rousing and ridiculously catchy song about
shedding your skin and opening your eyes
underwater, partially sung in the Australian
Aboriginal language of the Darug people. It
grew out of seeing a performance ofThe Se-
cret Riverat the Sydney Theatre Company
last year. Manfredi was moved to tears by
the play based on Kate Grenville’s award-
winning novel and vowed to write a song
inspired by it.
She performed “Your Fan” solo, sitting at
aFenderRhodeselectricpiano.Itwasin-
tense and intimate, highlighting the song’s
central theme of connecting fandom with
relationships.
“Alotofpeoplehavelistenedtothatsong
and said, ‘Oh, it reminds
me of my ex’,” Manfre-
di says later. “And I think
that there is that syner-
gy between the love that a
fan has for their favourite
artist or band, and the love
that you have for some-
bodyinthefirststagesof
a relationship, when you
putthatpersononaped-
estaluntilyourealisethat
they’re maybe not what
you thought they were.”
At the end of the set she
said, “This album has been
the hardest and best thing
I’ve ever done in my life.”
They returned to the
stage for encores, playing
afewsongsfromthefirst
album and dedicating “Is
This How You Feel?” to
Gideon Bensen, who was
sitting in the centre of the
fifth row. Bensen was sec-
ond guitarist, co-vocalist
andco-songwriterinthePreatures,butleft
in March last year.
“Ithadbeencomingforawhile,”says
Manfredi, sitting cross-legged on the floor
atDoldrumsandrollingacigarette.“I
didn’t want him to go. I was really, really
upset.Ithinktheboystookitbetterthan
Idid.Buthediditwithsuchgraceandhu-mility. He said, ‘Iz, I’ve got to do my own
thing. You need to do your thing. You need
to run. And don’t worry about it. Just stop
thinking about me.’”
I first met the band in 2014 when I inter-
viewed them in Sydney and then in Austin,
Texas. They were riding high and running
fast on the success of their debut album,
Blue Planet Eyes, which had just debuted at
number four in the Australian charts – Mof-
fitt had predicted it would come in at 24;
Manfredi was less optimistic, opting for 26.
“Is This How You Feel?” won the $50,000
Va nd a & You ng S ong w r it i ng C omp e t it ion ,
they’d been touring the world for over three
years and played just about every major fes-
tival, including SXSW, Glastonbury, Coach-
ella, Bonnaroo and Austin City Limits.
Three years later, it turns out things were
notasrosyasthey seemed from the outside.
And their opinion of their own debut album
is equally clouded. “None of us were happy
with it,” says Moffitt.
“None of us,” echoes Manfredi.
“The album ended up being something
that we did and not something that we nec-
essarily meant,” says Moffitt. “I don’t want
to take away from the record, because it’s a
cool record and I’m glad that people like it.”
“It’s groovy as well,” says Manfredi. “But
it was wedged between these two really big
tours and we did Coachella and SXSW in
themiddleofit and we were expected to
make this hit record. It came
out of this whole thing in the
music biz where you’ve got
to keep up the momentum
and if you don’t keep up the
momentum, the whole world
will end. It was our first time.
We didn’t know any better.
There’s a lot of things that I
would change about that pe-
riod of time.”
For example?
“Not saying yes as much.
The first album was about
saying yes to other people
alot.”
“Exactly,” says Moffitt.
“And this record was about
saying yes to each other and
yes to the process.”
The first album took six
weeks to make. Girlhood
took 12 months. Where-
as Blue Planet Eyes was co-
produced with Jim Eno of
Spoon and partially record-
ed in his Austin studio, Mof-
fitttookthereins on Girlhood and it was al-
most entirely made at Doldrums.
Thereisatleast one track on their
debut that Manfredi says she simply can-
not sing anymore. It is definitely not their
best-known song, “Is This How You Feel?”
“That’s a great song because it has a great
melody, but it’s also personal,” she says. “YouAlreadyhereisJackMoffitt,herpartner
andguitarist/producerwiththePreatures.
He’sstandingatthemixingdeskwithapair
ofpliers,workingonanarrayofwires,leads
andjacks.Hehasbigsoulfuleyes,agentle
demeanour and hair that would need no ad-
justment were he to accept the lead role in a
production ofJesus Christ Superstar.
“Hey,” he says quietly when he sees Man-
fredi. “You cut your fringe. It looks real-
ly good.”
They hug. They keep hugging. They hug
somemore.Itseemslikeagoodtimetotake
inthestudio.Adrumkittakesupmostof
theareaunderabaywindow,guitarsand
basses lean in racks, keyboards are scat-
tered around. On the walls there areStar
Wars,AC/DC,SonicYouthandNeilYoung
posters,amoodboardfeaturingdozensof
images of women clipped from magazines
and the Eighties-style collage artwork for
Girlhood, the band’s second album.
“Please don’t read that,” says Manfredi
whenshenoticesmepeeringatsomesort
of scribbled album manifesto. “That’s from
veryearlyon.”It’stheonlynoteofcaution
the29-year-oldwillsoundoverthenext
four hours as she opens up about her life.
To u nd e r s t a ndGirlhoodyouhavetounder-
standthegirlwhogrewuptobethewoman
whowrotethewordsandsingsthesenew
songs.AndIzziManfrediisonlytoowill-
ingtotakeyouonaguidedtour.F
our weeks earlier the
band appeared at the Sydney
Opera House as part of Vivid.
Girlhoodwas still two months
away from release and they
playeditinitsentiretyforthefirsttime.
Manfredicommandedthestageinspike-
heel boots and shiny black vinyl pants that
looked like they’d been painted on. Moffitt,
bass player Thomas Champion and drum-
merLukeDavisoncastAlmost Famous
shapes around her.
Kids from Alexandria Park Communi-
tySchoolChoirjoinedthemon“Yanada”,ahestandsoutinacrowd.evenhere,in
hipSurryHills.Theresheis,IzziManfrediof
the Preatures, striding across the street, lanky,
grinning and fashionably late, wearing red vel-
vetflaresandsilverpointyboots,ablackturtle-
neck, a black wool jacket with red racing stripes
down the sleeves and Nancy Sinatra-style white-
rimmedsunglassesperchedontopofjetblackhair.Sheleadsthe
wayintoabackstairwell,upacoupleofflightsofstairssurround-
ed by wall-to-wall graffiti and we enter Doldrums, the band’s scruff-
ily inviting recording studio in arty enclave Hibernian House.S
THE
PREATURES68 | Rolling Stone | RollingStoneAus.com September, 2017Senior writer Barry Divola
interviewed Mark Seymour in RS 786.“I had
a great
childhood
as a small
girl,” says
Manfredi.
“In my
adolescence
I was a lost
girl for 10
years.”