Something for Kate

Something for Kate
250x200px 24 February 2008, Something For Kate at the Corner Hotel, Richmond, Victoria.
Background information
Origin	Melbourne, Australia
Genres	Alternative rock, post-grunge
Years active	1994–present
Labels	Sony BMG New Found Frequency EMI
Associated acts	Scared of Horses, Sandpit
Website	Official website
Members	Paul Dempsey Stephanie Ashworth Clint Hyndman
Past members	Julian Carroll Toby Ralph

Something for Kate is a rock band from Melbourne, Australia, led by songwriter, vocalist and guitarist Paul Dempsey. The band was formed in 1994 and signed to the Murmur record label a year later when its three members were aged only 19. They have released six studio albums, two of which have topped Australia's ARIA Charts, with three others reaching the top 10. The band, whose name is often abbreviated to SFK, has had 11 ARIA Music Awards nominations since 1999. Something for Kate have toured extensively in Australia and internationally, supporting Pavement, Swervedriver, Powderfinger, David Bowie and You Am I and have been supported by bands including Caustic Soda, Big Heavy Stuff, Augie March, Crooked Fingers, Angus & Julia Stone and Death Cab For Cutie. The band's lineup since 1998 has been Dempsey (guitars, vocals), Stephanie Ashworth (bass) and Clint Hyndman (drums).

History

1994–1997: Formation and first lineup

Dempsey and drumming mate Clint Hyndman formed the band in 1994 soon after leaving Padua College on Victoria's Mornington Peninsula. The pair enlisted Julian Carroll as bassist after advertising in music stores. The trio played their first gig on 12 September 1994 at the Punter's Club in Melbourne, changing their band name from Fish of the Day at the suggestion of the venue's booking agent. Dempsey said the new name was inspired by his dog, Kate.

The band found a devoted fanbase in Melbourne and recorded a demo tape that sold out of multiple pressings. In 1995 Sony Music A&R man Chris Dunn signed the band to the Murmur label, which had picked up Newcastle teenage rock band Silverchair a year earlier. Dunn said he was impressed by the age of his new signings. "If they had been a bit older I probably would've not been as interested. But because they were 19, I investigated it more and went out and got the tape." He said one song, "Slow", was particularly appealing: "That really triggered the whole thing in me. I kept on playing this song over and over again. I just thought it was a really good song for such a young person."

They recorded an EP, ....The Answer to Both Your Questions, in early 1996 and at the end of the year released a single, "Dean Martin", which received frequent airplay on youth radio network Triple J. A limited edition EP, Intermission, was hastily assembled from leftover recordings and released in early 1997, quickly becoming a collectors' item. The band chose an Auckland, New Zealand studio to record their debut album, Elsewhere for 8 Minutes, with producer Brian Paulson, whose credits included Wilco and Slint. Carroll, who had recently married, announced he would quit the band to retreat to a rural property to make music, but agreed to remain for the recording. A single, "Captain (Million Miles An Hour)" preceded the album's July release, receiving heavy airplay on Triple J and making it to #39 in the station's Hottest 100 for the year. The band's following quickly grew and they toured heavily, scoring gigs on numerous major festivals.

1998–present: Lineup changes, rebuilding

When Carroll's replacement on bass, Toby Ralph from the band Lobtailing, failed to gel with the other two members in his first year, he left and was replaced by Stephanie Ashworth from Sandpit. Dempsey said the band was going through a "really turbulent period" and "completely deconstructed everything" to rebuild after Ashworth joined. "We've just been lucky because we've got this really natural chemistry between the three of us," he said. "We've finally got the right combination of people and we're collaborating the way a band should."

In late 1998 the band moved to Toronto, Canada, to rehearse and record their second album, Beautiful Sharks, again with Paulson as producer. It was released the following June, reaching #10 in the ARIA charts, achieving gold status and receiving a nomination for Best Adult Alternative Album in the 2001 ARIA Awards. The band embarked on a major tour with Powderfinger and ended the year with three singles in the year's Triple J Hottest 100. They toured Japan and the United States in early 2000, where Ashworth received—and rejected—an offer to join Courtney Love's rock band Hole.

For their third studio album, Echolalia, the band contracted another American producer, Trina Shoemaker, who had won a Grammy Award in 1998 for her work with Sheryl Crow, and began work at Mangrove Studios on Sydney’s north coast. The sessions in a windowless rehearsal studio stretched out over a year as Dempsey struggled with writer's block. He recalled:

We'd go down there every day, pick up our instruments and wait for something to happen. And we spent a lot of days just sitting there, staring at each other. We'd set a standard for ourselves and I guess we were trying to meet that. Nothing was happening, we got really depressed and we hit a wall. I was spiralling down.

