INTERVIEW: BOB EVANS TALKS TOMORROWLAND

Our writer Suze caught up with Bob Evans re. ‘Concrete Heart’ from his upcoming record ‘Tomorrowland’ and more!

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You have a new song out?
Yes. I have a whole new record called Tomorrowland that comes out on April 16th.  The most recent single is called ‘Concrete Heart.’ 

It’s a great tune.  The sound is almost like The Beatles meets Jebediah. 
I guess there used to be a real gulf between Bob Evans and Jebediah but that has narrowed somewhat over the years. The Beatles thing is undeniable. In previous times I have been directly influenced by Beatles stuff and you can hear it over previous records.  This time around I wasn’t really listening to or being inspired by The Beatles, but they still managed to sneak in there because the artists that I was listening to a lot were inspired by them! For me when I was trying to figure out how I wanted to present this song, I was listening to heaps of Tom Petty, particularly Full Moon Fever. It is probably his best-known record and I really fell in love with it. Obviously a few of the songs I knew very well because they are such massive hits, but I had never really listened to the whole record properly and its now one of my favourites. There are a few songs on that record that are just power pop songs, guitar power pop. I thought that was the angle I could take with this one. 

I read that you had used a bit more electric guitar this time around on the album.
Loads. I mean this really feels like the first traditional rock album that I have made as Bob Evans. Not just because of the instruments we used but also it’s the first time where I have recorded live with my band in a room. Very minimal overdubs, minimal edits. There was just five of us in the room and we smashed out all the songs in like six days. I’ve never done that before. It was important to do because  I wanted this record to have its own unique feel and to be a real point of difference to previous records. I had to look at things that I could do differently. A few years ago I wouldn’t have had the confidence to make a record like that. I would have been worried that it wouldn’t be good enough to pull it off. So it’s pretty awesome to be in a band where you look around and you go these guys are great musicians and we can totally do this. And we did. 

I also heard a whisper that you are touring.
Yeah. Well, the tour is definitely happening. I’ll be going all around the country. We just have to hope that everything remains open. Obviously, as everyone knows, this year is going to be pretty volatile but at the moment, the way things are going in Australia it looks pretty good. 

I reckon things should stay pretty safe in Adelaide.
I’ve just been in Adelaide.

I was just about to say I came and saw you do Club 27 at The Fringe a few weeks back.
Cool, what did you think?

I absolutely loved it. 
It was a lot of fun. So I’ve been to Adelaide twice because I did a Jebediah gig there earlier in the year as well. Look everywhere in Australia seems to be doing pretty well, I think there is reason for us to be optimistic. Certainly more so than last year. 

Absolutely. So back to ‘Concrete Heart’. I liked where you kind of got the inspiration from. That whole putting stuff up on social media in a discussion that is important to you and having someone call you out for being a ‘bleeding heart’.
What it specifically refers to is when you weigh in on some kind of debate that is political in its nature, you know it might be something to do with immigration for example or perhaps indigenous Australia. You put forward an opinion or a comment that is sympathetic and a lot of people who disagree with you use the term bleeding heart as a dis. I have always found that really fascinating and kind of funny because it’s like the criticism from the other side of the debate is pretty much like ‘Oh you care too much'. Is that really a bad thing? I like the idea of taking this bleeding heart thing and wearing it like a badge of honour and making a bit of fun out of that whole term. Concrete Heart is the opposite of that. I mean at its essence it is serious, but I tried to approach it the song in a light, fun way because it is a little bit funny as well. 

It is, because you never get a comment to back up the diss. It’s just you’re a bleeding heart. There is no actual discussion or reasoning why.
Yeah, I don’t even understand what somebody means if they use that term against somebody. What are they really trying to say? I guess they are trying to say that you are too emotional and you’re not rational or logical. Maybe that’s what they are trying to say.

It’s because you are passionate about something. That is why you enter those discussions in the first place. 
Having said this, I rarely weigh in on social media debates. I try really hard not to read comment sections around issues that I care about. It can get really depressing when you see the things that people write. It can be a very toxic environment. So yeah it’s not something I do very much. 

I just can’t anymore because of that reason. And the more you read those comment sections the angrier you get.  Some of them just aren’t going to change their opinions. It’s better to just bow out.
That sentiment is in the song as well. There are lyrics in the song that pretty much say exactly what you just said. I’m the same, you just have to back away because it is not really doing you or anyone else any good. 

No, it doesn’t.

Back to Tomorrowland. Are all the songs that little bit more rocky than normal Bob Evans?
I think so.  I suppose it’s a lot to do with the attitude with which they were recorded. Like I said with the band recording them live I think it just gives the songs a real kind of electricity and a character.

You get that vibe off of each other being in the studio together. 
That’s right. There is a character that I can’t recreate on my own. It really is its own unique thing. I’m really proud of the guys playing on it and what we were able to achieve. And Steve Schram who produced it, it’s a really good sounding record. It’s definitely going to be one of my favourite ones that I have done. 

Is there an underlying theme or is it just a collection of 10 songs?
Well, actually there are 11 songs on this record. We were only planning on doing ten and we got up to day six and we only had two songs left. Steve was like “You know we are going to finish early should we try and squeeze one more song in?” I had to go back to my demos and in a very short amount of time I had to choose one. Of course, the guys had to learn it on the spot. All the other songs we had spent rehearsing before we went into the studio. The second to last song on the record is called ‘Fits and Starts’ and it came out great, it sounds awesome, but the guys were literally learning it as we recorded. It’s one of my favourite songs. 

Tomorrowland is out 16th April. 

INTERVIEW: REINS TALKS WHAT KEEPS HIM HERE

Since first listening to Chris Pearce’s solo project last year I have been waiting for more to be released. What Keeps Me Here is what Reins have blessed us with. I reviewed it recently and that just left me with more questions than answers, so I asked Chris if he was keen to have a chat about the EP

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So this is a little bit different to Saviour!

Yeah it is, big time. I’ve always done stuff like this, but I’ve always loved metal as well. It wasn’t a big change for me. If anything I was probably way less metal by the time I joined Saviour. Joining Saviour made me get back into metal again.

I’ve been following Reins for a while and I have a feeling that it was Nick Deveril that put me onto you.

He’s the most supportive dude.

Yeah we met through our common love for Saviour.

What Keeps Me Here is so good, I couldn’t believe that nobody had done a write up about it.

I didn’t really send it around. I probably should have. I had one review in the works but never followed up on it.

I had it on loop for about 3 or 4 hours when I wrote the review. There are so many messages in the songs

It’s an awesome review. Thanks for that.

The more I listened to it the more I got out of it. Then I realised that it loops from Losing Your Mind back around to Storm Clouds. Just like the pattern of depression can repeat itself. Did you know you had done that?

Nope not at all. I just wrote all the tracks and chucked them together on the EP the best I could kind of thing. Its even interesting hearing people see it as like this release around the one thing. When I was writing the songs they were all so separate. Every track was separate, and I pieced them together. I guess it’s worked out because they all flow well into each other.

I actually thought you were telling a story because when you listen to it from start to finish you start with that depressive state, you hit rock bottom and then you start to come good only to fall into that state again.

Some songs are obviously specifically dark and angry like Storm Clouds. I get weird sleep paralysis and start doing weird stuff in my sleep which my girlfriend has to put up with. So Losing My Mind is about that.

See I took a totally different meaning

I always try and write lyrics that are not super obvious, they are more that you can take it on however you want.

Which is what I did because that’s not how I interpreted it. I took it as when you are in that depressive state it paralyses you.

I write a lot of songs that are specific and others that aren’t. Temporary Fix is about when you have a problem with something, or you are unhappy, and you turn to alcohol or anything to try and numb the pain and forget about it. It doesn’t work, it always comes back in full force. It’s just that temporary fix.

