IT’S TIME FOR TEA

BASED The Tea Party are finally making their long-awaited return to Hobart, as Jeff Martin tells

solely on his brooding looks and booming voice, there’s probably people who assume that Jeff Martin — frontman of Canadian “Moroccan roll’’ trio The Tea Party — is a bad dude.

They’re wrong, of course. But the friendly, jovial Martin understands that people could have formed that opinion after listening to the dark, intense and often angry lyrics on his band’s double-platinum 1997 album Transmission, which is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year.

“There’s definitely a dark side to my psyche,” Martin admitted to Pulse.

“It’s not something that is damaging, I don’t believe, but it’s there and it needs to be explored.

“The artistic way is about balance, and about respecting both sides of the coin. I think that with Transmission maybe it went to one side of the coin a bit too much.

“But at the end of the day, it’s only rock ’n’ roll.”

The Tea Party — Martin, bass and keyboard player Stuart Chatwood and drummer Jeff Burrows — formed in Toronto in 1990 and have gone on to sell more than 1.6 million albums worldwide.

Especially popular in Australia, where they have toured 12 times, the band enjoyed further success post- Transmission with their 1999 album Triptych, with the single Heaven Coming Down hitting No.1 on the Canadian charts.

But The Tea Party split up in 2005, citing the ever-popular “creative differences”, with Martin moving from Canada to Ireland and then to Australia.

He embarked on a solo career, releasing Exile and the Kingdom in 2006, and formed the bands The Armada and Jeff Martin 777, before The Tea Party reunited in 2011.

“We just realised that the sum of the parts is much greater than the individuals themselves,” Martin explained.

“We were missing the music, and we were missing each other.

“I’ve known Jeff Burrows since we were in bands together when I was like nine, 10 years old, so we’ve probably been together as long as the [Rolling] Stones.

“It’s getting close to 40 years; that’s how far this relationship goes back.

“When you have that in your life, and most of the most intense experiences of your life you’ve shared with these other two guys, and then they’re not there any more, it’s a gaping hole that was too much to take for all of us.

“We had to do a lot of soulsearching, the three of us, and reevaluate this beautiful friendship we have, and also the extremely powerful music the three of us make when we’re together. It’s much better than when we’re apart.”

The Tea Party released a new album, The Ocean at the End, in September 2014, and have most recently been working on new versions of what Martin calls “the four seminal songs” from Transmission — Temptation, Psychopomp, Release and the title long-awaited return to Hobart for the first time since the 1990s, which Martin has been teasing for years.

“All these solo shows that I’ve done in Hobart — most of them at the Republic Bar — every time I’ve played I’ve promised people, I’ve sworn that I was going to bring the Tea Party here,” Martin said. “Finally, finally, I get to do it.” Canadian audiences got to experience the #TX20 tour back in February and March, and it seems The Tea Party picked right up where they’d left off.

“It took the band maybe a couple of shows, and then we had it down pat,” Martin said.

“So what Australian audiences are going to get — and I can pretty much guarantee this — will be the best Tea Party show they’ve ever seen.

“It’s a big call, but it’s one I’m going to stake my reputation on, because I don’t think the band has ever played better.”

The Tea Party bring their 20 Years of Transmission tour to Hobart for a show at the Odeon Theatre from 8pm on November 3. Tickets are $91.65, go to

for bookings.