My Friend The Chocolate Cake

Naming a new band can be an arduous process or it can be done out of pure necessity, for Melbourne band My Friend The Chocolate Cake it was the latter. As band member Helen Mountfort recalls, “David [Bridie] came up with it the night before our first gig together and now 28 years later here we are.”

Whilst Helen even says it is a “silly name” it has become a name that is incredibly recognisable with the band becoming three time ARIA Award winners as well as being featured on countless film and television soundtracks.

The foundations of the band were laid on a mantra of simply “doing it of fun” reflected Helen, “David and I got together around a piano to muck around with some material we both had then week by week we added more people until the room was full.”

For their new record, The Revival Meeting, the band wanted to recapture this sense of fun so they chose to take a few days away together in the rural Victorian town of Flowerdale.

“We all live in different corners of Melbourne so it can be really difficult to battle the traffic for weekly rehearsals,” said Helen, “Going out to Flowerdale is a great opportunity for us all to reconnect with each other and also get things done really efficiently.”

An added bonus for the band by doing things this way is that they get to enjoy the other talents of drummer Greg Patten and double bassist Dean Addison, who are both gourmet chefs.

This weekend My Friend The Chocolate Cake’s tour arrives in Sydney which Helen says the band is really looking forward to.

“The shows so far have been so much fun. We’ve been doing a sing-a-long section for the first time ever which the audiences and the band have all loved.”

This sing-a-long element was introduced into the live show because the band simply didn’t want to “take ourselves too seriously.” Combining this with their already theatrical influenced live show has worked a treat because as Helen put it, “We’ve been having a lot of fun so hopefully the audience have been too.”

Jul 29, 8pm. York Theatre, Seymour Centre, Corner of City Rd & Cleveland St Chippendale. $45-$60+b.f. Tickets & Info: www.seymourcentre.com