I took Temporary Fix as being in that dark spot and self-medicating. 

It’s all along those lines

When I published the review I was like OMG I hope I got this right!!!

I really found it an interesting read. It was almost more in depth than what I’d kind of processed my own songs. I just write them I don’t really think about them.

Grey and Old to me was someone at that suicidal point of depression looking forward into the future at what they might miss if they were to take their life. I’ve got this whole story from this EP!

That’s cool. Way more in depth than I went. Grey and Old for me is just every lyric is a specific memory that I have, something that has happened. It’s all good memories, yeah it’s more just memories to take when I am old really.

I’m still over here following this story that I have got happening.

I like that though, that’s cool. I like that your getting that vibe from it. I think it’s very upbeat and happy music wise, but a lot of people reckon there is still a darker tinge to it which is surprising. Because I listen to heavier music and emo music I see that song as a super happy boppy song, but other people are like no its still not that boppy.

The first few weeks I played it I was bopping around, and I was singing but not actually listening to what I was singing. It wasn’t till I sat down to review it and I’d already written this big blurb about what a happy boppy EP it was, I had to scrub it and start again haha.

Some of the songs have that emo vibe, like Storm Clouds. It probably makes the rest seem like they are emo, and they are probably not. Brightness is a happy song, that’s about family. But also acknowledging that you should put more effort into seeing your loved ones.

And I took a different take on that one as well

Whatever you wrote was almost that kind of vibe but more in depth. I think it was more feeling bad that you’re not being present for your loved ones.

I think my favourite is What Keeps Me Here but choosing one is hard. And I took that as, going back into that cycle again, and there’s that one person that is holding you here.

I don’t really know what I meant with that song, but it makes sense at the same time. It’s like a sad love song but its not at the same time. It’s for the people that put up with you through the bad times. They’re what keep you around when you could obviously be anywhere else. They are the reasons that you are where you are.

I think I wrote that it’s not the physical space of home it’s the people that you surround yourself with.

For sure.

Do you have more songs piled up?

I’ve got so many honestly. It’s hard to get through them there is such a big pile of songs to finish. I’ve got another EP, hopefully I finish it this year and release it early next year. It’s a follow up to ‘What Keeps Me Here’, like a part two.

Do you do a lot of the writing for Saviour?
No not a lot. I think I did three songs on A Lunar Rose.  We all throw in our little 2 cents worth, but Bryant does most of it. He’ll send stuff over and get me to have a listen. I’m not as good a metal guitarist these days.

You do alright playing stripped back guitar. Like I said WKMH is an EP that you can throw on Sunday mornings and get that chill vibe.

Yeah it’s definitely that kind of vibe. Mellow, chilling kind of vibe. The next one is going to have a bit more of a full sound I think. I’m going to write it as if it’s a band rather than a solo act. I’ve got a band that can play my songs, I’ve got some mates that can jump on board.

You’ve got some older stuff up on Spotify as well that I love.

Yeah the older stuff still sounds like a full band. I’m going to stick with a similar sound to what I’ve done previously but I just want to make it more fine and crisp I think.

This one is definitely different to your older stuff.

Some of the songs on this EP I wrote back when I did that older stuff. It was just finally getting around to them.

Do you do the recording yourself?

Yeah I do all the recording here and then send it off to a guy who does all the mixing and mastering for me. He recorded the drums on the EP as well for my drummer who is really good.

Did you have a band at the EP launch?

Yeah they all played at the launch. They are pretty much band members, but they don’t have to deal with all the other stuff. It was a good night, even though there are restrictions it sold out.

That’s great that it sold out. So they just turn up and play?

Yeah pretty much.

I guess that means that you can probably tour eventually???

Hopefully. Obviously touring is a bit out the window at the moment. Lots of people are touring WA at the moment though. I actually didn’t even record any music during lockdown. I’ve just been gardening, cleaning out the shed. Stuff I normally neglect!

It’s been a productive time. For the normal everyday stuff that you neglect, but also for bands to regroup and write new stuff.

Yeah. The number of albums that are dropping now, that are quarantine albums, is actually crazy.

Anything else you want to tell us about the EP

Not that I can think of. You went pretty far into it (laughs) better than I did. I think I just write these songs and chick them out and don’t think too deeply as to what they are about.  Storm Clouds is such an emo song, I wrote that in one session. Wrote and recorded it before I even had a chance to think about what it was about! That happens frequently. I wasn’t even going to put it on the EP but once I wrote it I really liked it and I released it straight away. I got it out there as quickly as I could. That song did way better for me than anything else I have done so far. I was really surprised at how quickly it came together.

Sometimes they are the best ones!

For sure. Other songs like Grey and Old, I wrote the first half of it 4 years ago. I’d kind of forgotten about the track. My partner kept telling me it was a really good song and I needed to finish it. I was like yeah one day! Eventually I decided that I should try and finish it so the last half of the song I wrote 6 months ago. It’s kind of like a different track the bridge onwards but it works. I’m really happy with that song.

When you posted about which one was our favourite I couldn’t even really pick one because they are all good in their own way.

There doesn’t seem to be a clear favourite that I have seen. I thought Temporary Fix would be the least liked, but a few people have said that was their favourite. Heaps of people are liking the title track too. All my favourite songs I haven’t even released yet, that’s the funny thing.

That’s good then! Are they coming on the next EP?

Yeah. I have to get a move on I guess and get it finished. It always takes longer than you expect though.  

Hopefully it doesn’t take too long! What Keeps Me Here is one of my favourite EP releases this year and one you should definitely throw on Sunday morning while you’re having your morning coffee.

READ THE ‘WHAT KEEPS ME HERE’ REVIEW HERE

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INTERVIEW: SKYWAY TALK COME BACKS AND MACHINE GUN KELLY

After quite a few years out of the scene Gold Coast pop punk outfit Skyway are back. I missed these guys first time around but that will be changing this time! I caught up with Daniel last week to talk about the new single, making a come back during a pandemic and Machine Gun Kelly…..

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So after all these years you guys have chosen to release a new song during a pandemic!!

Yeah, they say there’s no better time right! It’s been a crazy year. A lot of things have happened, and people have had a bit of a hard time. We recorded this last year with no indication that this was what 2020 was going to involve. But it’s here and rather than wait and bide our time we just got excited. We want to put it out and we want to start playing. We want people to hear it so here we are.

I missed you guys the first time around; I was off being a mum. Is it still the same line-up? Yeah it’s still the same line-up. We are still hanging, making music and keen to play shows. Have you guys still been making music together for the last 8 or so years?

No not really. Individually we have done a few different things musically. A few different projects here and there but nothing together. Last year was kind of the first time we all came together. I mean we have shot across a few ideas here and there and had a few little jams over the years. Last year was when we got serious about actually doing something substantial and recording to release something.

There was a reason for that, or you all just decided now was the right time?

Over the years we have entertained the thought, going back and forward with we should do this and that. One thing or another always stopped that. Last year we had a few jams, and we were like this stuff is sounding really cool we should record it. Commit to it and stick with it and see how we go. And here we are. Nothing is really planned; I think it is what it is. Something things just happen, and some things don’t, and it just happened for us last year. We are excited to be here.

I saw all these posts pop up of social media and I had no clue who you were, so I’ve been jamming your old stuff to catchup!

It’s been awhile so I can’t blame you there. Obviously it’s been awhile between making music. 8 years is a long time in the music world to kind of stop and start. I’m sure there are a lot of people exactly like you that haven’t really heard about us.

You better give us a quick rundown of who Skyway are then.

We’re a pop punk/punk rock band from the Gold Coast. We are releasing a new EP on 20th November. It’s there, it’s raw and it has a bit of energy which is what we are all about. We are looking forward to putting it out. If you’re keen have a listen.

