Tag: Lachlan Bryan

The Pleasures are an Americana band fronted by renowned Australian singer-songwriter Catherine Britt – mother, breast cancer survivor, multi-Golden Guitar winner, multi-ARIA nominee, fifteen-time Grand Old Opry performer and Melbourne’s Lachlan Bryan – modern day troubadour, songwriter’s songwriter, Golden Guitar winner and consummate story-teller.

Their much anticipated debut album The Beginning Of The End was released worldwide on August 4, peaking at number 2 on the Official Australian ARIA Country Chart and number 1 on the Independent Albums Chart, mostly thanks to heavy rotation on Australian country and adult contemporary radio. USA stations quickly caught on, and the album has spent the past eight weeks in the Top 50 on the prestigious Americana Music Association Albums Chart, coinciding with the band’s first USA tour.

Now briefly home for a string of major festival appearances, The Pleasures are gearing up to make their UK debut next month, where they’ll be touring with Muscle Shoals ’Queen of Southern Gothic’ Hannah Aldridge. Together, Catherine and Lachlan bring all their experience and humanity to The Pleasures – as well as two of the most authentic and character-filled voices in Americana music. Aided by Damian Cafarella (bass) and Brad Bergen (drums), the band produce a sound that is raucous, dirty and blues-inspired, yet occasionally interrupted by delicate moments of sublime country-folk.

They might get labelled ‘country’, but there’s as much Jack White influence here as there is George Jones (in fact there’s plenty of both), alongside the plethora of mythologized girl-boy country acts with whom they will inevitably draw comparison. In fact, prominent music journalist Bernard Zuel describes The Beginning Of The End as “a classic duets album where love isn’t merely dangerous, but it should be illegal in every state: a mess of fireball, spitball and vitriol that makes Tammy and George look like romantic softies!” Not for the faint-of-heart, The Pleasures’ debut album plots the lifespan of a fiery relationship from the start, through to the finish and the aftermath. But despite the fire, passion and impulsiveness, the songs are decidedly adult – tackling the complexities and messiness of grown-up attraction and separation.

The name The Pleasures is taken from a brothel in Austin, Texas – where Britt and Bryan found themselves stranded (through no intention of their own, they hasten to add) on the night they first met. The bawdy nature of this first encounter is befitting of the music they would go on to make together. “Lachlan and I have always clicked in life and in song” explains Catherine, “and we’ve always had an unspoken understanding and respect for one another. These songs flowed out of us so easily”. Lachlan adds “it was almost frightening how easily we found we could write together. Catherine has no filter, and she destroyed mine pretty much immediately. These songs are raw and honest – if a line didn’t ring true then it didn’t make the cut. The playing is tough and primitive – we’re outside our comfort zones and revelling in it”. The Beginning Of The End was produced, engineered, and mixed by Damian Cafarella at EoR Studios in Melbourne Australia and mastered by Alex McCollough at True East Mastering in Nashville.

Artists’ website: https://thepleasuresmusic.com/

‘The Beginning Of The End’ – official video:

THE PLEASURES UK DATES NOVEMBER 2023 With Hannah Aldridge

11 November – The Harrow – High Wycombe
13 November – The Crescent – York
14 November – Voodoo Rooms – Edinburgh
15 November – Stereo – Glasgow
16 November – Kings Theatre – Kirkcaldy
17 November – Tollbooth – Stirling
18 November – The Globe – Newcastle
19 November – The Strines Nightingale – Stockport
21 November – Hen & Chicken – Bristol
23 November – The Jericho – Oxford
24 November – The Slaughtered Lamb – London
25 November – St George’s Hall – Bewdley