After being moved by a painting called 'The Warsaw Ghetto', I decided the imagery the name contained was as important as the picture itself. However, for us the 'ghetto' imagery didn't really fit with our music… ‘Flowers’ didn't either, but we liked the sound of it.
Drawing from variety of acoustic and folk genres and prowess of artists like Bob Dylan, Joy Division and The Cure, Adelaide based indie project The Warsaw Flowers began with James Stewart (guitar, vox) and his brother Gus Stewart (bass) taking their bedroom project to bigger and more reputable things - a sound very similar to today’s Josh Pyke and Elliott Smith.
Having spent the best part of six months backpacking across Europe and the United States, James teamed up with the Chromium Records label in the UK as a solo acoustic artist and had his music included on a compilation disc exposing upcoming artists.
"Chromium Records was a promotional indie label it was great to have their support, because it was then I believed I could take my music further from that point". - James
James also collaborated with folk songwriter Ryan McDermott from New Jersey and bumped heads with various band members before returning to Australia to begin his song-writing journey. He then wrote and recorded demo tracks using his home PC and posted them online, including "Cry", "Internationalism To You" and "Red And Blue Lights" which gained very positive feedback from members of online music communities. This was when Jason Coe of Adelaide rock group Sumi and Alister Douglas formerly of Tom West and The Art Therapists took interest in the project, assisted with the creative process and completed the line-up as The Warsaw Flowers.
"After having listened to the demos online I got to know the songs quite well. It all just fell into place. A whole lot different to the style of Sumi." -Jason
The newly established group quickly came together to record a four-track CD with close friend and Mixmaster’s engineer Craig Lewis and released the recordings online at www.myspace.com/warsawflowers and as a limited CD giveaway to those attending their upcoming live shows.
The Warsaw Flowers’ recordings have already spawned media attention from the likes of Triple J programmer Vijay Khurana having hand-picked “Internationism To You†from the band’s Unearthed.com page for airplay, community radio announcers on Radio Adelaide 101.5, Pete & Tones Thursday breakfast crew and Youth FM on Three D Radio 93.7 where the group has already featured for airplay, artist interview and live performance on these programs since their June 07 debut.
The Warsaw Flowers are:
James Stewart – vox, guitar
Angus Stewart – bass
Jason Coe – drums, percussion
Alister Douglas – guitar, keys