You’ve obviously got a few people keen because your Spotify for the single is sitting on 7.5K.

It’s going pretty well. It’s always hard to try and predict anything in this industry, especially after having so much time off. I’m really happy with where it is at and how it has been received and everything else is a bonus. If I can make one person get a little bit of joy out of it then that is a massive bonus. The number one thing for us was that we were happy with it.

Pop punk seems to be making a bit of a resurgence lately.

It’s weird. It seems like a lot of different genres of music always come around full circle. It dies off for a bit and then there will be some popularity again. Have you heard Machine Gun Kelly’s pop punk album?

I have! I didn’t ever think I would listen to MGK let alone be singing along to it but here I am!!!

I know. I think that has done a massive for that kind of music because he is getting a lot of ears on it that haven’t really listened to that and that is only good for it. It’s back in the mainstream. I think his album was number one on the Billboard Charts which is frigging huge. It’s majorly dominated by hip hop stuff so for that kind of music to break through again and get the number one spot is massive. I think you are going to start seeing some more of it around. Some more new bands pop up and stuff like that. I think there are sub genres of it now. It seems like back in the day pop punk was Blink 182 or New Found Glory. It was encapsulated I that sound. But now you have more kind of emo pop punk or the more punk rock pop punk. It’s so broad now.

It’s becoming harder to put a lot of bands in a specific genre full stop. Especially across metalcore.

I think that is the way of the future of music really. It’s just the way things happen; things evolve and if genres get melded together that means you are experimenting with different stuff and I think that is great. That’s what it is all about.

I do too. I’m not a fan of genres. I think bands are playing for themselves again, not so much for the audience. This is seeing some amazing songs get released.

That’s it. That is what it should be all about, it shouldn’t be about pleasing anyone besides what you are doing and that’s exactly what we have done. We made the EP we wanted to make. I think these days you have more freedom.

People can do the entire thing themselves now and get it up onto all the platforms. You don’t actually need a label to get your music out there.

Yeah that’s right. You don’t have the outside pressure of people telling you what you should be and what you should do. It’s so much easier these days to get your music out there and not have to rely on any other outside sources.

I know Spotify isn’t the best place to put your music with the return that you get but when you are a new band starting out and you think what you have to outlay to produce a cd or record, then tour it and all the other added extras…

It’s hard to make a dollar on the streams with the way it is set up. I think that is only a matter of time before that changes. I think that there is going to be an uproar, a revolution or something like that amongst musicians. It is what it is and that is the landscape that we are in at the moment. In regard to getting your music out there we are in a much better position now than we were 10 years ago. Obviously there are still issues to iron out. Hopefully that happens. I think the freedom the musicians have these days to be able to get your music out there is amazing.

Definitely. So tell me about ‘Cut the Ties’

This is the first one that we decided to release. It’s a faster song, a bit more punchy. There are a few themes. It’s a song about disconnecting, whether it be anything in your life I suppose that you consider not healthy. That can range from a few different things; alcohol, substance abuse, abusive relationships. Anything in your life that you think is not good for you or not contributing in a positive way and you are cutting yourself away from that. That is what the song entails. There’s a few personal themes in there for me. I’m just coming up on two years sober now, I decided two years ago not to drink anymore or do anything like that. So there was a bit of personal input there for me. It’s just my lifestyle now and that’s the way I wanted to change. I’m happy with how everything went and with my life. I mean it works for me. I’m not one of those people that go out there and try and preach to people to be sober and do this and that. If someone is happy doing whatever then I’m happy. It’s just what worked for me. That’s my interpretation of it, people obviously have their own interpretations, and this is just one of the themes that added to the song.

What about the title of the EP ‘Hope floats, Love Sinks’

It was a lyric off ‘Cut The Ties’ in the bridge. I just think that it really fit with all the kind of lyrical and musical themes on the EP. I mean it speaks for itself really, especially with the goings on of 2020. I think everyone could use some hope and to remember that there is always something to hope for. Sometimes the love can sink but if you keep the hope hopefully you can resuscitate it. I just thought it was a good little hook and it explains and summarises the EP.

You shared the stage with some pretty impressive bands last time around.

We played quite a few shows back in the day in our short time. In terms of our lifespan we kind of went pretty hard out the gate. We played with some amazing bands, a lot of amazing local bands too. We were really lucky to be able to share those experiences.

Hopefully it won’t be long before you can jump back on the stage.

That’s the thing isn’t it. Live music has taken a hit this year but hopefully 2021 can bring it back on track and we can get the scene thriving again.

I think the scene is still thriving but just in a different way at the moment. Fan bases have gone up, bands are interacting more on the socials with fans. Music is still being released and people are looking into bands a bit deeper.

That’s definitely something that has been happening. Obviously people are online a lot, I mean what else is there to do. Being locked down and listening to music, checking out your favourite bands. But I am sure that there are a lot of people out there that just want to hear some live music again too. I mean people love live music; I do. There is nothing better than going to a show where a band that you really enjoy is playing. I’m really hoping it’s not too far away before they lift some of these restrictions, like the seated restrictions. Obviously it’s good that there is still the ability to have a live show even with those restrictions, but nothing beats a mosh pit! Especially for the heavier music.

Any last words?

‘Hope Floats, Love Sinks’ is out on 20 th Nov. We appreciate everyone that is checking out the new single ‘Cut The Ties’. The people that have sent messages, or like stuff we have put online. We really appreciate it, and we can’t wait to play our new stuff live. Hopefully we will get to Adelaide when everything is back to normal. Until then the EP will be out online, and people can check it out via Spotify, Apple Music those usual outlets. Also thanks for having me.

SKYWAY ARE:
Daniel McMaster – Vocals
Rohan Chant – Guitar
Daniel Hawkins - Vocals & Guitar
Rupert Muir – Bass
Ben Hallett - Drums.

Roll on normality and gigs because these guys will be on my list of bands to see. Check out Skyway’s new single below and hit up their socials.

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INTERVIEW SERIES: TEENAGE DADS & X PROMOTIONS

Teenage Dad’s released a new single a few weeks back ‘Thank You For The Honey, Honey’ and are playing their first live show for a while via a live stream on Thursday night along with 3 other acts from the Frankston/Mornington Peninsula area brought to you by X Promotions and The Frankston Art Centre.

I caught up with Vincent and Connor this morning to talk about the single, the live stream and I may have caught a few funny stories from the boys!!

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Tell me about Teenage Dads and how you got your name?

Vincent: We’ve been playing gigs since 2017 but we started in 2016 just playing at everybody’s 18th birthday parties. Early on in the band we had a second guitarist, and he suggested the name. It was turned down from another band he was in. We all thought it was funny at the time, so we just held onto it since we didn't really know what we were doing haha. It’s been a good ride so far.

How did you guys get involved with Ryan and Andrew from X Promotions?

Connor: That was through 2016, towards the start of 2017. Andrew had put on a couple of gigs at The Rockstar Bar in Frankston on Sunday afternoons just for young bands, all age events. Some of my friends at the time played in a band and had done a couple of gigs with Andrew. They put in a good word for us and I think that’s how the relationship started with him. We did one of the Sunday afternoons there and have been in contact with Andrew ever since.

Vincent: Yeah he has always thrown opportunities at us the whole way, whether or not we have been able to do them. He’s never forgetting about the local bands that are coming from the area which is really cool. When they came up with this idea I think he said us and the rest of the line up were the first artists him and Ryan thought of and reached out to. Obviously everyone is really keen.

Yeah they said everyone jumped on board really quickly! And they have discovered a really cool AA venue with the Frankston Arts Centre. It sounds like a really great space, having the three to four different areas to play.

Vincent: I’ve only been in the main theatre section which I never thought they would end up using for something like this. The other space we are using Cube 37 we have played in before during a Battle of the Bands. So again there’s the all ages aspect. But I haven’t seen the other spaces. Have you Connor?

