The Riebls are at the grand piano. Rose plays a hypnotic arpeggio with her hands over the top of each other, her fingers moving like two slow-dancing spiders. Felix tries a high tinkling harmony, faltering at first and then slipping into synch. It's starting to come together.
Then Max slams his palm on a cluster of notes down low, causing a discordant rumble. Eyes roll. And then everyone cracks up.
The Riebls: Felix is lead singer of the Cat Empire, Rosie is a pianist and Max is a countertenor.Credit:Scott McNaughton
The piano is in Felix Riebl's studio apartment on Gertrude Street in Melbourne's Fitzroy, where he has written many of the songs for his band The Cat Empire. The dinging bell and rattling wheels of the number 86 tram regularly waft up through the open windows.
Felix is only 37, but he started The Cat Empire as a teenager, so the group inspired by jazz, Latin and African music is celebrating its 20th anniversary as a festival favourite and crowd-pleasing combo that became so successful they entered the BRW top 50 rich list for entertainers more than a decade ago.
From left, Max, Felix and Rosie Riebl.Credit:Scott McNaughton
He's sharing the spotlight today with two of his siblings who are remarkable in their own musical fields. Rose, 29, was a piano prodigy from the age of five, moved to Vienna at 14 to study music at university and today composes, performs and records her own music. And Max, 27, is a celebrated countertenor who has performed with the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra and the London Handel Orchestra, among many others.
How did all these talents emerge from one family? That's why we've gathered in Melbourne for a day to hang out, eat together, go for a walk around the neighbourhood and dig up the stories of the Riebl clan. Stories like the man in the wolf mask, the boy with the tape recorder and the grappling hook, and the girl who discovered she wasn't a witch.
But first, the puppet theatre. Rose mentions it in passing when telling another story.
"Oh, the puppet theatre was hysterical," Felix says. "My parents made it just for us and it was verging on an acid trip. They made these papier-mache puppets that looked really freaky and they made up these wild stories and then did all the voices and couldn't stick to a script. There was a Jamaican character and a queen and my Dad made one that looked like his mother-in-law and made fun of her.
Cat Empire lead singer Felix Riebl and singer/trumpeter Harry James Angus playing at Bluesfest.Credit:Jorge Branco
"It didn't seem out of the ordinary at the time, but I realise talking about it now that it does sound extraordinary. It was like growing up in a circus. There was this chaos and it was theatrical and things weren't out of bounds. You could say and do funny, weird things and no one would say 'that's not sensible'."
Their father Luis is Austrian. He was a qualified doctor but knew no English when he came to Australia. He went on to start his own vineyard in Tallarook in central Victoria and is now a psychoanalyst. Their mother Sue is Scottish-Australian. After studying art history she turned a couple of rooms in their house in Hawthorn into an art gallery.
Max Riebl performing with the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra.
Luis comes from a very musical family. His brother Thomas is a distinguished viola player and music professor in Vienna. Luis was the black sheep with the scientific mind. He also had a competitive nature and a wicked sense of humour, not giving an inch when playing young Felix at ping-pong and jumping out of closets wearing a self-made wolf mask to scare older sister Cecilia, who is now 39 and works in environmental law and is a visual artist.
Sue came from a family that wasn't into music but she embraced it when she left home. Her children love sharing stories of her passion – she cries while reading poetry, she introduced Rose and Max to the music of Eminem, she used to blast Springsteen in the cassette player of the family eight-seater VW Caravelle while driving wildly with children rolling around in the back.
One hour before some of my biggest concerts I'm being strangled and grappling with some dude in my Brazilian ju-jitsu class.
"We had an extremely close and loving family, but it was also sometimes difficult and batshit crazy," Felix says, adding that his parents broke up when he was in his early 20s. "My parents are both very intelligent people with different outlooks. My mother was more sensitive and emotional. My father was more outspoken and he had a rebellious streak."
Uncle Thomas visited Australia from Austria 24 years ago and decided to test all the kids for musical ability. When he sat Rose at the piano and asked her to replicate melodies he was astounded to discover the five-year-old had a perfect ear. By seven she was performing in eisteddfods, although she remembers being incredibly nervous. During one performance she forgot to breathe and passed out in the middle of a Mozart sonata.
"I was an odd kid," she says. "I remember my mum told me that for one of my early performances I could get a dress made. The fashionable dress at that time was puffy white or pink satin. I asked for a crushed black velvet dress with a matching cape with red silk lining."
She wears black today, sports various tattoos and has silver rings on most of her fingers. Felix jumps in to tell a story about one day finding young Rose sitting in the bottom of a closet crying her eyes out. When he asked what was wrong she told him that she'd just discovered she wasn't a witch.
