BABE Rainbow vocalist Angus Dowling jokes many people in the Australian music industry are "super cereal."
It's not an accusation one could level at Dowling and his bandmates Jack Crowther, Elliott O'Reilly and Louise Domingo. The psych-rockers from Northern NSW are among the most chilled cats in the Australian music scene.
Even during a year when the music industry was decimated by the COVID-19 pandemic, Babe Rainbow never broke a nervous sweat.
Instead they retreated to their farms at Clunes and Eureka, situated between Byron Bay and Lismore, to grow avocadoes, macadamia nuts and other fruit and vegetables, surf and write music in Crowther's home studio.
"It's pretty different for all our buddies in Europe and America, but luckily for us it's been quite easy-going," Dowling says after returning from a surf at Lennox Head.
Even getting kicked out of their former creative space, situated above the NAB bank in Murwillumbah didn't ruffle Babe Rainbow's feathers.
"They were getting complaints from neighbours about all this noise coming out of the bank at night," Dowling says. "I guess it was just bad for business."
Despite not displaying any outward signs of ambition, success has seemingly found Babe Rainbow. Since forming in 2014 the four-piece have signed with King Gizzard & The Wizard Lizard's Flightless Records and released an EP and three albums - Babe Rainbow (2017), Double Rainbow (2018) and Today (2019) - which led to several world tours and a monthly Spotify audience of more than 600,000 listeners.
Their mellow take on the kaleidoscopic surf-rock of the '60s and '70s is completely at odds with the hectic nature of 21st century life, and therein lies the appeal.
"There's nothing intentional about it," he says. "It's just the way everyone is. I guess it comes from surfing and working on the farm."
In December 2019 Babe Rainbow travelled to Los Angeles to surf, cruise on road trips up and down the US west coast and write and demo tracks with producer Kyle Mullarky (The Growlers).
The songs were then re-recorded in Australia, but Dowling says the LA influence was obvious.
"I think it just loosened it up a lot," he says. "The energy over there is just loose as."
The new singles The Wind and Zeitgeist were the result of those sessions. They will feature on Babe Rainbow's forthcoming fourth album, due for release in 2021. A fifth album, being recorded in Crowther's farm studio, is also nearing completion.
"I don't know how anyone does that," Dowling says when asked to describe the new album's sound. "They must get told something and they repeat it. Once you're so inside something I don't know how you can look at it."
Babe Rainbow's Living In The City tour hits the Cambridge Hotel on February 6.