Connor: Yeah I did a couple of primary school productions there, but I can’t really recall what it is like inside because it has been over 10 years.

You have a new single out ‘Thankyou for the honey, Honey’

Vincent: Yes we do. We’ve had it for ages, but I think when we once we had recorded it we had a couple of other songs that were ready as well. I guess we kind of planned to release them in this order Pocket Money, Adrenaline Rush and then Thank you for the honey, Honey. We did the first two and that was awesome. Then getting ready to get Honey out around May and Corona happened. We just had to delay it all. I think in some ways it may have been for the better. We are really impressed with how it is doing so far. If we had of put it out earlier in the year we might not have had anything to do all throughout lockdown. I think we have done really well at staying active.

Connor: At the start of lockdown when we were scheduled to put it out we discussed staying on schedule, but it was so unclear. What if we threw this song out there and it just feel on the ground. I think waiting was good in the end. Getting to the point where we knew that it was safe to put a song out and people would hear it. I think at the start of lockdown at lot of stuff could have gotten lost.

There’s been some great stuff come out during Covid

Vincent: And what is still to come that has been written during lockdown.

I saw that guys you had played a few of the bigger festivals like NYE on the Hill and St Kilda Festival.

Connor: Yeah I think NYE on the Hill and St Kilda Festival are probably our two biggest ones. NYE on the Hill was really fun because we played the day before NYE and it was 40 degrees plus. We were so scared with all the bushfires starting to pop up around whether we were actually going to get to play. Our whole area was pretty sweet in regard to that. On stage the wind gusting in at 40 degrees…. They had sandbags on Vince’s cymbals, but they got blown right over half way through the set.  Shit was flying around everywhere! We were in the shade of the stage but everyone in the crowd was getting absolutely char grilled. We had to have lie down after that set, it was pretty rough.

Vincent: Not long after that the typical storm came through it got hectically windy. I think a tree fell on someone, but they were okay. I just remember hearing about that and thinking holy crap.

Connor: It was at Welcome to Country at the start of the day. So there was a big celebration going on and everyone was watching the dancing and you just heard this almighty snap, and this tree falls down. Luckily no one was hurt. Everyone rushed over and helped them out.

You also released an EP last year, how was that received?

Vincent: Yeah Red.

Connor: Yeah it was alright. We had just come off doing our debut album (Potpourri Lake) at the end of 2018. We wrote a bunch of songs that we were really pleased with, it was when our sound kind of changed a little bit. We got Jordan our singer on guitar as well as keyboards. A lot of the songs we were writing were really interesting and exciting for us because we hadn’t played with two guitarists since 2016 when we were a 5 piece. It was exciting to get some of those sounds back. That’s were our songs Message in the Sand, Pocket Money and Taylor came from. I think we pumped that EP out really fast and into the open, but it was still a fun process. I don’t know that it performed as well as we would have liked it to, but it still did well, and we got heaps of opportunities from it.

Do you record in a studio or do you do it in house?

Connor: Jordan did it at Uni for a bit, but he has been teaching himself to do it for a long time. We’ve had one song mastered by someone else and we kept telling Jordan he should have a go at mastering it as well so we could compare them, but he never did! It turned out good but not quite how it does when we do it. It wasn’t that one was better or worse it’s just that we like how Jordan does it better. So we are sticking with that for the time being.

Vincent: If you’re competent enough with the programs you can pretty easily figure it all out. We just enjoy the process too, all being there. It’s easy enough to make changes and not be worried about the ‘time is money’ thing. If you’re getting someone to mix it or something then you’re paying for every change. So it’s good inn those aspects for sure.

Tell me about the story behind the new single.

Connor: Most of the instrumentation I had done I think in 2018. It would have been the last year I was at Uni. I was pretty fed up with Uni and if you take all the lyrics out and just listen to the instruments it sounds heaps more angry than what it turned out in the end. Which is good. I think it’s a good thing that Jordan and I have got going at the moment. With his musicality and lyricism and the way I write songs as well I think we’ve got a pretty good combo going on at the moment. Also our bass player Angus has been stepping up and doing a bit of song writing too which is cool. SO now there is bit more dynamics going on in the song writing process. The lyrics, from what Jordan has explained, it’s about you kind of being left in the dark not knowing if someone just wants you for a short amount of time or if they are in it for the long haul. That’s what I understand from what Jordan has told me about it. Like I said the instrumental part has been around since 2018 but we didn’t do anything with it until 2019, we recorded it all and haven’t been able to use it since, until September when we could put it out. We’ve been playing it since before this time last year, so I think that kind of helped with the anticipation of it. We would announce that we were putting a song out and that it wouldn’t be this song and people would be like ‘Oh come on put out Thank you for the honey, Honey’ already. It was like na we want to put this one out.

Vincent: Pretty much after every show people would message us saying I can’t find that song where is it?

Connor: Or they would put it on Instagram stories asking what’s this song. Or do you guys have this song out? There has been good build up to it. I think being able to practise it for a year before it came out is pretty good too.

I did see someone had written something about it being leaked prior to release, I’m assuming that is what they meant. You guys already playing it live.

Connor: We had a mutual friend leak our song. Often we show our friends to see what they think of songs and get some feedback. It was pretty funny, one of Jordan’s friends put it in a team fortress 2 gaming montage. So he had it in a gaming clip, I don’t know how big his following is, but I assume he has a bit of a following, but people watching started asking what’s this song. There was just silence, he was like I’m not allowed to say what the song is because it’s not supposed to be out yet. It had a couple of changes before release and you’d have to dig pretty deep into YouTube to find it.

I guess you are pretty keen to get on the stage on Thursday night and play

Connor: Yeah it’s going to be good. We are mixing up our set a little bit and trying something that we have wanted to try for a long time. We are going to tandem our songs into one another because there is only a very short set so there are going to be no breaks or end of song, just play them straight through. We are excited to try it out because we haven’t done it before, we also haven’t practised it together either so we could scrap that last minute!

Vincent: We could get into rehearsal and realise we need more time to do it! But we’ll see. Hopefully it works.

Connor: We have some time to rehearse prior to the gig. After taking a bit of break, the first time we play it’s like crap we’ve lost the mojo between us but then the next time it’s like it’s just there again. We are all back in sync with each other. Hopefully that happens on Thursday!

It’s a very talented line-up and I’m looking forward to watching you all.

Vincent: We are super keen. Specially to see Boler Mani.

Connor: I was doing a phone interview the other day and I was saying Boler had his first ever gig in 2018 and my friend group knows him from his sister being in our social group. Everyone was like get down for his first gig and I missed it by like 5 minutes.  So I’m excited to actually see him play.

He has so much content on You Tube.

Connor: Yeah he has heaps of stuff.

And Velvet Bloom are just amazing. Maddy’s voice is something else.

Connor: We have been fans of Velvet Bloom for a long time. They have played a bunch of shows with us.

Had Ryan not sent me the PR pack weeks ago I would be none the wiser about these bands. I’d heard of you guys before but not the other acts.

I also got a little touring story from the guys when they set themselves the task to free camp the entire tour!

We Big 4 a lot when we tour or free camp. On our tour at the start of the year we had a goal to try and not pay for any accommodation for the whole tour. We did really well but there was one night where we couldn’t stay where we were going to, and we had to get an Air BnB at the last minute. But the rest of it we tried to do it without having to book and pay for somewhere. Obviously when people let us stay we buy them beers or dinner or merch. I think it was funny. I think our biggest show in Adelaide we supported Lime Cordiale at HQ, that’s a huge venue and when its full it looks awesome. Some of the other guys rocked up early and we were like where are the rest of the guys? They were like there at the hotel studying for exams.  We were like that is so different from our set up!! We are at the West Beach Big 4.

