Down under, up over

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This article was published 06/04/2024 (923 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Courage isn’t the first trait that comes to mind when you think of a pop band.

When Oli and Louis Leimbach, the brothers behind the Australian group Lime Cordiale, pull up to the Park Theatre on Monday, they’ll prove they have as much bravery as musical ability.

The siblings admit they knew next to nothing about Winnipeg when they added the city to their spring North American tour, which began in Florida on March 22 and is working its way north and west before finishing in California later this month.

Nor do they know if music fans here will give them the same chance as they’ve received Down Under.

Their 2020 album, 14 Steps to a Better You, shot to No. 1 in their home country and earned them Breakthrough Artist of the Year at the ARIA Awards, Australia’s equivalent of Canada’s Junos.

“The thing about Australians coming to Canada, it’s not as scary as you might think,” Oli Leimbach says. “A lot of Australian bands seem to do well in Canada. Maybe it’s the Commonwealth connection or something like that, but we also have so many Australians in Canada.”

Louis Leimbach agrees the tour is a risk but also says it’s an investment in the band and their careers. Some performing acts never realize how popular they’ve become elsewhere until they leave their comfort zone and find out.

“It’s definitely a lot more time away from home and family when you decide to invest overseas. You can’t just pop over for the weekend because Australia is too far away. If we’re going to try Europe, Latin America and Canada, the rest of the world outside of our island, it’s six months away from home,” he says.

Tonight’s show will also return Lime Cordiale to its early days in 2009 when the band began playing small clubs, hoping musicianship and danceable rhythms would translate into excitement from fans.

The Park has room for about 550, a far cry from the arena shows Lime Cordiale will play in Australia later this year. The group was also part of the pre-game entertainment at the annual Anzac Day Australian Football League match at the gigantic Melbourne Cricket Ground in April 2022, where more than 80,000 people were in attendance.

The Leimbachs grew up on Scotland Island, a beach paradise just north of Sydney that only has boat access.

“It’s a really cool surfing community and a bunch of amazing bands have come out of there, including INXS, a lot of bands that have made it worldwide,” Oli says.

“I guess it started as a bit of a bohemian, arty kind of area which as now been gentrified. The yuppies have moved in. All the rich businessmen have their holiday houses there now but we’re still there. It’s great.”

Oli, 34, had been in many bands in high school but teamed up with Louis, 32, to create Lime Cordiale. The brotherly bond has kept Lime Cordiale together for 15 years.

“He said yes to being in a band with me, but it feels like he can’t leave. I’ve got him trapped,” Oli jokes.

“I was forced into it,” Louis says with a chuckle.

They are classically trained musicians — lead vocalist Oli plays clarinet as well as guitar, while Louis, who plays bass, also learned the trumpet. Their use of horn arrangements gives catchy tracks such as Temper Temper, Robbery and their new single, The Big Reveal, a sound that transcends the pop mainstream.

“We’ve never really had a song that’s just blown up. They’re kind of slow growers,” Oli says.

Their captivating mix of rock and R&B found them a high-profile devotee in British actor Idris Elba. The star of TV series The Wire and Luther dug the band so much listening to them while filming Three Thousand Years of Longing and Thor: Love and Thunder that he reached out to the band and recorded a six-song EP, Cordi Elba, in between takes.

It was hardly a vanity project for the actor and rapper, who performs and records as Idris. Lime Cordiale could barely keep up with him.

“It was only meant to be a one-song feature and then it turned into a full EP purely because of his enthusiasm,” Oli says. “We really stole him away from the film that he was shooting. It was incredible. He just wanted be in the studio every day.”

Lime Cordiale added another big-name collaboration a year later when they recorded Colin, a duet with Colin Hay, the lead singer of Men at Work, whose 1981 global hit Down Under is so synonymous with Australia that Louis calls it the national anthem.

The Leimbachs bumped into Hay at a music-industry event and he invited them for tea the next day. They hit it off and next thing they knew, they were singing three-part harmony together.

“It kind of blew our minds because we’re big fans of Colin Hay, especially his solo work,” Oli says of the performer, who played the Winnipeg Folk Festival in 2016.

“He’s definitely inspirational.”

The North American tour gives Lime Cordiale an opportunity to experience parts of Canada they never imagined.

They did ask about what the weather might be like when they arrive here from Minneapolis. Monday’s forecast of 15 C and sunny suggests the Sydneysiders have caught a break.

“In Boston, it threw us how with cold it was so we quickly went to the camping store and got some beanies, gloves and some thermals and things like that,” Oli says. “We were definitely not prepared, especially as we started the tour in Florida.”

Alan.Small@winnipegfreepress.com

X: @AlanDSmall