Exasperated, the band decided on an impulse to buy tickets to an island in the Gulf of Thailand. Once there, Dempsey wrote "Monsters" in about 20 minutes. He said the song, about overcoming self-doubt, broke the drought: "As soon as I stopped thinking about it, as soon as I stopped being a songwriter, it came. So after that, we came home and wrote about 20 songs." The album, released in June 2001, peaked at #2. The band sold out two national tours and finished the year again supporting Powderfinger, which trumped them at that year's ARIA Awards. Something for Kate were nominated in six categories but won none. "Monsters" came second in the Triple J Hottest 100 for 2001.

The band's next two albums, The Official Fiction (2003) and Desert Lights (2006) both topped the album charts in Australia. Desert Lights achieved gold status within a month of its release. A "best of" compilation album, The Murmur Years: The Best Of Something For Kate 1996-2007, was released in 2007 with one new song, "The Futurist", and the following year a limited edition 16-track live album, Live at the Corner, was released as an "artist-controlled bootleg", capturing the sound of the band on stage at the Corner Hotel in Richmond, Melbourne.

After a six-year break from the studio, the band embarked on a summer recording session in Dallas, Texas in 2012 with producer John Congleton, whose credits include Okkervil River, Shearwater and The New Pornographers. Dempsey said the band had been looking for someone to contain the band during the recording process: "We recognised an inclination or proclivity among ourselves to procrastinate and keep layering stuff up. We knew that we needed to fight that instinct and he was very much the guy to help us." The band uploaded two songs from the album to the internet before its release ("Survival Expert" and "The Fireball At The End Of Everything") and also played two live shows in Melbourne and Sydney to preview it.

As part of the band's mid-2013 Australian tour, Dempsey recorded "Shotgun Karaoke" video segments prior to each show, in which he performs cover versions of songs by artists such as The Lemonheads, David Bowie, INXS, and Queen. The "Star-Crossed Cities" tour was the band's first extensive Australian tour in over 5 years and ended in Hobart, Tasmania on 29 June 2013.

Touring members

• Wally Gunn - rhythm guitar and keyboards
• Phillip 'Pip' Branson - rhythm guitar and violin (ex-member of Sydney band Sidewinder)
• Simon Burke - keyboards
• Anthony Petrucci - rhythm guitar
• John Hedigan - guitar

Pseudonyms

Something for Kate and Paul Dempsey have played secret shows under pseudonyms, including:

• George Kaplan and the Editors (referencing The Official Fiction)
• Max Planck and the Horse He Rode In On (referencing The Official Fiction)
• Captain Pinstripe (referencing two of their songs from Elsewhere for 8 Minutes)
• Jerry & the Manmade Sharks (referencing Echolalia and Beautiful Sharks)
• Transparanoia (referencing Desert Lights)
• Max Planck & The Survival Experts (secret show at The Prince of Wales, Melbourne, on 2 July 2014)

Discography

Albums

• Elsewhere for 8 Minutes (1997)
• Beautiful Sharks (1999)
• Echolalia (2001)
• The Official Fiction (2003)
• Desert Lights (2006)
• Leave Your Soul to Science (2012)

Other major releases

• Q & A with Dean Martin (1996, reissued 2000)
• Phantom Limbs: Selected B-Sides (2004)
• iTunes Originals – Something for Kate (2007)
• The Murmur Years (2007)
• Live at the Corner (2008)

EPs

• ....The Answer to Both Your Questions (1996)
• Intermission (1997)

Singles

• "Dean Martin" (1996)

From Elsewhere for 8 Minutes:

• "Captain (Million Miles an Hour)" (1997)
• "Captain (Million Miles an Hour) (Ltd Edition)" (1997)
• "Prick" (1997)
• "Working Against Me" (1998)
• "Roll Credit" (1998)
• Harpoon/Clint (1998) (Split A-side with Jebediah. Two different versions released, SFK's vinyl, and Jebediah's CD version (Harpoon EP) both with different cover art.