That’s actually a really good caravan park!!

Vincent: Yeah it is I love it there.

Connor: Actually we were at Wills that time! I remember thinking man I wish we could pay for a hotel (laughs) I reckon out favourite packing the car story is one of the first times we had to fly from city to city. We flew from Melbourne to Sydney to play our own show and then the next morning at 5am to play the HQ show. In Sydney we got a hire car. Vinnie and I were talking about it for ages. Like should we get a sedan or a small hatch. We went with small hatch thinking it would have more space. We rock up to the depot and we have all of our shit and we look at this car. It’s like stuff under the arm, hold cases, bags and stuff and we just looked at it and thought there is no fucking way that this is going to fit in there. Basically it just fit. It was the most ridiculous set up ever. The front seat was pushed right to the front. We had one of the back seats down and Angus and I were just about sitting on each other’s laps!! It was a good time, but I think we will go for a Rav 4 or something next time! We just wanted to cheap out but sometimes its not a good idea.

You get good stories from that and make hilarious memoires.

Connor: I just remember Jordan losing it!! “Who’s fucking idea was this??” That was before we had even attempted to get anything in the car. Just doubt straight from the start, like this is not going to work.

I can relate to that. When I picked up the Diamond Construct boys from the airport we got to my car, which is a Commodore, and just looked at the car and all the gear!! We looked at each other and then at the car and we all had that “how the hell are we going to do this” look on our faces. It was like Tetris packing, but we got it all in.

Last words…

Vincent: Stay tuned because we have more stuff in the works as soon as we are able to record.

Grab a ticket to the live stream on Thursday night here: https://bit.ly/2FV8QOz

Teenage Dads are another band to keep on your radar. Go follow their socials to keep in the loop.

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INTERVIEW SERIES: BOLER MANI & X PROMOTIONS

Melbourne’s boler mani’s Facebook page states, “a little boy with big sounds” and I have to agree. Boler is a part of X Promotions AND WE ARE LIVE which is will live streamed on Thursday 29th October.

Boler and I recently had a chat about what he is all about.

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You’re a solo artist, tell me a bit about yourself.
I produce all my own stuff. I rap and I do vocals, I also am practising singing currently, I am waiting until I am more confident before bringing that in.

You have a fair bit of content on your YouTube channel. How long have you been doing this for?
I kind of started dabbling in music production in year 3. I put my mind to trying to establish a career out of it around the start of 2018. Ever since I have just focused on constantly improving. I have an EP coming out around the start of next year that I am putting all my effort into. That’s going to be my big jump into the scene.

You’ve actually played some festivals already haven’t you?
Yes. I did Bigsound in Queensland and I have also done New Years Eve on The Hill.

How did you become involved in AND WE ARE LIVE?
Andrew who runs X Promotions hit me up and asked me if I would like to be involved. I was like yes let’s do it. I’ve been craving doing a performance for a while now, so I snagged that opportunity.

Do you normally play a lot of gigs in a “non-Covid world”?
Yeah, last year I would say I was getting gigs every now and again. It’s hard to reference what is often or not because I have only just started doing this. When I was trying to manage school it felt like it was often. Time would fly doing my school work and then I would get another text saying another show was coming up. I guess last year pre-covid it was pretty good. I’m excited to start performing new songs because I have been performing the same songs throughout the year. It’s going to be good once I get the new EP out.

So you’ve spent a lot of lockdown writing and creating?

Yeah. It’s kind of been a blessing in disguise. I think a lot of artists would relate. Like for sure w e miss out on the shows but we have all this time to make music. I’m blessed to have my production set up at home so pretty much everyday has just been working and trying to make the best of it.

You can work at your own pace when you produce yourself too.

Pretty much. It’s really great because I don’t have to travel anywhere (during lockdown) but the downside is when you go somewhere your environment shapes your mindset. It makes you more in the zone. Being in the bedroom, waking up and going to the desk you don’t really have the cues ready to let you know that it’s time to work. It’s just a matter of getting into it anyway. I love it anyway. It’s obviously a massive plus not having to go anywhere. 

Ryan talked you up when I was speaking to him. He thought this was ging to be your year to break into the scene.  But like you said you’re going to have a lot more content now.

For sure. There are lots of ups and downs to it. I always just try to see the best in it because there is no point in ruminating on what is not happening when there is so much that is.

Did you have much lined up for this year?
At the start of the year I was tossing up whether or not I wanted to continue doing music, so plans weren’t really in place. As the year went along I started getting my foot in, coming out of school I felt a little bit lost. But I was like no I definitely want to do this. Every time I just resort back to opening up Abelton and working on music, so I knew this was what I wanted to do. I’ve just stuck to my vision; we have big plans. This year has just been a big setup for next year. I’ve released one song this year back in February. Releasing any more this year wasn’t on the cards, we were planning on dropping something later this year, but I think taking our time and just working on new music for the rest of this year is the goal.

Who have you shared the stage with?
I supported Jai Waetford and Camouflage Rose last year which was really cool. And 3K was at the Camouflage Rose gig if you know them. They were two pretty significant shows. And then Godlands, she’s like a hard dubstep/trap DJ producer. They were the highlight gigs of last year for me.  

Anything else you want to let people know?
I have my EP coming out at the start of next year. The single off that EP is going to be performed live at the AND WE ARE LIVE gig. So whoever tunes into that will get a little bit of something! I think what X Promotions is doing for us is amazing. I feel like the acts represent the split in the Melbourne taste in music. So you have indie, rap and soul which I feel is pretty representative of what people are into. I’ve been practising and I’m ready to go. I’m pretty excited about it. It’s going to be good.

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INTERVIEW SERIES: SUBCULT & X PROMOTIONS

subcult are a young energetic alt/rock band from Melbourne who I think are about to take on the world. Having released their first single Suffocating back in August the band are releasing their second single Medicated on Thursday. You will also be able to watch the band play it live Thursday night at AND WE ARE LIVE  https://bit.ly/2FV8QOz

I caught up with Declan to talk all things subcult.

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Who are subcult?

Well we had our first rehearsal as a band almost two years ago. We’ve all been in a band with Ben before, that’s how we all really know each other. Ben met Lex through school, Adam through a Facebook page and me through a holiday program. We tried playing covers, I think we did an MGMT Kids/Untouched by the Veronicas/Replay by Iyaz cover for our first thing, like all the songs in one! It wasn’t good but it was fun. Three or four months in we finally wrote the first song, that we still play and love. This time last year we decided we were going to record. We put together this big plan, we released Suffocating in August and we are about to release our next single Medicated on Thursday. We’ve been lucky enough to play gigs with Ruby Fields, Crywank and Bakers Eddy. It’s been fun.

When I first went and had a listen to Suffocating I got Terra/Yours Truly vibes straight away.

Fuck yeah. I love Yours Truly and Terra. Shout out to Cassie (Terra) for being the biggest legend. We tend to align ourselves more with the indie/alt rock scene than the pop punk scene, but we get that we are very pop punk, and we all love it.

Tell me about Suffocating.

We were sitting around outside. I brought a guitar out because I just thought why not as we had been trying to write something. I had Ben’s acoustic guitar thinking that it would give my something different, and it did, it gave me that riff. I was like I think I’ve got it. Ben got his other acoustic guitar out and came up with the chords. Lex came up with the vocals. We ended up singing it around the fire pit. The next week we got Adam in because he wasn’t there, and we put it all together. Instead of being the prettiest song we had it was probably the heaviest song we had at that point. Which it definitely didn’t start that way.

Suffocating is about being in a relationship or almost relationship where you are the person who is doing all of the work and it feels like the other person doesn’t really care. You’re constantly waiting on them and you just want them to show that they are actually in, you can’t tell.

I’m digging it. More people need to hear it that’s for sure.

