{"id":31522,"date":"2017-03-15T07:00:14","date_gmt":"2017-03-14T20:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/maytherockbewithyou.com\/mtrbwy\/?p=31522"},"modified":"2017-03-14T15:11:00","modified_gmt":"2017-03-14T04:11:00","slug":"jeff-burrows-tea-party","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maytherockbewithyou.com\/mtrbwy\/2017\/03\/jeff-burrows-tea-party\/","title":{"rendered":"Jeff Burrows of The Tea Party"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\n\u201cThe difference is that you have to be on point and you have to sort of relearn the songs in their intimacy and in the simplest way without any diverging off on any tangents so it\u2019s a bit of a mind fuck if you know what I mean, you\u2019ve gotta really stick to it *laughs* so it\u2019s a bit of a challenge, I love it and it\u2019s just so powerful.\u201d<\/p>\n

From release: Revered Canadian trio The Tea Party are coming back to Australia next month.\u00a0 The band will perform their first ever Symphony shows in Australia when they take to the stage with a 48 piece Orchestra for one exclusive show, Friday April 21, 2017 at The Star Events Centre Sydney, followed by a concert at Melbourne\u2019s Hamer Hall on Friday April 28.\u00a0\u00a0 The Melbourne date has now completely sold out, with fans rushing to secure tickets to this unique event, so the Sydney show is the only remaining chance to see The Tea Party in full symphonic flight!<\/p>\n

While at home, Jeff Burrows gave us a call to talk about the amazing orchestral shows The Tea Party are set to perform in Sydney and Melbourne, Australia\u2019s love for the band, new music, and much more\u2026<\/p>\n

You’ve played with an orchestra before, but some fifteen years ago, why was now the right time and what was the idea behind doing these Australian orchestra shows?<\/strong>
\nWell, I don\u2019t know if it\u2019s the right time but the opportunity arose and for us I think the challenge is part of the excitement and the drama of playing with an orchestra. To be honest I would do this far more often it\u2019s very different of course from playing in The Tea Party on a normal show type of day, we\u2019re the type of band that\u2019s not married click tracks, we\u2019re not married to any tracking whatsoever any background tracks or whatever, so normally we\u2019ll be going off on a tangent here, jamming on this bit for a little longer here turning an eight minute song into an eleven minute song and so on. So with there, our friend Marc Ouellette who scored all the pieces for our forty two piece orchestra fifteen years ago he\u2019s adding four more tracks I believe off our newer stuff. The difference is that you have to be on point and you have to sort of relearn the songs in their intimacy and in the simplest way without any diverging off on any tangents so it\u2019s a bit of a mind fuck if you know what I mean, you\u2019ve gotta really stick to it *laughs* so it\u2019s a bit of a challenge, I love it and it\u2019s just so powerful. To some people who have never seen an orchestra or just perhaps they\u2019ve always ever been into rock music or jazz or whatnot they\u2019re gonna be blown away by the power of a symphony orchestra.<\/p>\n

Is it an interesting exercise reworking these songs adding in the orchestral elements?<\/strong>
\nWell it\u2019s not hard for us, it\u2019s interesting to hear when you\u2019re playing your parts the parts that have been written over the top of it because sometimes there\u2019s counterpoints, there\u2019s polyrhythms, it\u2019s just a different context of the song that you remember writing in your garage, or writing in a studio, or writing in a basement. It\u2019s very strange to have it treated with such respect and you know, the end result like I said is fantastic, it\u2019s a very cool experience.<\/p>\n

Do you have an idea of how the shows are set to shape up?<\/strong>
\nWe had sixteen songs done, scored around fifteen years ago and now the way it worked before and the way it will work now, it\u2019s not just the hits or anything like that. We sat down with our maestro fiend, our composer Marc Ouellette he\u2019s from Montreal, Quebec in Canada and he\u2019s the one scoring the new material as well we went for the songs that had the most drama and the best highs and the best lows and things in the songs that leant themselves best to working between a rock band and a symphony. So there\u2019s some lighter, some dramatic moments, there\u2019s some very, very heavy moments, I know one of the songs that were adding is the title track off our last studio album which is \u2018The Ocean At The End\u2019 which I can\u2019t wait to hear because it\u2019s just such an opus, and it kind of goes off the rails here and goes on different tangents there so it\u2019s gonna be pretty fantastic. So, if you\u2019re asking me if I remember what the set list is, no *laughs* but it will be around twenty songs and it will be really, really good. *laughs*<\/p>\n

