Paul Dempsey... is a crucial initial chapter in the story of this important Australian band."
A single, "Captain ", appeared in May 1997. It received heavy airplay on Triple J and was listed at No. 39 on their Hottest 100 for that year. The band's following quickly grew and they toured heavily, scoring gigs on numerous major festivals. Dempsey acknowledged that "It's pretty hard when you start out. It's only now that we're starting to get some serious recognition that we can finally begin to pick & choose where we want to play. But to do that, you have to be able to prove that, as a band, you can really cut it live & draw the crowds."
1998–2002: ''Beautiful Sharks''
After about a year in Something for Kate, Ralph had failed to fit in with the other two, he was replaced by Stephanie Ashworth from three-piece indie rockers, Sandpit. Sandpit had released their own debut album, On Second Thought, in May 1998 but they disbanded – founding drummer Paul Sciacca had left ahead of recording sessions. Ashworth on bass guitar, keyboards and backing vocals and Brendan Webb, on lead guitar and vocals, had finished that album with their producer, Greg Wales, also on drums.Dempsey felt that his group were going through a "really turbulent period" and "completely de-constructed everything" to rebuild after Ashworth joined. He continued, "We've just been lucky because we've got this really natural chemistry between the three of us... We've finally got the right combination of people and we're collaborating the way a band should." By the time Ashworth had joined "she and Dempsey had gone from musical acquaintances to becoming a couple." In June 1998 Something for Kate issued another single, "Roll Credit", which included label mates Jebediah's cover of their song, "Clint" and SFK's cover of Jebediah's "Harpoon". Murmur also issued a split double-7" single/EP with the two versions of "Harpoon" on one disc and both versions of "Clint" on the other.
During 1998 Dempsey set up a side project, Scared of Horses, to release a solo album An Empty Flight, in November that year. He co-wrote and performed the tracks with a variety of fellow artists on lead vocals including Ashworth, Jamie Hutchings of Bluebottle Kiss, Laura MacFarlane of Ninetynine, Andria Prudente of Arrosa, Glenn Richards of Augie March and Heinz Riegler of Not from There.
In late 1998 the band travelled to Toronto to rehearse and record their second album, Beautiful Sharks, again with Paulson as producer. Ashworth and Dempsey co-wrote half of the music for the album. It was released the following June, which reached No. 10 on the ARIA Albums Chart, and was certified gold status by ARIA for shipment of 35,000 copies, in 2001. According to Australian musicologist, Ian McFarlane, "the acclaimed moved beyond the stark instrumentation of the first album into more diverse pastures ". Dino Scatena, an Australian journalist, opined that "a lot of the beauty in lies in its understated quality... so subtle, so perfect, any other songwriter would give his little pinky for a moment of such inspiration, such craftsmanship."
"Electricity", their next single, appeared ahead of the album in March 1999 and peaked in the ARIA Singles Chart top 40. It was followed by "Hallways" in August, which did not reach the top 50. Beautiful Sharks was nominated for Best Alternative Release at the ARIA Music Awards of 1999. The band embarked on a major tour with Powderfinger and had three tracks listed in the Triple J Hottest 100, 1999: "Electricity", "Whatever You Want" and "Hallways". They toured Japan and the United States in early 2000, where Ashworth received — and rejected — an offer to join Courtney Love's rock band, Hole.
2001–2002: ''Echolalia''
Something for Kate's third studio album, Echolalia, was produced by Trina Shoemaker. They began work at Mangrove Studios – owned by INXS member Garry Gary Beers – on Sydney's north coast. The sessions in a windowless rehearsal studio stretched out over a year as Dempsey struggled with writer's block. He recalled:Exasperated, the band travelled to an island in the Gulf of Thailand, where Dempsey wrote "Monsters" in 20 minutes. He said the song, about overcoming self-doubt, broke the drought: "As soon as I stopped thinking about it, as soon as I stopped being a songwriter, it came. So after that, we came home and wrote about 20 songs." Ashworth described Dempsey's guitar work: "Paul was a really percussive guitarist: he's a drummer, first and foremost and he actually taught Clint to play the drums. So he comes from playing the guitar from a really percussive perspective; from a very Fugazi-type of world, creating every aspect of a song on the guitar instead of just melodies."
The album, released in June 2001, peaked at No. 2 and was certified as platinum – for shipment of 70,000 copies – by the end of the year. Lawrence felt that "In many ways, it marks quite a departure from their past two efforts, moving towards a sparser and richer sound, both in terms of instrumentation and the moods it creates. A dazzling evolution for this vital Melbourne trio." It was listed in the top 40 in the book, 100 Best Australian Albums. The authors, John O'Donnell, Toby Creswell and Craig Mathieson, explained, " full of ghosts; figures appear and then disappear; people turn into nothingness as they blindly repeat their daily routines, and protagonists try to find a way to move from the world they know to the world they want."
"Monsters" was issued in April 2001 as the album's lead single, which debuted at No. 15, and is the group's highest charting single. O'Donnell, Creswell and Mathieson described the track's sound, "It begins with purpose, shadowed by a hint of trepidation, but two lines in, as the bass starts to make its point and Dempsey's voice becomes more pointed, the song starts to summon self-belief." Fellow Australian music journalist, Ed Nimmervoll, felt the group had "spent more time on their songs than they'd ever spent in the past. On record the result was the rich and full sound which they haven't been able to capture up until now. Their efforts were rewarded and the band's status confirmed with the first single 'Monsters' becoming the band's first bona fide 'hit'." It was followed by two more singles, "Three Dimensions" and "Twenty Years", which reached the top 50.
The band sold out two national tours and finished the year again supporting Powderfinger. At the ARIA Music Awards of 2001 Something for Kate were nominated in six categories – Album of the Year, Best Group, Best Alternative Release and Best Cover Art for Echolalia; and Single of the Year and Best Video for "Monsters" – but they did not win a trophy. On the Triple J Hottest 100, 2001 "Monsters" as listed at No. 2, "Three Dimensions" at No. 13 and "Twenty Years" at No. 37; while Echolalia was listed as the top album for the year.