Hopefully our new single will help with that. We’ve got set goals that we want from this song. We don’t have video clip at this stage for the single due to Covid. We have an idea for it but due to restrictions we haven’t been able to do it.

How did you guys get involved in AND WE ARE LIVE?

X Promotions asked if we wanted to be involved. Also I’m mates with the Teenage Dad guys and Boler’s manager. And Velvet Bloom are from here as well.

I spoke to Maddy a few days ago.

Maddy’s a legend.

I just want to watch her sing live!

She’s amazing, that entire band is. I work at Wrangler Studios

AH! That’s why your face looks familiar… photos from the Wrangler FB page!

Yeah Dean has put up enough photos of me. That’s how I know Maddy, from Wrangler.

You guys would be so excited to play live together

Omg don’t even get me started. We’re going to be so under practised though because obviously we haven’t been allowed to get together.  The gig starts at 7.30pm and we are allowed there from 12pm so that’s the time we are going to have to practise together. Last time we came out of lockdown we smashed out our songs without any problems. It will be fine.

Have you played many gigs as subcult?

Our first show was actually at the Frankston Art Centre on the same stage that we are going to be playing. Funny little loop back around it was a show with two other bands Richard and The Twins and Plastic Pash who is name is now Tabloid TV Darlings and they are amazing. They’re awesome, they are like a grunge band.

Who influences you musically?

Before we started writing faster songs we thought that we were Slowly, Slowlyesque. I still that we are. I know the others are really inspired by Neck Deep as well. For me Jeff Rosenstock 100%. We are also influenced by a bit of hip hop which you might not be able to tell.  Waxx, Press Club, Crywank, Ruby Fields and Bakers Eddy. There was one point when I was seeing the Bakers Eddy boys every couple of days, they are my mates, I was going to their shows and thinking ‘Fuck I want my band to be this energetic’. So now we are writing songs like that as well.  

How does your writing process normally go, obviously not around a fire pit!!

Usually Ben or I will come up with a riff, then depending on who is there at the time, if it’s all of us we will usually do all the instruments first. If we aren’t all there then it’s just whoever is, something will happen. Then we build it up from there. The one exception is a song that Lex wrote on her own and then we brought our stuff in. It’s a really pretty song, I’m excited for people to hear that one day.

What are your post Covid plans?

Well personally I really want to tour. I’ve already put together a little tour plan because that’s what I do, I’m an events guy I’m a booking guy! We are going to record as soon as we are out of lockdown, go back to Wrangler and put some tunes down. Release those, mostly as singles but also an EP. Then we will try and get into the studio again as soon as we can. We’ve already got some songs that we reckon are better than Suffocating and Medicated. We love them, but oohhhh wait until you see what we’ve got coming up!!!

Keep your eyes and ears on this young band because they are going places.

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INTERVIEW VELVET BLOOM & X PROMOTIONS

Mornington Peninsula songbird Maddy Herbert has one of the most amazing voices I have come across. Think along the lines of Norah Jones/ Amy Winehouse!! Playing original soul filled songs with her band Velvet Bloom and The Vito Collective Maddy is one of the artist’s involved in the live stream gig AND WE ARE LIVE (X Promotions) on 29th October

With a new single out ‘7hundred25’ and a video clip for the single coming out on 13th November I had a chat to Maddy about her music and her involvement in the live stream that X Promotions are putting on.

First off I absolutely love your voice!

Oh thank you so much. It’s been so hard not performing for such a long time, but we are so excited for this event it’s going to be really great.

The venue sounds amazing. The X Promotions guys were telling me about it the other day.

The venue is so huge. I’ve played there for school concerts and I did a theatre production when I was maybe 12. It’s a crazy venue, it’s so beautiful. A lot of people on the Mornington Peninsula wouldn’t know it exists. This show will be really good to show people, especially the young people, that there is a space down here.

How did you get involved in AND WE ARE LIVE?

I’ve been chatting with the guys from X Promotions for quite awhile now. Andrew DM’d me a while back and said he would love to organise something in the future, I don’t even think that this concept was thought of back then. When he put this line up together he really wanted us to be involved and obviously we jumped at the opportunity because we haven’t played shows in such a long time. We have had a few live streams which have been incredible. We did one at The Nightcap in May and one at a place called The Love Machine with Moor Music in June. That was the last time we performed. Andrew and the guys from X Promotion and The Frankston Arts Centre were just so eager to have some Peninsula talent onboard to do this event.

It’s been hard during lockdown for you guys.

Yeah but the silver lining is that I have been able to spend time writing so that has been really good.

So is Velvet Bloom a band or is it a solo project and you have musicians join you?

It’s a project, its just kind of like the concept. I perform solo, so I write the music. I then perform with different variations of Velvet Bloom in a live setting. So there is a full band which will be playing at the Frankston Art Centre, then there is a 4-piece, a 3-piece and a 2-piece version. I like doing it like this because we can be more diverse when we are playing at different places. Having so many different versions of the one act you can always see the songs in a different light which I really enjoy.

What is The Vito Collective?
So that is what I use to describe when I am playing with the full live band. The Vito Collective have been performing with me for a while. Two of them have been with me for about 4 years. The reason that I wanted to call them that is because it means ‘life giver’ and so I guess they give a lot of life to my music.

You’ve just released a new single ‘7hundred25’ recently which I love!

It was put out for 2 weeks as a part of a compilation album done by record label Cousin Will that came out on the 18th September. We then released it onto Spotify in early October.

Tell me about 7hundred25, the title intrigues me!

I guess I wanted to incorporate numbers into writing because I hadn’t really thought about it much. When I started writing this song it was when I was in the midst of a break up and I thought about how through our relationship, we had been together for this amount of time. I was trying to pinpoint different parts of our relationship and where I guess things stared to fall apart. It wasn’t meant to be a negative song or anything, it was a realisation song. Figuring out what I needed to do to move forward as well.

Do you have an EP in the works?

Yes we have an EP in the works. It’s just been really hard because we haven’t even been able to jam for like 3 months at least. As soon as we are allowed to be in the same room we will be recording.  We have all of the stuff ready for our EP, but it won’t be released until some point next year.

Do you guys self-record?

No. We usually outsource everything. We have recently started working with Quin Grunden from The Grogans and he’s really great. He will be our recording engineer, so we are really excited to work with him..

Andrew was saying that you have broken into the Melbourne scene

Yeah. I love performing. That’s just what I love to do. I guess our weekends, mine and the band, revolve around playing gigs. They aren’t always advertised, sometimes I just play solo stuff that’s not necessarily my own material. Prior to lockdown I was playing 3 gigs a week. It’s been an adjustment that’s for sure.  There are so many incredible venues and musicians in Melbourne. People just need to discover them. It was really hard for me at first breaking into the Melbourne scene and I don’t think I even started playing as many shows as I wanted to until maybe a year ago. We’ve been this version of our band for probably three years now. Even prior to me saying that we have only been where I wanted to be for a year we were playing shows with other bands in Melbourne quite frequently. But I’ve only really just started to find people that are more similar to our music. I think that on the Mornington Peninsula we have a very heavy surf rock kind of community. We fit into it to some extent but not really. I need to be playing with soul artists I think. As much as I appreciate all the opportunities we have gotten from people down here when we are playing at a surf rock gig its not going to be the same vibe.

We also have a music video coming out in about three weeks’ time for the single. A lot of the live footage in it was filmed about a year ago while on tour and it would have been when I had first written the song. So it is very nostalgic, and it also has a lot of scenery from the Mornington Peninsula. I’m really excited to put it out. 

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If you’re looking for something to do this Thursday night jump on and grab a ticket to AND WE ARE LIVE where you can see Velvet Bloom along with subcult, Boler Mani and Teenage Dads. 

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INTERVIEW SERIES: AND WE ARE LIVE!