I have to ask if ‘Heaven Coming Down’ will get a run… that would just sound spectacular.<\/strong>
\nHonestly, I can\u2019t recall\u2026 it may be but honestly if you\u2019re a fan at all you really won\u2019t miss any particular song if it\u2019s played or if it\u2019s not played because it\u2019s so different and I don\u2019t know if you\u2019ve seen a rock band with a symphony before but the way Marc composed the music like I said earlier with the counterpoint and polyrhythms it\u2019s not just something that can be covered on a synthesiser with orchestra strings, these are parts, the flute part is coming in and doing its trills and the violins are doing this particular part, and then the bass and the violas come in and it\u2019s just unreal. So we\u2019re pretty excited about it, it\u2019s such a challenge and when you walk out on that stage and you know the material and you know you\u2019re gonna blow people\u2019s minds because it\u2019s such a great experience it\u2019s quite humbling.<\/p>\n

I can\u2019t wait, I\u2019ll be there in Sydney with bells on and I\u2019ll try and keep the bells quiet but it\u2019s going to be an amazing night\u2026<\/strong>
\n*laughs* You know we could have a part for you playing bells if you just follow the sheet music *laughs*<\/p>\n

Australia has always been a great touring market for you and thank you for doing these shows here, but what do you think it is about Australia that just loves The Tea Party so much?<\/strong>
\nI don\u2019t know, we\u2019ve given answers over the last twenty years, some well thought out some not well thought out, the one that I always go back to is that they, the Australians much like Canadians can really see through a lot of the bullshit, so if you\u2019re a band that writes music and performs music and you do it well you\u2019re gonna get the respect of the Australians. If you\u2019re a flavour of the day or flavour of the week band from America and I\u2019m not picking on America but let\u2019s say they got huge in America because of some powerful marketing and promotion machine and they come to Australia and they shit the bed, they call them out on it and we\u2019ve never gone there with aspirations of becoming the biggest band in the world, we just came to rock and we did it well, and we did it hard and I think everyone appreciates the honesty coming from the band because there\u2019s a lot of fluff out there in a lot of genres of music whether it\u2019s country or jazz or blues or whatever, and it\u2019s hard to distill what\u2019s real and not real anymore and we pride ourselves as being one of those bands that don\u2019t require back tracks and don\u2019t require click tracks and so on, so I think the fact that it\u2019s an honest approach and it\u2019s right in your face and it\u2019s very transparent and I think they enjoy that.<\/p>\n

Well in seeing you a few times I\u2019m still amazed how that sound comes out of a three piece on stage so whatever it is you\u2019re doing, just keep doing it\u2026<\/strong>
\n*laughs* There are secrets I can\u2019t tell you *laughs*<\/p>\n

You’re also out on tour celebrating the twentieth anniversary of ‘Transmission’ at the moment, what’s it been like getting out and celebrating it by playing the whole album?<\/strong>
\nYou know what? It\u2019s been a very cool experience, at first I was very nervous because the more I listened to the record of which I hadn\u2019t listened to in twenty years the more I thought to myself how did this album become so successful, it\u2019s so out there, it\u2019s almost progressive, there\u2019s some really dark moments on this record and I think to myself this is the furthest thing from being a pop rock record, and the way it was received just goes to show you the mindset in the mid to late nineties where people\u2019s heads were at, they wanted something different they didn\u2019t want the cookie cutter verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, double chorus, out kinda thing and we certainly gave them that, I don\u2019t know\u2026 we were the black sheep then and we\u2019re rekindling our black sheepness now and having a good time doing it. We\u2019ve only got a couple of shows under our belt so it\u2019s still exciting, talk to me after thirty shows *laughs* and maybe I\u2019ll have a different answer.<\/p>\n

