Noel Mengel is a musician, author and journalist, who served as The Courier-Mail’s music writer for 20 years. He talks to Village Voice about his band The Trams and their latest album release, Tiny Sparks.
Tell Village Voice readers a little of your creative journey?
My memories of primary school piano lessons is that I always enjoyed “making up stuff” more than practising the notes on the sheet music. I got my first guitar at 13, been writing songs ever since. These found an outlet in my first originals bands The Version, which started in Toowoomba, then Curiosity Shop in Brisbane. It was an exciting time in music in the ‘80s, lots of places to play, music was the biggest form of entertainment for young people. What did I take from that? If music is who you are, you find ways to keep the flame burning. Most people know me as an author and a music writer. Great experiences, but creating music, building something with your friends, making people dance and smile, that’s hard to top.
Does it make life easier for The Trams having two key songwriters in yourself and Tony Moore?
We both loved bands that had multiple songwriters and songwriting teams. The different voices, the different points of view, the competition to get songs on a record. It can blow bands apart but it also has made some of the greatest records. People who aren’t players might assume it’s easy for songwriters to collaborate but so many musicians never find that, or never find it for long. You learn to be thankful when it happens.
Do The Trams have a magic ingredient?
We are happy to be still making original music and still find an audience. Not many musicians have that happen to them, or find themselves at No 2 on the 4ZZZ charts as we did with our new album Tiny Sparks. The magic ingredient? As Warren Zevon said, enjoy every sandwich. Every song we write, every play on the radio, every person who comes up to you after a gig and says, “That song really moved me” … You appreciate it all.
What makes the second album different to the first?
We are more confident as players together and ready to take chances. When we thought the record was finished we wrote two more, Atticus Junk and Dancing With Nobody. They were high energy. We knew the moment we played them they had to be on the record. We made it happen.
What makes a band successful?
Write good songs. Keep going until you have recorded them. Keep going until you have played them to people. Then go again. Nobody knows what it is that works in music. Everybody knows what doesn’t work, and that’s giving up.
Is there a creative concept central to Tiny Sparks?
We knew we want to make an up-tempo record, like a jukebox or mix tape you could dance to. The title song is about the start of something, and several of the songs are about the creative process in some way, playing in bands, starting bands, people we played in bands with.
Describe the songwriting process on Tiny Sparks?
We picked the songs that were different from each other but worked together. Some might say that one’s power pop, that one is R&B, but it all sounds like us. There’s one that nods to the glam rock we loved as kids. There are Brisbane-set songs, like Sense of Fashion and Song for Dessie J, and Queensland-set songs like Somewhere Around Here and Daybreak. We love local stories but local stories are universal too. They could be happening anywhere.
Do The Trams fit snugly into the current crop of Brisbane bands?
There are so many cool young bands around Brisbane now, Lunar Dirt, Super Hotel, Platonic Sex, Perve Endings, June Low are just some. It’s tough making original music, operating labels, running venues. It was tough when The Saints started, it’s tough now. Whatever happens, people will find a way to do it. Every person who buys a ticket for a local band, a T-shirt, a vinyl album at a record shop, requests a song on the radio, puts on a show that draws a crowd, we are all part of making the kind of place we want it to be.
Tiny Sparks is available now on streaming and at Sonic Sherpa Records.