We all know that Covid has well and truly messed with the music scene this year. X Promotions have taken matters into their own hands to promote some of the best local indie pop/rock, soul and hip-hop acts from the Frankston/Peninsula area. This 60 minute event will be live streamed into your lounge room from the Frankston Arts Centre via their Facebook and YouTube pages:
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Tickets are priced at whatever you can afford and 100% of ticket sales will go to the artists and guest hosts on the night. Support the artists via the ‘Donate Now’ button HERE

 Check out the Facebook event page HERE

Ryan McGeary and Andrew Gorman from X Promotions sat down and had a chat with me about what they are doing and why.

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Well to start with I guess you better tell me about X Productions and what you guys are about.

Ryan: It’s a pretty new venture into the live-streaming stuff. Andrew and I stumbled upon one another with an interest in putting on live shows. Back in the day it was me with my band. We were looking to get some shows. Andrew had an interest in fostering some live shows. We met while doing separate shows and then came together to do some. This is just our next step in the Covid friendly world.

There isn’t anything friendly about Covid!!

Andrew: Ultimately, as much as we love to see the crowds and bands having a great time, we can only do half of that at the moment. With this event, we saw the Frankston Art Centre putting on live-stream events for the traditional theatre type crowds. We though hey there is no reason why some of the younger music acts couldn’t get in on that as well. Thankfully the theatre have jumped on board and the council has backed it as well. There are a few more big announcements to make in the coming weeks, there are a lot of things going our way. Thankfully everyone is loving it.

That’s a really good thing to hear. Good for the bands and for the fans. So there are just the four bands on this bill

Ryan: Yes we are seeing some really talented bands. We are trying to keep it local, there are some really awesome acts down this way that we thought needed the spotlight shone on them a little bit more. Especially during this lockdown. So we have subcult. Velvet Bloom who are.. how would you describe them Andrew?

Andrew: They are a very grass roots soul act. It’s a really cool sound. It’s not a sound that you expect. Maddy the singer has the smoothest voice.

Ryan: Maddy has that voice that as soon as she starts to sing you just lean in a little more than what you were.

And then we have Teenage Dads who have an indie pop sound.  They are just an awesome bundle of joy on a stage. And then we have Boler Mani who is in the hip hop/rap game. Again he is high energy, really good stuff that is well produced. As soon as I saw him I was like cool. It’s tough when there is one person on stage, tough to get that energy across and he’s got it

Teenage Dads

Boler Mani

Andrew: He was also lined up 3 or 4 festivals this year, so this was going to be his break through year.  Teenage Dads have some festival experience. Velvet Bloom has been around on the peninsula for a while. She has broken into Melbourne in a big way, she has a big fan base. subcult have a new single out and are releasing their second single on the night of this show. They have all had stuff put on hold.

Subcult

Velvet Bloom

It’s a good time to be interacting with fans on social media and getting your music out there. Building that fan base so that when gigs return you already have a following.

Ryan: It’s a really good time to ‘gather your supplies’ is what I have been telling people. Strengthen your foundations and get all your processes in place so that when you do get released into the world it goes gangbusters. The really good thing about the acts that we have got at the moment is they were all on the verge of something really great this year. They still are, don’t get me wrong, but using subcult as an example they did shows with Ruby Fields and names like that and it was looking to be a huge year for them. This has delayed them a little bit, but it gives them an opportunity to get more songs under their belt.

Andrew: Support local doesn’t have to be just for your shops. Support your local bands. We aren’t going to see any international acts in Melbourne for at least the next 6-12 months. So we all need to get behind not only Aussie music but the local bands that are in your back yard. All the big bands started out small so let’s help these smaller bands get there quicker.

That’s why I started writing for myself. I want to help promote the smaller grassroot bands that we have in Australia. There is so much talent here. And I’ve been lucky and had so much support from the scene.

Andrew: It’s huge. When Ryan and I were sitting working out how to spread this as far as we can, you don’t discount anyone who has even 50 followers. Speak to whoever you can because it’s not only about getting to 5 big 10,000 follower groups, but also about getting to as many small pages and groups as well. The love comes back and forth amongst these people.

Tell me about And We Are LIVE

Ryan: We have four acts that we have mentioned, so Boler Mani, subcult, Velvet Bloom and Teenage Dads. It will be hosted by the awesome Ali Barter and Oscar Dawson (Holy, Holy) we were stoked when we got the call from them saying they wanted to be involved. It’s hosted at the Frankston Art Centre, for us it’s one of those venues in Frankston that everyone has an experience with. Whether its as a kid in your school play, or as an adult in a lot of theatre based things. They haven’t really dabbled in this scene as much so in our conversations with them they were really excited to be expanding their horizons to a new audience.

Once Covid blows over you have yourselves another venue.

Ryan: I’m going to be there as often as possible. There are some awesome spaces within that venue. There’s something like 3-4 performance spaces, each with their own little quirks. Fortunately we get to cover off a few of them in this live stream, so we are doing it in different ‘studio’ spaces which helps with the changeovers and all that. It also showcases what they have to offer as well.

Andrew: The main theatre is 800 seats, so it’s a huge theatre. The Cube theatrette is 200 seats.

Ryan: The Cube 37 is an amazing space. Its an art gallery mixed with a performance space. When it is set up for a live show it is such an awesome spot.

Andrew: It’s not your traditional pub venue. It’s a world class venue that these acts don’t have access too. This event is not for profit, we are doing this for love as well.

It would be a perfect place for AA shows!

Ryan: I was going to mention that. The world is hanging out for AA shows. If you ask people what their favourite show was there is a 90% chance that the answer is we had this all ages show at this hall. It was an awesome atmosphere. It’s almost like you take the alcohol away and everyone is more invested in the music. It’s something that I hope we can foster. 

We then moved on to genres!!

Andrew: Don’t read a book by its cover!! Ryan gets as dark as any.

Ryan: (laughs) This is my formal attire.

I listen to anything from Country to Black Metal!

Ryan: Good. That’s the way to be though. It’s a thing I have always found with people who are so genre bound with their tastes. When you’re not feeling angry and angsty or if you’re not feeling lovey dovey what are you listening too?? You have to embrace it all and each genre has their own advantage. And bringing it back to the event I think we capitalize on the moment by having four acts that arguably you wouldn’t see on a bill together unless it was a festival setting.

There’s been a lot of talk about bringing back the mixed bill line-ups.

 Ryan: I think the only prerequisite should be that they are good.

100% correct

Ryan: I used to be in bands that sort of did the heavier thing and now I’m dabbling in weird electronic stuff. I would love to be able to still play with those bands, I’d love for their to be a scene that ‘Is it good? Yes. Cool let’s do something together’

Andrew: You have to look at the broad brush. If you have a fine artistic brush and you are just appealing to that one corner you might get your 50-100 people along. Where if you have that bill where you can get the boyfriend bringing the girlfriend and her mate because they all love something different that is on the bill it makes for a great night. And you fill the room. And as Ryan said if it’s good you will.

The diversity was key in this line-up. Funnily enough all four acts were the first four acts that we approached. We thought that we could do it with three acts not expecting them all to jump on board. Being a live stream we didn’t want to have them playing 30-40 minute sets so they each have 15 minute sets so if you’re not loving this genre wait 10 minutes and the next act will be on.

After having a listen to these bands make sure you jump on and purchase a ticket because you are in for an hour of great music by some up and coming talented young Australian bands.

Leading up to event day (THURSDAY OCTOBER 29) we have a series of interview with the artists involved so watch out for those over the coming days!

