Fanny Lumsden & the Thrillseekers Photo: HARRIS STUDIOS
Dan Freeman from Fanny Lumsden and the Thrillseekers, caught up with Dianne Cohen to talk about their upcoming gig at this year’s Peats Ridge Festival.
We’re in Juice’n Java in Surry Hills where all the locals go for lunch and seem to know every face around. Dan tucks into a trusty chicken schnitzel sandie and we discuss the work boots and shorts he’s wearing from slogging it out at Dinosaur Designs. I suggest he looks a bit like the sexy UPS guy from Legally Blonde to which he laughs and rolls his eyes modestly. So ahem, with all that covered, we get cracking with the questions.
Q. Where is Fanny at the moment?
“She’s gone home to the family farm doing harvest.”
Q. Harvest Festival you mean?
“No, actual harvest. She might actually be on a tractor as we speak.”
Q. Oh. So Fanny truly hails from the country?
“Yeah. She’s the ‘real deal’”.
Dan laughs, quoting a review of their recent performance supporting Henry Wagons.
Q. How’d you find performing at Peats last year?
“We were quite a young band at that point. We’d only been together since August. We didn’t have a permanent banjo player yet so Leroy Lee was playing Banjo for us.
It was great – we had two shows in the Chai tent. The crowd were up and dancing by the end and called for encores after both sets which was amazing. It’s not common to do encores at festivals.”
Q. And when did you find out that you were playing again this year?
“We were coming back from Adelaide a few months ago at the end of our Autumn Lawn Ep tour – I think we were somewhere between Broken Hill and Lake Minindee, when Damien from Peats called us to invite us back. We were pretty chuffed about that. We’re going to be on a bigger stage this year, so that’s also really exciting.”
Q. What will be you be bringing to the festival this time?
“The band has expanded to six now. Unfortunately our banjo player Ben is overseas but we have Matt Took, the younger brother of Johnny Took from the Little Bastards, joining us. He just had his first show with us on the weekend at the Henry Wagons gig and did a great job.”
Q. I see you guys have a few wacky instruments?
“Ahh wacky… We have diverse instruments, I guess you could say. We have a piano accordion player, Kate, who also plays the glockenspiel. We call her A-bot; it’s short for Accordo-bot. We also have Drae who plays guitar and mandolin, Ben who plays lead guitar and banjo, and I play double bass and the harmonica. Oh, and Preston on drums. So yeah, it’s a very full ensemble.”
Q. Are you worried about rain at the festival this year?
“Last year I don’t think it rained as much as previous years, but as
long as you are Peats Ridge smart and take your gumboots, then you’ll be fine. The funniest thing was struggling to negotiate puddles of mud from the campsite in gumboots to the stage with my double bass in the rain. I won’t mention getting my car bogged in the fire trail last year. That didn’t happen.”
Q. What do you think about the line up for this year?
“I’m looking forward to a lot of the local bands which aren’t listed on this big poster.”
Dan conveniently points to a poster sitting on the wall beside him that I hadn’t noticed. These include The Preatchers, Little Bastard. The Crooked Fiddle Band was a big highlight last year. They are a staple of Peats Ridge and apparently this year they’ll be previewing their new album in its entirety! Tin Sparrow, Green Mohair Suits, Richie Cuthbert just got back from Berlin and he’ll be there too.
