Australian audiences last saw Dean McGrath performing live with indie-pop act Hungry Kids of Hungary on their most recent album tour. During what can be described as a 'break' for the band, McGrath is swapping the Hungry Kids for The Beatles, as he prepares to head out on tour as part of The Beatles Back2Back production. Joining an impressive ensemble of some of the country's most talented frontmen as well as a seventeen-piece band, McGrath and co will perform both Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and Abbey Road in full - a celebration of two massive areas of The Beatles' career.

Ahead of rehearsals and Hungry Kids' spot at Splendour in the Grass, Dean chats with me about what it's like to be part of such an interesting production.

This Beatles Back2Back venture is such an interesting idea – the performance of both “Sgt. Pepper's” and “Abbey Road” in full. What brought on this concept and how did you become involved?

Well, it’s not the first time; the team behind it put something like this on last year. They did a tour of The White Album that had Tim Rogers, Phil Jamieson, Chris Cheney and Josh Pyke all involved. I guess it was a success last year and they wanted to repeat that again this year with some different albums and some different artists. I was just really lucky to be invited along to participate. The Hungry Kids manager was asked if I’d liked to be involved and that was the end of it, I said yes and here we are.

I guess most musicians will say that they’ve either always have been long-time Beatles fans or they’ve been influenced in some way by the band. I’m guessing this is the same with you?

Oh massively. They’re inescapable too, growing up on that whole pop music landscape and they’ve always been a big influence for me personally and for the Hungry Kids in general. I mean, we formed as a four piece pop band with two lead singers…they’ve been a really prevalent influence on our music over the past few years.

You’ll be performing alongside some of the country’s most talented and experienced musicians, Mark Seymour from Hunters and Collectors, Trial Kennedy’s Tim Morrison and Shihad’s Jon Toogood (although he’s a New Zealander…) to name a few. It’s definitely an interesting array of musical backgrounds coming together.

Yeah, definitely. I’ve been doing a few interviews today and everyone makes mention of the fact that I’m one of the ‘young’ ones involved in this! Both Tim and myself are probably the juniors, especially considering Mark Seymour… Hunters and Collectors are a pretty seminal Aussie band and he’s just got such a wealth of experience. Definitely, there are some pretty diverse, in our own rights, diverse acts. I mean, there aren’t many similarities between Hungry Kids and a band like Shihad, but I think it’s very telling that, despite our varied backgrounds, that The Beatles have been an influence on and a part of all of our musical endeavours.

It’s testament to the fact that even now they’re still reaching such a broad audience and influencing different sorts of music.

Definitely. They were so varied themselves in their output. I guess a guy like Jon and a band like Shihad would be into the rockier tracks like Helter Skelter, whereas we’ve always been obsessed with the harmony-laden, melodic pop stuff.

Is there any pressure that you feel, as a musician, that you have to do these songs a certain level of justice when you’re doing either a straight up cover or even your own reinterpretation of them? I’m sure you’re going to kick ass at it, whichever way you do it, but like we were saying before, these are songs that are so well known and loved by many people.

Well that’s it and we’re constantly aware of the fact that if we mess it up, then people won’t be happy! A couple of guys from my band and a couple of the guys from Ball Park Music recorded a version of Come Together earlier this year, which was sold commercially on iTunes and was part of a flood relief fundraiser. It was also part of a really big ad campaign up here in Brisbane. We were asked to do that and our first reaction was “Beatles, hell yes, let’s do it” and the second reaction was “Shit, what if we mess it up?”. So yeah, there’s that pressure definitely; it plays on your mind that yeah, you’ve got to do a good job.

Can you tell me a little bit about the impressive looking group of musicians who’ll be performing alongside yourself and the advertised ensemble? Clearly it’s not just going to be your standard tribute gig.

