The band met while attending school at the University of Sydney, and after finishing their degrees, they took on music as a full-time profession. However, during that time they didn’t end up meeting a bass player — and since then, the band has decided to go without.
“At first we thought that we would need to [seek out a bass player] because a lot of people told us we needed to find a bass player, but we just kept playing and it turned out that it wasn’t a thing that we needed at all,” said Shannon. “There’s a lot of synth bass and recording and guitars, so we kind of compensate a little bit.”
The Jezabels have been together for four and a half years, and in that time they’ve put out three EPs — two in 2009 and one in 2010 — and their first full-length album Prisoner, which was released in September.
Their EPs were recorded over the span of 18 months, and a similar pace was taken for Prisoner.
“It was [written and recorded] over 5 or 6 months, so quite quickly,” said Jezabels keyboardist and pianist Heather Shannon. “All of the songs on the album fit together because of that. They were all written [at] about the same time, so they have similar subjects.”
The Jezabels are about to embark on a tour of North America in support of Prisoner.
The biggest change Shannon would like to make between this North American tour and the last would be to take more pictures.
“We went to New York and Chicago last time. I want to take a lot of photos this time because I didn’t last time,” said Shannon. “It’s a very amateur thing. I’ve only probably taken a handful of photos in my life.”
While at university, Shannon took a couple of classes on Russian culture, which have left her with a love of Russian literature. She recently finished reading Anna Karenina.
“It’s actually that you get sucked into to this really long, drawn-out story and there are a lot of characters,” said Shannon. “I guess I really like reading the Russian writers. I just wanted to give Tolstoy a read.”
Shannon also loves Dostoyevsky and says that she is bringing a work by Russian Romantic-Era writer Alexander Pushkin on tour with her.
“I’m just about to start a book now by Pushkin, who apparently influenced Dostoyevsky and lots of other great Russian writers,” said Shannon.
Drummer Nik Kaloper has an interest in website design, which he entertains when he’s playing music.
“Nik, for some reason, decided that he was going to teach himself how to make websites, so he started reading textbooks on HTML, so he’s kind of interested in other things I guess,” said Shannon. “He’s really good at it, actually.”
The Jezabels will be with Canadian indie-rock group Hey Rosetta! at the MacEwan Ballroom November 14 — come rock out, Aussie-style.