BEACHED AS

MELBOURNE PSYCHED OUT QUINTET BEACHES MAY NEVER ADORN THE COVERS OF MAGAZINES OR HIT THE TOP OF THE CHARTS, BUT GUITARIST AND VOCALIST ALI MCCANN TALKS DAN CONDON THROUGH THE BAND’S METEORIC RISE IN CREDIBILITY

While commercial success may pay the bills for a little while, the quest for respect from your peers and your idols is often the most common inspiration for the continuation of a musical career. It will not bring the glamour that is apparently associated with chart-topping, fad-pillaging superstars, but this kind of respect from the right places will not only encourage artists that they’re doing the right thing, the band and their music are more likely to remain relevant well after the brightest stars have faded away.
If kudos earned dollars, Melbourne quintet Beaches would shake the shit out of the next BRW Rich List. It seems that everywhere you look right now, the band are being given major props from some of the world’s best-respected artists and some of our country’s most renowned members of the music industry. But guitarist and vocalist Ali McCann says that winning the respect of the band’s close personal friends has been encouraging enough.
“When we first started playing we were just playing to our friends, and a lot of our immediate friends are in some pretty amazing bands that have been playing for years and years and years in Melbourne,” she says. “And they’re honest; our friends who play in bands wouldn’t say that they liked us just to be nice, everyone’s pretty honest about their tastes and how they feel about music that’s going around these days. But also people who are a part of the music community who have good taste, it’s really flattering that they are really into the record and into the band. I think it’s really important to receive those sorts of compliments whose opinions and taste we respect.”
Who are these people? Well for starters, the band were asked to play at this year’s inaugural Australian All Tomorrow’s Parties festival, curated by none other than Mr Nick Cave.
“It was incredible,” McCann states. “I was just going to go anyway – the line-up was too good to miss – but a lot of us were quite skint at that time so when we heard we’d been asked to play we were pretty bloody ecstatic, we couldn’t believe it. Because of course I’m sure there are a lot of other bands who would have loved the opportunity to play such an amazing festival; we just felt so bloody grateful.”
Given the prestigious nature of the festival and the fierce competition the band would have had to contend with to earn themselves a spot on the bill, it’s understandable that they were a little more nervous than usual leading up to the event.
“When we heard we were like, ‘Right, we’ve got to really knuckle down and just rehearse and rehearse and rehearse’,” McCann recalls. “Even with Meredith as well – not that we didn’t rehearse heaps, because we pretty much rehearse every week – but we really felt a bit more pressure to play a good show. We can’t just screw it up and take it for granted.”
If an ATP invitation isn’t enough kudos for you, then perhaps a spot on the final shortlist for the upcoming Australian Music Prize might tip it over the edge. McCann is definitely taken aback by the nomination.
“Yeah,” she says, sounding as if the reality of this fact hasn’t set in. “That’s crazy. We don’t think that we’ll take it out but it’s just great to be shortlisted.”

WHO: Beaches
WHAT: Beaches (Mistletone/Shock)
WHERE & WHEN: The Zoo Friday Mar 6