Tom Schutzinger, master of the bottom end for Sydney group Decoder Ring on drums, likens the band’s experience at South by Southwest as nothing short of chaos; but a very good, very exciting chaos.

“It’s outrageous,” he says of the bevy of bands that made up the numbers at SxSW 2006. Not only are there bands there who are genuine, registered bands, but also bands that just come in and play in bookstores, nooks and crannies throughout Austin, Texas. “I can’t really imagine how many there are total; there’s 1400 bands on the books registered to play and then it just doesn’t stop. It’s relentless.”

There’s always a fear that you can ‘get lost’ in the crowd. “I can’t speak personally because we were just busy playing and we had a good crowd there, but I can definitely say that I went to see other bands who’ve come from the other side of the world and there’s no-one in the room. We were fortunate – we did three shows in one day, which was really great.”

How was that, other than exhausting? “I could’ve run a marathon,” Tom claims. “You’re just on a roll and we’d just done some shows in L.A. and it was great.”

Tom explains that the reaction to Decoder Ring was incredibly enthusiastic – from locals from Austin to record labels from Japan. “It’s kind of weird when you’re in another country and there’s not really one single fan of your music who would know you…but it’s cool because they come up after and congratulate you, and say that they’ve never seen anything like it.”

The big question will be whether or not their attendance at SxSW 2006 will be the making of Decoder Ring. Tom says that as the band are going under a constant state of evolution, there’s no doubt that they’ll return to America at some point in the future. “We went to New York after that and had some shows,” he says of the post-SxSW activities, “and once again it was really interesting – when you’re a band from Australia and you go to a place like New York and you think ‘it’s a big city and they must have something like us, and there must be no shortage of great bands’, and there aren’t but when we played the reaction from locals and other musicians who’d been on before us were really encouraging, and excited to see how we performed and what we did.”

Whilst there, they played at the famed Mercury Lounge, which he says is a really great venue – a good size. With the Somersault film having just been released in America, Decoder Ring’s soundtrack for the album is due for release over there. “That’s obviously going to happen first,” he outlines. “Fractions would come after Somersault I guess.”

Tom explains that it’s more strange than it is frustrating that material Decoder Ring worked on over three years ago is only just securing release overseas, but he understands that that’s just the way it is. “It may all change with downloading things,” says of the digital musical world, “and I’m sure it’s different with international acts – they just take the world and do it in one hit. I guess at our level you’ve just got to slowly nudge into each territory as they come. It’s been a fun journey, and we’re really loving it with a variety of different activities – doing the film work and doing the live thing as well. We’re probably in the process of doing tracks for our next album.”

Whilst the increasing road activity would lead to thinking that it would really put a bit of a hold on the songwriting process, Tom says that it really hasn’t. “We’re all pretty much writing, and I guess it’s been inspiring – going overseas and travelling, and playing as a band. It’s inspiring to get out there and create more.”

It’s strange that this is now inspiring the band’s new songwriting ventures, as so much of Fractions seemed to be about travel – songs like “Jets”, “Traffic”, and “Escape Pod” certainly reference that. “It’s a pretty diverse album,” Tom says of Decoder Ring’s last effort. “We like to conjure up as many different ideas as we can, and as such it’s always a bit of a different journey. That album definitely had its highs and lows, and is very diverse.”

By comparison, he says that the new material the band are coming up with plays with their sound in terms of timing; although it’s not heading in an entirely prog rock direction. “I think Fractions was quite a produced album and we spent quite a lot of time in the studio once it was recorded, and we really wanted to finesse a lot of the sounds,” Tom explains. “This album that we’re demo-ing and playing live seems pretty raw – they’re not too busy and textually there’s not too much in there.”

Perhaps it’s a reaction to the word ‘cinematic’ being bandied about every time Decoder Ring are mentioned in the press; it’s a pigeon-holing that they’ve learned to accept. “That is THE word isn’t it? It’s not such a bad thing, so I guess we’re okay with it. There’s definitely a few more adjectives out there, and it is what it is – I don’t know if we’re ‘cinematic’. You wouldn’t call “451” charging at you that cinematic.”

Due to play Splendour in the Grass, it gives Decoder Ring an opportunity to road test new material. “We’re definitely playing a couple of songs,” he confirms. “There are songs that we’ve played that we never recorded, so we’re happy to play them live and when we get a chance to record them we definitely will, and I’m hoping to get back into the studio by the end of the year. But playing live is wonderful.”

Decoder Ring play Splendour in the Grass on Sunday in the Grant McLennan Theatre, from 7.15-8.15pm.