I COULD NEVER BE DEAF: INTERVIEW: THE CAIROS.

So, yesterday afternoon I had the privilege of having a chat with Jacob Trotter, drummer for The Cairos, about their latest tour, single, album and everything in between.

The Cairos are currently on a whirlwind tour around Australia, with Vietnam and Singapore having already been checked off the list.

They have toured with the likes of Julian Casablancas and The Temper Trap with their new album being set to be released in early 2014.

Hopefully Jacob doesn't take my suggestion of naming their debut album, 'Mark Anthony and Cleopatra' too seriously. Jesus Christ, I thought I was meant to be the writer here, what sort of suggestion is that? Maybe I fan-girled a bit too hard and lost my brain for a moment, or maybe I really should not be involved in naming debut albums.

Either way, big thanks to Universal Music, The Cairos and especially Jacob for taking the time to have a yarn. Here's what went down:

I COULD NEVER BE DEAF: So I heard you guys just played the originally cancelled Cama Festival in Vietnam on October 12. How did that show go?

JACOB: It was cancelled but we managed to get a thrown together [gig], I guess you could call it the 'Show Must Go On'. The day before the Cama Festival was meant to start they put four of the bands together that were meant to be playing in a little club show in Hanoi City. It was absolutely phenomenal. It would have been great to play the actual festival but as far as the show went, it was really good.

ICNBD: Where would be your favourite place to play on this tour that you are on now?

J: To be honest, I would have to say Vietnam so far. It was such a wild experience. We all had a fantastic time, we all really enjoyed it.

ICNBD: Well hopefully Sydney comes close, my hometown.

J: Well I have to say Sydney is very close to our hearts as well. Second place, I would imagine.

ICNBD: Which bands would you say are your musical influences?

J: I think its kind of hard to explain because we all write songs, to varying extents. We are all pretty hands on in the process of creating The Cairos sound. Alistair, who sings and plays guitar, just loves The Beatles- he is a self-professed 'Beatlemaniac'. I think Alf and myself are more into the alternative, grungy 90s music at the moment. You can hear a bit of that in the album that is about to be released. Reuben is into harder rock, he likes The (Rolling) Stones a lot.

ICNBD: What was your inspiration behind your latest single, 'Obsession'?

J: Well, 'Obsession' was, if I remember correctly, originally started as a little acoustic demo. We were on tour in Adelaide at the time and we had a day off to ourselves and were staying at a friend's house and Alistair grabbed one of their guitars and was just mucking around. The song has a really deep tuning. The guitar is tuned down two steps. So he wrote the song on that guitar like that, it was just really a low key acoustic guitar song. Pretty much as the song stands now, just played on an acoustic guitar.

ICNBD: How did you come up with the concept of the video to tie in with the track?

J: Well, I think the concept of the video is an interesting one, I wouldn't say it is controversial but our mum's don't like it very much. We worked with the producer Alex Ryan who's a really cool director from Sydney. As obviously the EP is quite pop, quite upbeat, and this new record we are about to put out is a fairly different sound, we wanted something that reflected the dark change in the sound. So he had this idea to make this video tell the story of this guy's last meal on Death Row.

ICNBD: Have you come up with a title for the new album yet?

J: No, its a little bit up in the air at the moment. We've got a few ideas. We have been talking about it but I think we have just been so busy with touring and everything else at the moment that it's on the back burner. Hopefully soon we will know.

ICNBD: So are you going to do a 'Kings of Leon' and have a five syllable album title or something like that?

J: Ah! Maybe, I don't know if we are that adventurous. Have you got any album name suggestions?

ICNBD: Ooh! Maybe something Egypt themed like 'Mark Anthony and Cleopatra'? I am terrible at this, the ol' band names.

So where would you like to go next on the touring circuit?

J: Well we are pretty keen to get overseas and tour the album, even getting over to Vietnam and Singapore and getting to experience the music scenes over there was really eye-opening for all of us. There is a lot going on around the world. It's actually really interesting, we chatted to a few of the International bands at the Cama Festival and they were all saying that the world is taking notice of Australian bands at the moment. We would like to take our music to different countries and experience all of that.

ICNBD: Who has been your favourite band that you have played with so far?

J: There's so many! We are really lucky that pretty much in every tour we have done, we have ended up touring with ridiculously nice people. Everyone has been really friendly and I think we have learnt a lot from all the bands we have toured with. I think if I had to pick one, I would probably say The Preatures. We just had the best time with them and we really love all those guys. And girl, Izzy (Isabella Manfredi of The Preatures) who is a girl. We got along really well. We had this weird thing where all of our members linked up, their bass player and our bass player, Reuben were like the same person. It was a really serendipitous moment, touring with them.

ICNBD: Well I have got one more question for you, what would you stock in your ultimate tour rider?

J: I've been thinking about this a bit lately. I think our tour rider might need a little bit of an update. I'm going to say my tour rider will not be reflective of The Cairos because I think I like different things to them. Mine would probably be some, this is going to sound really lame, but some sweet vegetarian food I would say. Some Govinda's kind of food. I'm all about food in the rider.

DISCLAIMER: May the final statements made in the interview not incite fans to dress as any form of vegetarian Indian food to make it into The Cairos rider. No eggplants will be allowed, I do not condone the misuse of a garlic naan bread.

Make sure you get down to your local establishment to check out these guys, their touring schedule is below (wish I could have made it to the gig in the carpark!):

SAT 12 OCT

CAMA FESTIVAL, VIETNAM

THU 17 OCT

BLACK BEAR LODGE, BRISBANE

TICKETS

FRI 18 OCT

FBI SOCIAL, SYDNEY

TICKETS

SAT 19 OCT

WORKER'S CLUB, MELBS.

TICKETS

SAT 16 NOV