The WhiteRoom

Music:

Member Since: 6/24/2005
Band Website: thewhiteroom.com.au
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"So many people look at a band name and assume what that band's about. With The WhiteRoom it's a blank canvas, you have to listen to it first and paint your own picture." Barry Brauer (bass)

When you seek to uncover the individuals that make up The White Room it's like Alice falling down the rabbit hole, you can never be sure what to expect but the result is a delightful mismatch to the maturity of their songwriting. Any references to being at the Mad Hatter's Tea Party are not lost when all four members are in the same room together!

"I discovered music when I was about 6." explains Marc "I swapped from piano to guitar because my music teacher had one and I asked if I could take it home for the weekend. I started singing and writing my own songs right away."

Shortly after he convinced younger sister Steph to pick up the drum sticks to help him keep time while writing tunes. The pair recruited two friends from the local Geelong area, Barry Brauer and Ben Jarvis and formed Plunja; the first incantation of which would become The WhiteRoom. Sounds simple enough, however, this was a group of talented local kids with a twist.

"It's called Osteo Genesis Imperfecta" says Marc of the condition more commonly known as brittle bone disease that has inspired much of the rawness, reflection and emotion in The WhiteRoom's music. "A few years back, I was breaking my bones two to three times a year, easily. I wasn't just breaking bones and getting plaster and going home, I was staying in hospital one to three months at a time and it was taking away too much of my life. I wasn't able to experience anything. So I made a choice. I wanted to have the quality of life where I could do stuff I wanted to do. So I took the option of doing what wanted to do in a wheel chair and it's worked out. I just knew if I kept walking I would keep breaking and going into hospital. I'm enjoying my life and I'm happy where I am at the moment. I find the more I don't give a shit about my situation and do normal stuff, the more people round me don't care. If I'm just cruising, rolling on people's feet and crashing into em they are like: "yeah"."

People meet him and say 'oh he's in a wheelchair, 'and I'm like 'oh, forgot to mention that.." Barry adds.

the white room live Marc's condition also does little to hold him or the rest of The WhiteRoom back during live performance, which is so compelling that after just one gig most punters are undeniably hooked. He is quick to point out that his experiences have made him rich and he has drawn strength from flying in the face of adversity.

"I'm not so fragile but if I stood up my body weight would probably crush my legs." He continues "You don't think 'I'm being brave' that's just how it is and I've dealt with it forever. But sometimes I hear some bands crapping on about meaningless nonsense and it makes you wonder if the people writing it have actually experienced it or if they are writing it because they know kids feel the same and it's going to sell records."

Before we skip off down another rabbit hole, the band explain some of the standout tracks on their debut album Eleventh Hour

"The album's called Eleventh Hour because this is the big moment. Our cataclysm where we implode and explode." Laughs Marc of the album that features their debut single 'Enemies Closer'.

The predecessor to 'Nerve' penned by Steph, 'Enemies Closer' is a melodic war-cry aimed toward a former friend, made all the more potent as the track was written and recorded only hours after the situation blew up.

"Steph had actually written 'Nerve' first after the break up with her boyfriend. We were recording and on the day I had to track my vocals I got a call from my girlfriend. It turned out that Steph's ex had written a horrendous e-mail. I was going to ring him up and do this and that but then I thought a better come back was to write a song. So I scrapped every lyric and they were totally re-written about that incident. I had that emotion and anger in me and it just came through. The raw emotion when I was singing. It was so real and current. You can almost hear it when I'm clenching my teeth because I really felt passionately about what I was singing,"the pitch of his voice rising slightly as the anger returns in the retelling. "When they were together I pretended to like him because I wanted him close enough to keep an eye on him and that's what the songs about, keep your friends close and your enemies closer."

the white room in alley "I wasn't in a very good mood at the time!" laughs Steph as she talks about 'Nerve'. "I related lyrics to all those experiences. 'Enemies Closer' refers to 'Nerve' in the lyrics, "It aint even bad because Nerve said enough."

The WhiteRoom are far from a single issue band as many tracks discuss relationships with others and the internal dialogue we have with ourselves regarding our experiences.

"Vicious Girl is about no matter how equal you feel in your relationship. You always feel like you are hard done by sometimes. You both have to compromise to make it work" Marc offers of some of the other tracks on Eleventh Hour. "My girlfriend and I had a massive fight and I had the melody stuck in my head and I thought u know what would go really well with this? The fight I just had so I put the lyrics in my phone then and there. Moments are perfect because that's where the realness and emotion comes from when it happens then and there is when it comes out best in the music."

And so is revealed the key to the WhiteRoom's honesty, real life, happening right there, in the moment. Unbreakable speaks more directly about Marc's experiences.

"We've got a ramp leading up to the entrance of the house and I didn't mono enough and put my legs out to stop from tipping forward. I felt a line go across both my femurs (bone between knee and hip) with the pain you feel before they snap straight thru. I would have been in hospital with both legs in traction for months if it had happened. I came inside and I was upset and I just grabbed the guitar and started playing this riff and the chorus just came. You could relate to anything. It's also an analogy with emotion. You wish you were unbreakable and sometimes you are at the point where u can't hold it."

It continues from there. Any one of the tracks on the album has a real story to accompany it. Helping The WhiteRoom to 'get their music out' is producer Phil Mckellar (Grinspoon, Silverchair), who pulled from them a sound as rich as the music and lyrics themselves.

"He stripped away the over production." Marc says of working with the famed producer "The beauty is that everyone we have played this to says this is what we sound like live. That's what we've been trying to find all these years, we've found that medium, we found Phil Mackellar. What ever we did he said don't complicate it, do it from your heart and don't try to add stuff in because u want it to sound fuller or bigger just write it as you see as it. We didn't want this whole breaking up each part and getting the best bits and reconstructing into a song. Phil bought out the no bullshit realness. Its all about performance its not about perfection."

And there it is, now paint your own picture.

EPK PART 2

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EPK PART 3

EPK PART 4

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