From Beautiful Sharks:

• "Electricity" (1999) No. 39 AUS
• "Hallways" (1999)
• "Whatever You Want" (1999)
• "The Astronaut" (2000)

From Echolalia:

• "Monsters" (2001) No. 15 AUS
• "Three Dimensions" (2001) No. 32 AUS
• "Twenty Years" (2001) No. 43 AUS
• "Say Something" (2002) No. 40 AUS

From The Official Fiction:

• "Déjà Vu" (2003) No. 19 AUS
• "Song for a Sleepwalker" (2003) No. 35 AUS
• "Best Weapon" (2003) (promo only)
• "Moving Right Along" (2004)

From Desert Lights:

• "Cigarettes and Suitcases" (2006) No. 23 AUS
• "Oh Kamikaze" (2006) No. 39 AUS
• "California" (2007)

From The Murmur Years:

• "The Futurist" (2007) (promo only)

From Leave Your Soul to Science:

• "Survival Expert" (2012)
• "Miracle Cure" (2012)
• "Star-crossed Citizens" (2013)

Compilations

Undone: The Songs of Duran Duran:

• "Ordinary World" (1999)

The Power & The Passion - A Tribute to Midnight Oil:

• "Dreamworld"

Standing on the Outside - The Songs of Cold Chisel:

• "When the War Is Over" (2007)

Crucible: The Songs of Hunters & Collectors:

• "When the River Runs Dry" (2013).

Videography

There have been two official video releases: a VHS video entitled, Big Screen Television (also referred to as The World According to Bart), and a DVD entitled, A Diversion. The DVD features a short film with a soundtrack composed by Paul Dempsey, in addition to 29 live video clips from various concerts.

The film clips from "Subject to Change" to "Whatever you Want", along with a live version of "Truly" (recorded at the UNSW Roundhouse), appear on Big Screen Television.

• "Subject to Change"
• "Dean Martin"
• "Just A Picture" (1997) - directed by Bart Borghesi
• "Captain" (1997)
• "Prick" (1997) - directed by Toby Ralph
• "Working Against Me" (1998) - directed by Bart Borghesi
• "Roll Credit" - directed by Bart Borghesi (Ashworth's first appearance)
• "Electricity" (1999) - directed by Bart Borghesi
• "Hallways" (1999) - directed by Bart Borghesi
• "Whatever You Want" (1999)
• "The Astronaut" (2000) - directed by Morgan Christie
• "Monsters" (2001) - directed by Bart Borghesi
• "Three Dimensions" (2001) - directed by Bart Borghesi
• "Twenty Years" (2001) - directed by Bart Borghesi
• "Say Something" (2002) - directed by Morgan Christie
• "You Only Hide" (2002) - featured on the band's DVD as an extra
• "Déjà Vu" (2003) - directed by Grant Marshall
• "Song For A Sleepwalker" (2003) - directed by Bart Borghesi
• "Best Weapon" (2003) - a "non-commercial single" and the film clip featured the band playing live at the Enmore Theatre in Sydney
• "Moving Right Along" (2004) - directed by Rupert Glasson
• "Cigarettes And Suitcases" (2006) - directed by Matt Weston of Syndicate Films
• "Oh Kamikaze" (2006)
• "California" (2007) - directed by Bart Borghesi
• "The Futurist" (2007) - directed by Bart Borghesi
• "Survival Expert" (2012) - directed by Prad Senanayake
• "Miracle Cure" (2012) - directed by Morgan Christie
• "Star-Crossed Citizens" (2013) - directed by Melvin Montalban

Side projects

Dempsey has also produced two side projects, including a newly released solo album. In 1998, he released a project under the name Scared of Horses titled An Empty Flight, in which he wrote and recorded all the music, featuring vocals from members of several indie bands. In 2009 Dempsey released a solo album, Everything Is True. Dempsey was involved in a band known as the Givegoods; other members included Evan Dando from The Lemonheads and Juanita Stein from The Howling Bells (formerly Waikiki). The "supergroup" released a recording entitled, I Want to Kill a Rich Man, in 2003. In 2007 Dempsey produced and played on Melbourne singer songwriter, Brendan Welch's album, "The Gleaner". Dempsey also produced an as-yet untitled album for Brisbane band Mosman Alder, due for release in 2014.

Activism

In 2004, Something for Kate joined People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) in its fight against animal cruelty. As part of their involvement, the band produced an adverstisement protesting Kentucky Fried Chicken's (KFC's) alleged cruelty to animals.

Dempsey is listed as a supporter of the "Oscar's Law" campaign against the factory farming of companion animals, together with other publicly known figures including musician Mark McEntee, comedian Mick Molloy and the Essendon Football Club.

External links

• Official web site
• phantomlimbs.net A Something for Kate Discography & Tour Archive
• SFK For The Novice Something For Kate fansite
• Behave short film