On Saturday, trip-hop pioneers Portishead took to the stage at Harvest Festival in Melbourne, marking their first live appearance in Australia since 1998. In the lead up to their long-awaited return to our shores, we spoke to Geoff Barrow about his time living in Australia, the band’s new found desire to play live, and why we may be waiting some time for the next Portishead record.

So where do you live? What part of England are you in?
I’m in Bristol.

So you’ve been there since you were young… Is that right?
Yeah, yeah. I grew up in Portishead which is the town 15 miles away from Bristol, then I moved to Bristol when I was 18. It’s kind of like if you… Where are you at the moment?

I’m in Sydney. I live right in the city of Sydney, right in the middle of the city.
It’s kind of like if you lived out in Hornsby, you know what I mean. I grew up there, but you want to move to the city eventually, that kind of thing.

So you were never tempted to move to London, though, to live up there?
No, no. Not with them wankers.

I wanted to ask you how the charity soccer game turned out that you guys played a couple of weekends ago?
Yeah, it was really good. We raised a lot of money for the childrens’ hospice and stuff, and Daddy G, Roni Size played and a few proper football legends were there, and the weirdest thing: Kelsey Grammer was there.

No way. Frazier was there?!
Frazier was there.

Did he score a goal?
No, he didn’t play. He was just there. I mean, he’s married to a Bristol City player’s daughter. And she grew up in Portishead and she’s become an air hostess and that’s how they met.

How amazingly strange!
It’s a very strange affair. I kept on looking over to see what my mate’s mum chatting to him.

I must say, I do love Frazier. I think it’s a fantastic show.
Yeah, it’s an amazing show. He’s a really nice dude as well, he’s really cool.

Fantastic! Did you score or do you play defence?
No, I was supposed to score. I won a penalty but I gave it to someone else to take and they fluffed it. We lost 2-1, so it wasn’t too bad and we had a penalty saved it was pretty good compared to the team we were playing… They were all very kind of good quality. I play a couple of times a week, just try to keep fit, really.