Yeah well it’s a seventeen piece band this time round and they’ve incorporated all of those instruments [sitars, tablas etc] to really do justice to the sounds that are on Sgt. Pepper’s. I haven’t yet been to a rehearsal; they start next week, so I’m really keen to see how it all fits together and just to see a seventeen-piece band! It’s going to be pretty impressive, so I’m really excited about that. Like I say, I haven’t seen them do their thing yet and it’s going to be as exciting for me as it is for everyone else to see how that comes together. It’s a full scale production, so I’m not envying the people who are putting it all together and making sure it all works!

The venues that the shows will be hitting up are mostly theatres and concert halls – that must be a bit of a change from performing in smaller gig venues, no?

Yeah, there’s a huge leap between playing with Hungry Kids and places like the State Theatre in Sydney and QPAC up here in Brisbane. It’ll be a little bit intimidating because they’re certainly bigger rooms than I’m accustomed to.

What’s it like being referred to in all the advertising for this as one of Australia’s ‘best frontmen’?

It’s fairly misleading, isn’t it?! I don’t know, it’s very flattering obviously, but being involved in any way is extremely flattering. I don’t know about that tag though! I think there’d be a few worthy people who might question it…

Let it just stroke your ego, at least.

Oh well yeah, it has done that. I’m really chuffed.

With Hungry Kids you’ve been really busy of late, with “Escapades” absolutely taking off and the accompanying national tour also being incredibly successful. Have you thought about this Beatles tour as being a sort of break from such an intense period of writing and touring?

Yeah well it’s worked out so well because we already pencilled in a few months off touring with Hungry Kids. I mean, we’ve basically done as much touring as we can or we need to for the first record! It’s been pretty non-stop, but there haven’t been too many extended breaks over the last few years. So we already knew that it was time for us to give touring a bit of a rest for awhile and regroup and start to focus on new material for the next record. That decision had already been made when I got the call up about this, so it was a really happy coincidence that we were on a break and that this tour was happening.

Going off your bio featured on the Beatles Back2Back website, this is sort of your first foray into solo territory… do you have any other projects in the works at the moment? I know Kane and Remy have been doing their thing with Spring Skier…

Yeah, I’ve always had non-Hungry Kids material sitting on the back burner pretty much for how long we’ve been together. It’s something that I’ve always been waiting for the right time to tackle. Obviously, there hasn’t been a hell of a lot of time to do it over the past few years, with what Hungry Kids have been up to. I mean, it’s something that I intend to do but there’s nothing concrete yet. This Beatles thing has sort of been a welcome distraction; there’s a lot less pressure in doing other people’s songs in some ways. We were talking earlier about how intimidating it is to do The Beatles, but at the same time, there are some songs that I know I can just jump up and sing. I don’t have to play anything and it’s not my show, it’s an ensemble thing and I think that’s it going to be quite fun.

So after this tour, what are you up to? Back into working with Hungry Kids?

Well as far as ‘breaks’ go, we’ve still got Splendour the weekend after this one and a few gigs scattered here and there; once Beatles is over, my attention will be fully focussed back onto Hungry Kids. We’ve got a massive pool of songs sitting there ready to go. Album number two will probably come together pretty quickly in terms that we’re all in the same place.

Just quickly, Hungry Kids are up for the “Most Popular Band” award through the QLD Music Awards – congrats on that. It seems like you’re going to be very busy over the next few weeks, but you seem to be handling it quite well.

Yeah well the whole start of this Beatles thing is going to be one of the most intense weeks ever. I’m on holidays, for god’s sake, and I’m having the most intense week of my life! I’ve got rehearsals in Sydney and then we play Splendour and then I go back down for rehearsals and then we’ve got a show on the Gold Coast, and then the Beatles tour starts! So it’s going to be fairly non-stop for a week or so there. I’m a little bit better rehearsed at that now, with my Hungry Kids experience and all the touring we’ve done.

The Beatles Back2Back tour kicks off in Adelaide at the Festival Theatre on the 6th of August, concluding in Brisbane at the QPAC Concert Hall on the 9th. Visit www.beatlesback2back.com for more info.