After spinning out of control, the Vines steady the ship rather than sink and drown.

“The kid in the mall works at Hotdog on a Stick

His hat is a funny shape; his heart is a brick

Taking your order he will turn away

He doesn’t have a thing to say”

“Grace Kelly’s Blues” – The Eels

As the sun goes down on the back room of an inner city Sydney pub, that one verse from Mark Oliver Everett keeps playing over and over in my head, and the person sitting across the table from me – Craig Nicholls, leader and visionary of the Vines – is the reason behind it all. Afternoon meanders into dusk and I empty a schooner or two, all the time thinking that Nicholls is, more or less, that kid – painfully shy, hiding beneath a mop of hair, doing his best to look anywhere but your eyes, and when you do finally catch his gaze, he meets you with a glance like a schoolboy caught with his hands in his pants. Honest impression: There’s a lot more of the burger-flipping adolescent than the international man of excess.

About a week later, sometime in the New York afternoon, a jet-lagged Patrick Matthews – bass player for the Vines – is woken by my phone call, an hour before he expected it. After struggling through a few pleasantries and a quick chat about the recording of the band’s new album, Winning Days, the conversation inevitably turns to Nicholls. Only, this time around, there’s something slightly different in what Matthews has to say about his band-mate.

“I did a lot of interviews last year,” he begins, then after a long pause adds, “But now that Craig’s doing more of that sort of thing, it’s a lot different for me. Like if you’d been doing this interview last year, I would have been a lot more helpful, but now I feel like I can back off and not have to build up a story or anything. But that also means I don’t have a story or anything. Because it’s all crap anyway. Like I don’t care or know what other bands say, but a lot of the time it feels like we’re making up a story for a journalist, and I had a story for last time around, but now it’s Craig’s turn. It’s good that he’s taking up the slack. Although I don’t know how long it will last. Once we start playing a lot of shows it could be a lot different.”

Thrown away in a casual, sleepy tone, Matthews’ comment brings so much of the Vines saga into perspective – especially given that a week earlier, it was pretty clear that Nicholls didn’t have a story this time around either.

It seems that after all the craziness, the vagueness, wild photos, the ubiquitous bong, onstage fighting, spontaneous destruction of self and surroundings, pre-stage fright, rumours of break-ups, hangers-on, million-selling albums, criticism, adulation, backlash, and breakthroughs, there’s one simple truth that remains about the Vines: The music is much more exciting than the band.

With the benefits of hindsight and level-headed conversations with both Nicholls and Matthews, it is pretty easy to piece together the making of the Vines myth. Start with the celebrated Nicholls’ vagueness for instance. Over the course of our conversation, the only time Nicholls’ mind ‘wanders’ – prompting comments like, “I can’t remember what we were talking about” – is when he doesn’t want to answer a question. It’s a slightly more subtle version of Sir Joh Bjelke-Peterson’s old trick of dodging the issue by talking up a storm of bullshit. During our phone conversation, Matthews confirms the suspicion that, as much as anything, Nicholls’ celebrated ‘space cadet’ persona is simply a form of self-preservation.

“That’s generally not a good sign if he’s doing that,” states Matthews. “It’s a sign that he’s not happy or whatever. He doesn’t really do it much with me in general.”

While Matthews has often defended his frontman in the past, this time around you get the feeling that he might actually be giving us the straight of it, especially when he spits: “I don’t think it’s my job to point out whether or not Craig’s talking crap or anything anymore. Like, in interviews he just gets bored.”

None of this suggests that Nicholls is your straight-up Jorge Regula though. Even Matthews will admit that “he’s not completely rational or sane.” But with the pressures of sudden stardom now somewhat diminished, it looks like Craig Nicholls and his bandmates are facing the world with a slightly less-sensational look upon their faces.

Nicholls’ reflection on the year that led up to the recording of Winning Days - a year which held everything from platinum albums to very serious break-up possibilities – is subdued, uttered in a weary voice that suggests in lots of ways he’s glad it’s passed.

“I guess it was kind of surreal when it was happening,” the singer says. “It sort of became this life of its own. And we wanted to record more straight away, but we just started playing more – that’s just the way it turned out. It’s great to get those opportunities to go to England and America. You know, we were really serious about that. And we gained a lot out of it. But it didn’t change us a whole lot. It still hasn’t made us feel like we’re famous or anything like that. We don’t think like that. We’re just ordinary guys.”

While the mountains of press from all over the world would suggest that the Vines – and Nicholls in particular – are anything but ordinary guys, talking to the singer and Matthews today, there couldn’t be a more apt description. Even a gentle prod about the stories of wild times that surrounded the Vines post-Highly Evolved only provokes a philosophical, reasonably sensible response.

