Rock band The Preatures are heading from Australia to Austin, Texas for the upcoming South by Southwest music festival. Before heading down there, The Preatures stopped by our Los Angeles studio for a live recording session (with bonus songs here) and two band members Isabella Manfredi and Gideon Bensen suggest a party’s worth of other songs to enjoy.
Isabella Manfredi: Hey everybody. I’m Izzy.
Gideon Bensen: And I’m Gideon.
Isabella Manfredi: And we’re from The Preatures. We’re an Australian band. And we’re gonna play you guys some tracks.
Gideon Bensen: Our Dinner Party Soundtrack.
J.J. Cale, “Lies”
Isabella Manfredi: When I have people over for dinner, I like to put on something mellow when they come over. J.J. Cale’s one of my favorite, favorite, favorite people to listen to, especially when I’m cooking.
Gideon Bensen: It’s something that people can switch off to and listen to or you can talk amongst yourselves.
Isabella Manfredi: My favorite J.J. Cale track is this song called “Lies.” He’s the guy who wrote “Cocaine,” everyone knows that song. He was a big influence on Eric Clapton. He’s a master of understated, beautiful, efficient guitar work. It’s such a groovy song. I don’t know if you guys say groovy. It’s kind of lame to say groovy. Funky. It’s such an angry song but he’s so cool about it. That’s the kind of man that he was. He wasn’t really in it for the fame and the glory and all of that sort of stuff.
Nick Drake, “Saturday Sun”
Gideon Bensen: I guess I’d say this dinner party, whatever it turns into, I’d kind of play maybe a little bit of Nick Drake.
Isabella Manfredi: Really? You want to send everybody to sleep?
Gideon Bensen: No, it’s not sending everyone to sleep. I just think it’s something you can listen to while still chatting over. I don’t think everyone’s quite ready, the couple in the room aren’t quite ready to get up and have a little ballroom dance in the corner yet.
The 101ers, “Keys to Your Heart”
Isabella Manfredi: I’d probably kick off. I’d probably, after that, I’d probably kick off with something like “Keys To Your Heart” by 101ers. 101ers was Joe Strummer from The Clash. One of his early bands. The song’s called “Keys To Your Heart,” I think it was one of the first songs he pretty much ever wrote. And he muscled his way into that band. They just thought he was a bit of a loser.
Gideon Bensen: He used to go to all the shows and just hang out.
Isabella Manfredi: “Piss off, Joe. Get out of here.” It’s one of those songs where you kind of know what he’s saying but it’s a little bit ambiguous.
Gideon Bensen: Part of why you like it is you don’t completely know what he’s saying.
The Preatures, “Dark Times”
Isabella Manfredi: And if people at their dinner party’s wanna play our track, we would probably suggest one of Gideon’s. It’s called “Dark Times.” The title suggests that it’s a downer but it’s not.
Gideon Bensen: It’s about whatever happens that no one’s gonna leave you. Everything’s gonna be OK kind of vibe. Even if they leave early, they’re gonna call tomorrow and say they had a lovely time.
