26

When it comes to picking the acts that play a major role in the guiding psyche of 26's principal songwriter and vocalist Nick O'Donnell, there's no surprises to be found when names like Radiohead, Elbow and The Doves spring immediately to mind. Then, especially when one starts pinpointing familiarity towards vocal styling: here Bono wins out as being his number one influence.

This is not to say that O'Donnell and his associate 26'ers, Andrew Fellows (keyboards), Ross Duckworth (bass) and drummer, Iain Wilson, are deliberately contrived when it comes to crafting their wares; it's just that much of their combined passion leans heavily towards Brit-pop, both contemporary and classic.

"That's pretty much how we got together," recalls O'Donnell, "in the sense that we all have a mutual love for the same stuff including all that good stuff from earlier on like The Who and Beatles as well.

"I don't go for any one particular writing style," he reflects when considering how such channelling occurs, "in fact I don't know where the songs come from. I just sit down in front of a piano or with a guitar and just write, you know?

"Obviously our influences show through with what we do, but I don't actually sit down and think that I'm going to write a classic British type song or anything like that; the melodies and all that just sort of come to me then I'll just piece things together.

"I think where all the Britishness comes into it is from the production style and what flavours we like to add. It's what keeps on interesting me with British music, like even now I'm very rarely surprised by an American band, it's always the British stuff that makes me go, 'Wow, that's new and good'.

"Like with Gorillaz (led by Damon Albarn from Blur) and bands like that, you don't get experimentation like that from American bands. Though you do have The Flaming Lips and bands like that who are from the 'States, so there are plenty of instances to prove me wrong but I've just always enjoyed the taste of the British sound, there's just that pop sensibility they have."

As a sampler of their sonically infused tunes from their soon to be released second album, 'Friendly Fire', Brisbane based 26 have released a double A-sided single: Friendly Fire/Let Down, with both songs available to hear on the band's MySpace site.

"There's definitely more up our sleeves," says O'Donnell of their latest additions to the 26 canon, "but as we thought it best that we get out on tour again we also thought that we'd put out two tracks that were not only indicative of our sound but were also two different styles. They also bridge the gap between our two albums. It's basically a way of not cornering ourselves, you know? We can do two fairly diverse songs but I think when you hear the album it will then all makes sense.

"We had a fair amount of airplay of the first record ['The King Must Die'] so with these new singles I fully expect that at least one of them will be played."

With so much talk of British interjection throughout our conversation, I wondered if there was any trace of Brisbanality to be found in their songs; not that I could pick any.

"Ah, I don't think so," he considers, if only momentarily, "that's a hard one to classify, but I'm not really affected by the local scene as such because we've got our eyes on the bigger, more international type sounds," he avows.

"Something that can be embraced by more people, not that I think about that too much when I write but it's definitely always in the back of my mind. However I do try to think whether or not our recorded songs sit well alongside a Radiohead or whoever song, you know?"

Steve Jones

26 play at Jive on Thurs 13 July.