Q ’n’ A: Gold Fields

Gold Fields are about to embark on a massive national tour behind their album Black Sun, and current radio single Meet My Friends. We caught up with vocalist Mark Fuller to talk overseas success, touring and recording their album three times over.

You’ve recently come back after a North American tour including a stint at the massive SXSW festival. How was that?

Yeah we spent most of this year in North America and also made our way to Canada, playing shows and getting our album out there. It was a great experience. We saw a lot of amazing places. There were definitely a lot of hours spent in the van, sleeping on floors and struggling to afford food but it was all worth it for the shows and meeting people who enjoyed watching us play. It was an incredible experience, and to be able to do it with your best mates is amazing.

You’ve said that playing live really influences your music the most. Do you write most of your music on the road? What’s that process like?

We prefer not to write on the road. There’s always too many distractions while touring but sometimes someone will have an idea and start on it. Everyone has laptops and because we do spend a lot of time in the van, there is time for everyone to work on music, whether it’s remixes or writing new songs.

Do you ever get advice from other bands you tour with?

Yeah we generally geek out with most bands we tour with and pick each other’s brain about the live show. It’s always interesting to see how other bands prepare for their live show and what new gear and technology they use. A lot of the times you only need to watch their performance to take away new ideas that can be used in your own show. We played with Empire of the Sun in Dallas and their live show is on another level. It’s a bit dangerous watching a band like that because it puts all these ideas into your heads that are not at all realistic for a band like us.

So you recorded this album three times first working with producer Mickey Petralia in LA and then Scott Horscroft back in Aus and then finishing up in a family garage back home in Ballarat. You guys took a big risk in scrapping the first two versions of Black Sun, was that a scary decision to make?

That was a big decisions for us but it just got to the point where we weren’t 100% happy with what we’d done and definitely weren’t going to release something we weren’t happy with it. It was hard to let go of all the work we’d put into it for the past year and admitting to ourselves that we didn’t like it. Once we made the decision to redo it, it was a huge weight off our shoulders and we new when we started over it was the right thing. It was an expensive learning experience but a good one.

Do you feel like you’ve grown as artists and as a band after this experience?

Yeah we took away a lot from the album process. Mickey and Scott taught us so much about production and songwriting. We’re definitely a lot more confident about writing and recording the next album.

You’ve had a lot of attention from international music press, was world domination always the goal?

It’s always a weird thing for us when people take notice of what we’re doing. We always wanted to play shows in as many places as possible but our goal from the start was just to write music we like and that our family and friends could enjoy, so it’s a strange thing and a bonus really when other people take notice, especially in another country.

How have fans responded to the album?

Not really too sure. The people who came out to see us play in America who had bought the album seemed to have liked the album. But since releasing it, this is the first time we’ve been back home in Australia so it’ll be interesting to see how people react to the new songs and the new live set. It’s been so long since we’ve toured Australia, hopefully people will come out to a show.

Do you think the experiences of recording and touring your debut will affect your next record? Are you thinking about that yet?

Yeah as I mentioned before, we’ve learnt a lot of things in the past few years from touring, meeting new people and recording the first album. It will all have some sort of influence on the next album for sure. We’re pretty keen to start working on it right away, it’s just about finding the time at the moment because we’re still playing touring a lot and doing the album cycle for Black Sun. Our aim is to have some new music out early 2014.