“You’ve just gotta hope that you can hold onto some sort of control,” reasons Nicholls. “And that the people you’re with are good people. And the people that hang around don’t really matter. If we need time on our own we can achieve that, you know. But yeah, it’s weird, because as much as it can all be a little overwhelming at times, you also want to have a really good time. And, sure, that’s not all that the music’s for or about, but while we’re this age, it’s something to enjoy.”

“We started recording,” Nicholls meanders, “I think it was the end of last year. I’ve got problems with remembering the months, though.”

OK, so not everything has changed, and maybe there are times when Nicholls is a bit vague by way of nature rather than pure disinterest. But when you talk to him about the music these days, he’s happy to talk facts, not fantasy. Not the sort of fantasy he imagined in 2003 where he wanted to do a really hi-fi album, conjuring up images of Nirvana meets the Beatles meets Toto. Winning Days is definitely not the new adventure in hi-fi that Nicholls had alluded to, and for his part, he’s prepared to admit that it was never going to be.

“Yeah, sorry about that,” he says with a self-conscious laugh. “I don’t think I ever really meant that. I was just probably getting carried away after the first album, saying things just for the sake of it. But I was and still am very obsessed with the recording side of things, and that’s sort of what I meant. I want things to sound good.”

To that end, the Vines moved to the remote Bearsville studio in the woods outside of upstate New York in May last year to start work with producer Rob Schnapf (who also twiddled the knobs on the band’s debut) on Winning Days. Coming as it did on the back of a grinding tour that had climaxed in Nicholls’ and Matthews’ now famous tiff on stage at a Boston show in December 2002, the move straight to the studio could have been a disaster. Instead, it turned out to be exactly what the band needed.

“The first week, or really just one day or two, it was pretty tense and it was like, ‘Oh,’” says Matthews. “But as soon as we started recording it was, like, really positive and Hamish [Rosser, drummer] and I were getting stuff on the record and we were really happy about that, and we got it all finished in time which Craig and I were really happy about. Like, we finished a week before time ran out at the studio, and then we went home and didn’t have to do a load of stuff for two months.”

The album itself is solid rock & roll coloured by different moods – the perfect bookend to the collection of stories that was started by Highly Evolved. They are sister albums, even to the point that Nicholls chose to include a second version of “Autumn Shade” and call it simply, “Autumn Shade II.” It is the first time the band have recorded as a four-piece – with Rosser and guitarist Ryan Griffiths now well established – and not too much has changed. Like Nicholls, Matthews is definitely glad it went that way and not down the more absurd path that both he and Craig had intimated it might.

“[The hi-fi thing] wasn’t something I ever really wanted to do,” the bass player confesses. “I guess that there are some bands that have done that but I’m not really sure that I’ve heard too many bands do stuff like that. Like there’s Muse, they’ve sort of pulled it off. But at the same time, I think this record is still fairly hi-fi, but with nearly every song, there’s something that’s dirty. Whether it’s the bass or guitar, there’s one thing that’s edgy. And even though the vocals are recorded pretty nicely, I think there’s just something about making everything shiny that’s a bit unnecessary.”

Nicholls confirms that the band had a very firm mindset about the sound they wanted when they went into the studio and this, together with the wisdom of Schnapf, helped them stick to the less-is-more mentality that made their first album such a sensation.

“I wanted it to be – in my head – something grand, with big ideas and that vision sort of thing,” begins Nicholls. “But at the same time, that doesn’t mean that something can’t be special if it’s just simple. Because I think that the songs are the main idea. I think I might have been thinking that we were like a hip-hop group or something, so we could do these full-on things, but we’re not. We’re a rock band. We sing our songs and play guitar and have drum beats and we like it like that.”

“It all comes down to the songs and mostly when we were recording we thought that there’s no use in putting extra keyboard tracks on it or another guitar part in it. But the thing that we think as a band – as clichéd as it might sound, and as much as we don’t want to do something over and over again – is that sometimes simple things are the best.”

Even if the music might not have changed too much for the Vines, there is no getting around the fact that it’s a very different world the band find themselves in as they set in for the new rounds of media attention and scrutiny. Even simple things have changed for the band, like Nicholls leaving the bong behind.

“I gave up man,” he says with enough innocence to suggest he’s telling at least half the truth. “It wasn’t really hard. I was just kind of through with it. I was surprised, actually because people have said to me before that it’s hard, but I haven’t been having trouble at all. It’s weird – like I can’t even really notice stopping. You did it and then you stop, and I don’t know, it just happens. Maybe that’s the way it’s meant to be.”

Nicholls isn’t the only Vine looking out for his health either. Matthews – resigned to the fact that it’s a little harder for him to give up the drink than it was for Craig to kick the weed – has found a novel way of compensating for his thirst.