"Really?" she says. "I don't remember that at all. But I now consider myself a witch. I like the magic of the everyday and nature and the moon and the elements and I like to harness that power to express myself."
After studying in Vienna as a teenager and making her way up the classical music ladder, she quit playing at the age of 20 for a couple of years, disillusioned by the straitjacketed world of classical music. By this point The Cat Empire were very popular and regularly touring the world.
"I remember talking to Felix during that time when we were both over in Europe and I told him that I didn't know if I still wanted to do music," Rose says. "And he asked 'what does music mean to you?' I said, 'it's my way of decoding the universe'. And he said, 'well you've got to be a musician'. So I came back with my own style and my own voice so I could say what I wanted to say."
Meanwhile, Max's instrument as a child was the trumpet. He debuted with The Cat Empire at the age of 10 on stage at the Prince Of Wales Hotel in St. Kilda.
"Even though Felix is 10 years older, we were super close," he says. "I got a taste of the nightlife at a very young age through him. He'd take me to his gigs and I'd be backstage in nightclubs. I didn't want to hang out with anyone my age."
He went on to sing in choirs and eventually became a countertenor, a voice equivalent to a female contralto or mezzo-soprano, made famous by the castrati.
"I'd like to point out that I'm not castrated," he says, arching an eyebrow. "I've got a kid and another on the way, so I have proof."
Max is no shrinking violet. When he saw pictures of the castrati he noticed they were very tall and elongated, with huge chests. He decided to build himself up to emulate them and started power-lifting almost 10 years ago. He can now squat lift and dead lift 240 kilograms and bench press 187.5 kilograms. He also works 40 hours a week as a landscaper.
"I'm amused at classical concerts when singers are wearing silk scarves and drinking hot teas and saying, 'I can't talk, I have to save my voice'. It's the most ridiculous form of preciousness. One hour before some of my biggest concerts I'm being strangled and grappling with some dude in my Brazilian ju-jitsu class."
He also blends rock and classical in his concerts, singing Radiohead and the Smiths alongside Bach, Schubert and Handel.
All three Riebls credit their mother with encouraging them and forcing them to practice as children, although Felix had a novel way of avoiding it for a while. He used a cassette recorder to tape himself practicing the violin and then would close the door, hit play and climb out his window using a grappling hook to hang out with friends. His mother finally twigged when she heard him make exactly the same mistake at exactly the same moment for a few days in a row.
He made friends with fellow budding musician Ollie McGill when they were 13 and the duo would sneak into Fitzroy clubs to watch jazz and Latin bands, then formed a number of groups together that eventually became The Cat Empire.
After lunch at Marios, a classic Italian restaurant that has sat on Brunswick Street since 1986, we wander through Fitzroy as the Riebls point out some of their old haunts. Outside long-time music venue The Night Cat, Rose recalls Felix sneaking her into his shows when she was underage and they reminisce about how the place would get so crowded that you virtually had to crowd-surf to get to the bar.
"Fitzroy has become gentrified and these days I walk around it with a baby strapped to my chest," says Felix, whose daughter is one. "But there's still a raw edge to it. It's always been this melting pot of styles for music. There's the inner-city rock scene and a really strong jazz scene and a lot of Latin music in the Spanish quarter. There was a time when this was the centre of our world."
There's a song on Stolen Moments, the new album from The Cat Empire, called Oscar Wilde. The sound is Fitzroy via Soweto, with clucking, skipping guitar, parping horns and joyous, chanting vocals. It's a song that reflects on fond memories of the past and expresses hopes for a bright future. The key line is, "I know the past is gone, but some moments shine like gold".
"That song comes from a memory of being in the family VW Caravelle van, packed with stuff and driving up to Tallarook," Felix says. "We had two dogs, Rupert a Rhodesian Ridgeback and Jane, a kelpie. Rupert was my dog and at a certain point he'd jump out and gallop beside the car. I remember getting out and racing after him and yelling and feeling my lungs burst."
He pauses and smiles. The other Riebls are smiling too.
"That's a happy memory for me and that's how the song started," Felix says. "It's the idea that sometimes the best we can do is follow a dog. It's that simple."
The Cat Empire play Zoo Twilights in Melbourne on February 15, 16 and 17 and Illuminate Night Party in Perth on February 23. Stolen Moments is out on February 15. Max Riebl's Cold Genius is out in April. He plays at Chapel Off Chapel, Melbourne on February 16. Rose Riebl's Sleep Mix For Insomniacs is out later this year.
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