UV Race’s American sojourn was ultimately successful – an appearance at the legendary Gonerfest garage rock festival in Memphis went down a treat, with Marcus stripping down to his red jocks, much to the excitement of the crowd. “I got some money – I got five or ten bucks, which was good given the amount of money I spent over there,” he smiles.
It wasn’t all plain sailing, however. Keyboardist Alex, who joined the band early last year, managed to misplace her keyboard prior to getting in the van for the trip to Memphis. “I left my keyboard in the city before, and didn’t realise until we were about to set up,” Alex confirms. At first glance, it’s difficult to comprehend how you could forget to pack an object as significant as a keyboard; the explanation, as with so many rock ‘n’ roll road stories, lies with alcohol consumption. “That was probably the hottest day we were there, and there was eleven of us in an eight-seater van,” Al explains. “In order to be comfortable, everyone had to remove their pants, sit in their underwear and have their body scraping against other people’s sweat,” Alex adds. “Every time you got to the servo you’d get released for a few minutes. Probably the van rides weren’t the highlight of the trip,” she laughs.
Later on, Al and Dan went to Europe, while Marcus headed down to Florida to immerse himself in American culture. “I went to this place called Gator Land in Florida,” Marcus recalls. “You could pay an extra five bucks so you could sit on the back of an alligator – a real alligator, they taped it up – and you could have your photo taken with it. It was so American and bad that I had to do it,” he laughs.
A few months before heading to the US, UV Race had recorded their second album, Homo. “We were hoping to get it out before we went to the ‘States, but it took a bit longer to do it, so we thought we might as well wait a bit so we could have a good launch when we got back to Australia,” Al explains. While in the US, Marcus had ‘schmoozed’ Larry from In The Red Records, managing to secure a US release for the record. “So we decided to wait until they put it out,” Al nods.
Homo is the usual collage of deft garage tunes and idiosyncratic lyrical observations with which UV Race have become associated. On Inner North, Marcus pays tribute to the inner-north suburbs of metropolitan Melbourne. “At the start it was having a go at the trendy scene of Fitzroy and Collingwood, and how I find it a bit wanky sometimes, but it’s not about that anymore – it’s more about that actual area and how it’s actually pretty good compared to Warrigul,” Marcus confirms. “I’d like it a bit more if it was a bit more cynical,” Alex laughs.