“I’ve been jogging,” he states. “A lot. It’s my thing because I’ve admitted to myself, like when you’re an alcoholic and you have to admit it to yourself, that’s the first step. So I admit that I’m an alcoholic and I need to exercise to balance that out. You have to take pleasure in the masochism of it [jogging with a hangover]. You really feel the sweat coming out in great, big square cubes. I’m really going to attempt to maintain it.”

Given what the band will be facing over the next few months, they may very well need healthy minds and bodies. With the release of Winning Days, the Vines must now face the problem of being both a big name band and being Australians signed to an American label, and in many senses being imported back to their own country. This fact led to a healthy dose of Aussie skepticism the first time around, and now the situation is only more obvious.

Although album sales have been good in this country, the Australian critics – both professional and armchair – haven’t always been kind to the Vines. Despite rave album reviews, their first major tour of Australia was met with a storm of negative press, as a combination of inexperience and being introduced to your home crowd as international superstars took its toll.

“We went to Melbourne and played this one show at the Hi-Fi Bar,” remembers Matthews. “And they seemed to be cool with us while we were playing but then we got really bad reviews. Then we played this show at the Laundry or somewhere for Triple R [Melbourne public radio station] and it was like the most frosty audience I’ve ever seen in my life. It was ridiculous. Talk about scrutinising. Like, why did they even bother? But Melbourne was the worst.

“We played in Sydney and got a few more bad reviews, and people writing into Drum Media [street press] – one week people would be bagging us and the next week someone would write back saying, ‘No, they’re alright.’ It’s just a bit of a joke sometimes. Like surely people would have something to do other than doing that. But it's good that people can keep busy."

Nicholls offers a similarly resigned, shrug-of-the-shoulders sort of perspective on the situation.

“It’s cool, you know. It doesn’t matter what people’s opinions are; well, it didn’t matter to me, because that’s the reason you play in a band – so you don’t have to listen to anyone or do what they say. That’s why this is our band, not theirs. All I can say is that we did work hard and it’s a crazy world, especially with music – if people think you’re lucky they get negative. But we did work hard, and we were just kind of behind-the-scenes when we were still in Sydney. We worked in my bedroom and in the rehearsal room rather than on stages.”

Fortunately for the Vines, the tide of opinion seems to be changing. Their Homebake appearance last December might not have pulled the biggest crowd at the festival, but it did have a few people eating humble pie, with most agreeing that the band had improved by a long shot. Even so, speaking to Matthews, there are obviously still a few artistic differences within the group – no doubt the same differences that caused so much tension late-last year.

“I thought it sounded alright,” says the bass player. “The singing was a bit pitched in the screaming zone for my liking. Screaming’s all right, but not for a whole set. But my singing was terrible as well, so you know. I think the band sounded pretty good though.”

With the Vines about to embark on a tour of the U.S. with Jet and the Living End – a tour which is more than a little remarkable for what it says about the stature of Australian music overseas – the band find themselves in an interesting position. The hype’s gone with the bong and the bullshit. It’s now a case of letting the music talk for itself. They’ve been through the ringer on so many issues, and despite so many people thinking it could end otherwise, the Vines have survived to make a solid second album. And while it might be fair to say that in terms of spectacle and outrage the band are not half as interesting as they used to be, you’d also have to say that the music is. For Nicholls – for the first time at least – that’s enough.

“We’re just really glad that we’re still doing this, still together,” he says. “There were times when we thought that it might not last, that we would break up, but then again it’s really important to us, so maybe we were just being dramatic during those times. You know, those were probably the times when, for some reason I was thinking I could go and do a solo album with the London Symphony Orchestra. I won’t do that.”

Instead, the Vines are taking small steps towards becoming a band that’s going to outlive its own hype. Where it would have been easy for them to get carried off by the ideas of extravagance and excess that so many journalists and critics surrounded them in, the Vines – much like the Strokes to whom they’re so often compared – chose instead to just do the same thing they’ve always done. And they, unlike the Strokes, even managed to avoid Hollywood girlfriends.

Even so, don’t press Craig too hard to the future. He’s still capable of pulling out a bunch of bullshit just to hide the fact that, really, he hasn’t got too much to say on the subject…

“I’m starting to think about concept albums, and that sort of thing. That’s always in the back of my head. Something that’s different than a standard sort of rock album.”

“I don’t know what. I think it’s gonna be something. It’s gonna be a concept album, but I’ve just gotta work out what the concept’s gonna be. It’s very early days. But you can’t deny it’s a good idea. It could make us or break us. But that’s the risk you’ve gotta take. You have to keep reinventing yourself.”

Former editor of Australian Guitar magazine, Dan Lander is the new RS Music Editor.