The latter half of 1998 saw Lavish seeing some pretty decent exposure thanks to Triple J getting into the business of flogging their first single Trashed in a big way, while to a lesser extent playing their Good For Me single earlier in 1999.

This early part of the year has also seen the band release their third single, a very impressive cover of a Pete Shelley classic, Homosapien, to similar exposure by Triple J & even expanding to other media. I recently caught up with band member Gary Beavis by phone, who was a very talkative & likeable guy when we spoke about the band's forthcoming debut album among other items of interest.

First up, I asked about the album itself & what we could expect from the band in comparison to what has already been released.

"We've already got the album recorded, just the mastering left now, hopefully we'll see it released in the next few months, depending on hhow that goes. The music itself though, is definitely more diverse & what everyone's heard so far is there, but there's a lot of stuff we thionk people will like, such as more keyboard oriented material, so there's some surprises & we hope, some good music."

Of course, an obvious question one has to ask after the release of Homosapien is where that came from in reference to the band themselves.

"To tell you the truth, it wasn't actually us that picked it. Our label festival basically came along with a list of songs that Irish comedian Jimeoin had written down for the film that's coming out soon with him in it. The story behind the recording was pretty interesting. The version everyone is hearing is basically like the original, in the third rendition. We put it down & sent it to Festival to see how they liked it & they thought it was great, so they sent it back & we basically redid the vocals & then overdubbed I think one guitar track & that's it."

With the subject of recording coming up, I asked how the band liked doing this aspect of their music.

"We love it. It's a different sort of experience than playing live & I love playing live, but there's also the chance to mnaybe fix a couple of your mistakes in the studio. We really try & get our songs down as quick as possible & they seem to be the best versions overall."

I wondered how the rest of the band felt about the recording.

"All of us feel pretty much the same way. Our most spontaneous music has always been our best. During recording, our vocalist came in from the pub one lunchtime & said, okay, let's go do this track. He was really primed & we got it down in one take. That's really the way I like doing things."

The band would obviously be pleased with the exposure Triple J have given the band & I asked how any other media had reacted to the band.

"Triple J have been really great to us & it's amazing to see that they're mostly the only radio playing a lot of new Australian music, unlike a lot of commercial stations. We recently did a song on Hey Hey It's Saturday as well."

That last comment raised my eyebrows & my reaction over the phone must have been perceptible as Gary stepped in to offer a little more on the subject.

"The crew on Hey Hey are excellent. the cast though did tend to walk past & sort of give us the one raised finger to acknowledge us, but we did have a good time. Of course, doing the karaoke thing to your own music is a bit weird, but it was something different for us."

Lastly, with the Internet becoming increasingly more exposed in this country how are the band getting along with it.

"It's great actually. Stacks of music stuff there & we've come across a couple of unnofficial sites about ourselves, which are both really great. When we were in Melbourne, we met a couple of the girls who are doing one of the sites & they put something up about meeting us the next day. We think we might go towards making it the official site, but as yet, we're thinking about it."

Check out the new Lavish single Homosapien out now through Festival & the band's new album due out soon.