Caught In The Temper Trap
Australian stadium rockers-in-waiting The Temper Trap talk about swapping Melbourne for rainy London, their love of Radiohead and confirm that, unlike some transplanted Australians of yore, they have no immediate plans to become crack-heads.
Patrick Freyne, 06 Apr 2010
Musicians have different ways of dealing with life on tour. Most come from settled suburban backgrounds (no matter how much they try and convince journalists otherwise) and therefore tend to slowly unravel with each passing venue. In contrast, Dougie Mandagi, singer with The Temper Trap, has always been on the road and seems remarkably inured to it.
“I’ve been moving all my life,” he says. “I’m a nomad really. Since I was a kid I’ve been moving around. We lived in America for a while. Then we were in Bali and I moved from Bali to Melbourne. So I’m pretty adaptable. I never get culture shock. I can eat rice for a month and the go somewhere else and eat steak and potatoes. I’ve no dietary problems, no problem with moving from one culture to another. I think I get restless if I’m in one place.”
Dougie arrived in Melbourne about 10 years ago to pursue a college course in fashion, only to have his fashion-industry dreams steamrolled by a love of music. He met his bandmate, drummer Toby Dundas, whilst working in a clothes shop, and the duo roped two other friends (guitarist Lorenzo Sillitto and bass-player Jonathon Aherne) into the developing Temper Trap.
“At the time I was working in the clothing store,” says Dougie. “And I had a short gig doing styling work for a while, but that turned out to be two months' work for very little money. A lot of work for very little money, really.”
“Sort of like being in a band?” says Toby.
“Very like being in a band,” says Dougie.
And what was the Melbourne music scene like when they were starting out?
“Well, there’s a classic array of venues to get started in,” says Toby. “And it’s a good scene in which you can take your first steps and get through that teething period of working out how to play. The dominant style when we started was a kind of electro rock sound, and we were always separate from all that. We found it harder to get support gigs with the bigger bands because we didn’t really sound like them. I suppose being different kind of worked to our advantage in the end.”
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