“There are two meanings to Never Stop. A song saying, ‘Dad, you never take a break’ or a father to his son ‘take your time’. This is modern life, liberal capitalism. I’m not critising, it’s just a point of view.” The clip accompanying the song features the busy streets of Tokyo and New York, the hustle and bustle 9 to 5 life, which David is grateful that he is living the gypsy life that he admits he craved from the age of 5.
“It’s the life we’ve chosen. Dreaming of this thing, travelling.” The band, too, has not stopped. Since getting together in high school and officially forming in 1995, the band took their first official break of six months to record, which David feels they “needed to do for a long time”. On approaching their fifth album, David says, “We really wanted it to sound as perfect as we could. We wanted to concrete all our ideas and find new ideas. It was the first time we worked this way, in our own studio.”
Initially starting out as a ska group, Babylon Circus is an act hard to define or catergorise, but David admits it’s all a tribute to “rock’n’roll as a performance” regardless of genre. “Perpetually evolving” album to album, influenced by the many cultures they experience on their tours, David explains their decisions to record an album that captures their onstage energy and is yet a studio album. “The studio is another playground. Since our previous album, we got the tools that we couldn’t get on stage. We do play the songs faster on stage but there’s less instruments. It’s like a game, I don’t like the internet or video games, but the studio is like a Gameboy. It’s so open and there’s so many opportunities to do things you can’t do on stage. It’s more precise. Stage is about energy and rock’n’roll”.
From Balkan music to reggae, ska to rock, David explains, “we don’t want to play music from the past – they’re just influences. It’s just something that is real”. From 1995 to now, the temptation to adhere to musical trends has not played a part in influencing their music. It’s the countries they get to visit and tour and the people they meet has helped them grow and really figure out who Babylon Circus is. Their worldly-sound, energy on stage and French-cross-English songs have wowed audiences and captured a legion of fans around the globe in their 20 odd years together and sees them heading back to Australia for the fourth time.
I chat to David on a cold winter’s day in France, which he admits that the weather is a definite good reason to be heading down to play a string of shows over the Australian summer.
“December/January is summertime. In France it’s wintertime. We love Australia because it’s a different culture and I can find common ground with Europe. We are very glad to come to Australia for the fourth time. We played our first gig in 2007 at Woodford Folk Festival so it’s like a new cycle.”
BY MIMI VELEVSKA