I do have to ask about new music as we had The Ocean At The End back in 2014, is there any chance of a new album on the horizon?<\/strong>
\nWe\u2019ve got material, we\u2019re just finishing up a lot of it most of it was done in Australia at Jeff\u2019s place, we\u2019re just at a crossroads now where we decide do we need to do albums anymore? Is it better off we release three songs per year for the next five or six years just so we\u2019re always releasing new material and then we have another excuse to go tour. I don\u2019t know, something I think songs just kind of get pushed aside because they\u2019re not given the proper amount of attention on an album, and we don\u2019t get together for two to three months at a time to write a cohesive record and eclectic as all of our albums have been even the songs on each album can be eclectic from one another and these songs some of them make sense together, some of them do not make sense together so I don\u2019t know if it should be an album. So this is where we\u2019re at right now, we\u2019re just gonna see what happens and see the reception of the tours and see where we go from there.<\/p>\n

So let’s look back in being a part of The Tea Party for over twenty years it’s easy to say what’s changed in that time but what would you say is the one thing that’s stayed the same in your time together?<\/strong>
\nAgain another thing that\u2019s probably overused and over said, the musical telepathy between the three of us, after we had our break up we were apart for five or six years, the moment we got back together and we were still on pins and needles and it wasn\u2019t all cosy at the time, as soon as we started playing everything started clicking immediately and it was really bizarre because things like that aren\u2019t supposed to happen because when you have a sour taste in your mouth because he said this and you said that and so on, then the moment you start playing something it just all makes sense it\u2019s kinda weird and that\u2019s been like that literally since we\u2019ve been kids, like twelve or thirteen years old we\u2019ve been able to do that among the three of us. So that\u2019s gonna be the constant forever, that mortal coil that ties us together, but it seems to get stronger and it seems to be getting easier and we know where everybody seems to be going, even with the new songs, there\u2019s the \u2018I knew you were going to play that part, I knew you were going to go there, that\u2019s great, let\u2019s keep doing that\u2019. I know that gets overstated fairly often the musical telepathy thing but it\u2019s a fact in this band, it\u2019s only ever been the three of us and it will only ever be the three of us.<\/p>\n

The one thing I’ve always loved about The Tea Party is that in my opinion there in no one else that sounds like you guys, not even close, after all this time what do you think it is that makes you guys stand out the way you do?<\/strong>
\nI don\u2019t know\u2026 I think the fact that we\u2019ve never catered to a particular style is probably the reason, because we came out and to quote Jeff Martin, we came out when every band was trying to smell like teen spirit and we had nothing to do with it. I had utmost respect for those bands, still do, especially the likes of Soundgarden and Alice In Chains and so on and so forth, we\u2019ve always done our own thing and it\u2019s a bit shocking because like you sad there\u2019s nothing really out there that sounds like us and even our friends in Canadian bands they\u2019ve been broken up and then tried doing reunions and it lasts for a couple of months and then it\u2019s done. We\u2019re truly the only band around in our country I think outside of Rush that is, even Rush is a different drummer *laughs* so we\u2019re really one of the true bands that have only ever been us, and we\u2019re pretty grateful for it even after the breakup it\u2019s gotten stronger. I think when you touched on the fact when you said it sounds like nothing else, that\u2019s the answer because it\u2019s always the success, we\u2019ve got fans intelligent enough to grow with the band and not be so narrow minded as to expect the same thing over and over again because that\u2019s the death of an artist I think.<\/p>\n

Lastly let’s look ahead to the future, finish this sentence for me, by the end of 2017 The Tea Party want to…<\/strong>
\nRelease new music\u2026<\/p>\n

And? *laughs*<\/strong>
\n*laughs* and come back to Australia\u2026<\/p>\n

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TOUR DATES:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Friday 21 April, 2017<\/strong>, Star Events Centre, Sydney
\nwith a 48 piece orchestra
\nTickets through Ticketek.\u00a0 Ph 132849 or www.ticketek.com.au<\/a><\/p>\n

Friday 28 April, 2017<\/strong>, Hamer Hall, Arts Centre Melbourne
\nwith Melbourne Symphony Orchestra
\nSOLD OUT<\/p>\n

Presented by TEG Live<\/p>\n

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Essential Information<\/u><\/strong><\/h2>\n

From:<\/strong> Toronto, Canada<\/p>\n

Band members: <\/strong>Jeff Martin \u2013 Vocals \/ Guitars, \u00a0Jeff Burrows \u2013 Drums \/ Percussion, Stuart Chatwood \u2013 Bass \/ Keyboards<\/p>\n

Website:<\/strong> http:\/\/www.teaparty.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Latest Release:<\/strong> The Ocean At The End (Out Now – Sony Music Australia)<\/p>\n

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