Hit the links below and give them a follow on their Facebook pages and check out their YouTube channels:

XPROMOTIONS
FACEBOOK

VELVET BLOOM
FACEBOOK
'DM ME' ISO LIVE JAM

TEENAGE DADS
FACEBOOK
'JEANE-CLAUDE VAN JAMME' MUSIC VIDEO

SUBCULT
FACEBOOK
’POISON’ LIVE AT WRANGLER

BOLER MANI
FACEBOOK
'DOOZY’ MUSIC VIDEO

INTERVIEW: SUZE CHATS ‘ABSENCE’ WITH INFINITE ILLUSION

Infinite Illusion have just dropped a new single ‘Absence’ and the boys have definitely taken it up a notch. Liam McDonald filled me in on what has been happening with the band.

How heavy is this new song!!

It’s funny because it’s our heaviest but also our lightest at the same time and I don’t really know how that ended up working. Dynamically it is so different to anything else we have ever done. We like it.

Me too. When I first heard it I was like Wow that went next level!

A lot of it has to do with the fact that our first lot of stuff was written by Sam when he was 15. We are all mid-twenties now, so Sam wrote that nearly a decade ago. We’d all been doing our own thing and when it came around to release it was a joke. We were all just hanging around and were like ‘hey do we want to release some music?’ and it just spiralled from there. And then we just kept going. This is the first real song that we wrote as a band now.

It wasn’t what I was expecting

I don’t think even we were expecting it. We got a new member at the back end of last year and we completely changed everything. We didn’t really have any intention of releasing any other music to be honest, we were a bit stale and then we got a kick to keep going. This is the first song that came out of it. We’ve got a few more coming after this. We are actually going into the studio the day before Absence comes out to start recording another couple of songs. I think after that we are planning to do an album, I’m not 100% sure. We’ll see how we go.

What’s the story behind the song?

The story behind the song is pretty interesting actually. Dan hit me with a concept, I write the lyrics for all of our stuff, but the concepts are somewhere I have always struggled I guess. Well not struggled but I tend to box myself in to certain topics and that kind of thing. It was really good Dan hit me with a concept of PTSD and reclaiming a loss of identity. Which is actually something I resonated quite well with but didn’t put a lot of thought into. It’s a personification of that kind of feeling, of being trapped and trying to come back and overcome depression, anxiety, PTSD, whatever it might be. It’s a very metaphoric story behind reclaiming who you are before mental health kicks in, as opposed to who you are after. And that’s were if you listen lyrically as it goes along it’s very much a song that literally tells a story. It starts off you’re being held back, you’re falling apart. This thing is attacking you. As it gets further along, the chorus tells the main story. As it gets closer to the breakdown, the breakdown hits in the song “I’ll break your fucking jaw myself” is literally a line about turning around and throwing back. Just fighting and getting out. I remember when I sent the boys that lyric, I loved it and I remember writing it and going that’s really cool. I honestly didn’t think I would get away with it, I thought the boys were going to come back and be like you can’t do that its ridiculous. Instead they were like no that’s staying. A lot of the song built on that lyric, that pre breakdown lyric stayed and I edited everything else on the side to really create that story of a reclamation identity. Fighting back against something that I think a lot of people in our scene deal with.

Dan wrote this song at a time when he discovered he has PTSD. Through 2019 he definitely had this big breakdown. He was in a couple of other bands as well and he overwhelmed himself and it broke him. We bought him in as a fill in drummer. I’m good friends with him so I asked if he wanted to fill in for a couple of shows. It was like an instant click, between me and him especially with these concepts and lyrically. And really translating that into music as well. I thought everything kind of clicked and he’s got these incredible experiences, he’s older than the rest of us, that we can write about and really tell some cool stories. This is the first one where we are really focused on the story telling of the song. Even though the music is important I think for us playing this live, when we get that chance, will definitely be a little bit more emotional than anything else we have done. I honestly think it comes across in the track as well.

Like I said when I listened to it I was like what the hell happened between Ill Intent and here?

We took a break to reinvent ourselves in all honesty. We took that break intentionally and everything fell into place.  We have been sitting on this song since January, obviously with a few things kicking in it pushed it back a bit further than we would have liked. But it gave us time to really think about who we were as a band. I think above anything that is a positive. We weren’t being forced to play shows, we had time to pull back and just think “What are we doing here? Who are we? Are we just another metalcore band? Do we want to attach ourselves to politics or mental health? What do we want to do?” We all have different political views so that was a big no, but the one thing we all absolutely resonated with was mental health. Having someone who has had such heavy experiences, my best friend died when I was 16 and Sam has lost a couple of friends, To The Grave losing Josh. We saw all that and we were like this is where we need to be. I think this is the one where we can actually help give people, not so much a space, but give them a soundtrack to that space. And just really focus on doing that. I think that is why lyrically we are pushing this content so much. Lyrically, above anything else, its quite a powerful song and we are really proud of it. I’m proud of the lyrics that I came up with, they came so naturally as well which makes it better.

It wasn’t forced, it came from an experience. It’s not something that you guys have just thought ‘Oh I’m going to write about this cos I can’

Pretty much that’s exactly it. Experience tells those stories better that anything. I think as well when we were writing it we had a big discussion: do we censor it or do we just make it violent. I’m not a big fan of censoring things, I don’t think it’s ever a bad thing to feel uncomfortable. I feel being uncomfortable is a huge part of growth. Obviously people are scared to feel like that, scared to face those truths. We made the song vivid for that reason, if it does make people feel a little uncomfortable that’s okay. It could be good; it might not be good and that’s a risk we had to take.

There is no point writing a song like that and not being real about it.

Definitely. We did get a lot of push back from quite a few people being ‘Guys this is a little bit graphic, you could really trigger some people with these lyrics’ We pulled them back a little bit, but it ended up being like what we had written to start with. The guy that we produced with was just like nah don’t pull back, just do it. You’re not going to make an impact if you are being safe. We were just yep that works let’s just do it.

I would totally back him with that one. If you want something to have an impact on people, don’t water it down. It’s not going to have the same effect.

Exactly. This song is all about that impact for us I think. Our last record wasn’t bad, I’m not a huge fan of it, I would never listen to it. That was the big one for me. This album we really wanted to make that impact. We want people even above anything else to just know out name. Even if they don’t listen to the song, that ok. I just want people to get used to seeing our name around because we have every intention of keeping it there.

You only have the one single ready to go?

In terms of all our demos, we have about 7 or 8 that are being recorded over the next 3 months. The plan is 3 stand alone singles, reinventing our sound and image off the back of those. Then we will do another record. Whether that is an EP, or an album remains to be seen. That depends on a lot of factors.  We are just playing it by ear, one single at a time. None of the singles that we release will be on that record. The record will be totally stand alone as the new version of us. Ill Intent gave us a start but it’s definitely time that we left that behind and really focused on the new version and sound that we have. Except for maybe Afterthought, that’s the only one that will stay around for a little while. We really like that song, and we think it’s a lot more modern than the rest.

I liked the EP!!!

I don’t think it was bad, it just wasn’t anything special. Musically it was good, technical, heavy breakdowns, big riffs. It was cool but there was nothing new about it. It was good if you liked it, but it didn’t hold people. I think it didn’t give people a reason to stay.

This one will if the first single is anything to go by.

I’m a lot more confident with this one. I’m not sure if it’s because I’ve been listening to it by myself for the last 6-8 months! I took a break of listening to it then I came back to it. I was like yes this is good. Its really hard a musician to sit there and praise yourself, questioning could you have down stuff better. But coming back to it, I actually took this lesson off Mikey from Gloom, come back to it and if you still like it, its good.

I’m a classical piano player. I have been my whole life. So for me to join a metalcore band is kind of unheard of. I remember one of my old conductors from an orchestra I played in a couple of years ago was like ‘What the fuck are you doing? How do you make that noise, it’s disgusting’. I was like yep it is but its fucking sick!!

It’s a cool genre to be in. I think as a small band above anything else, its really really cool to be in metalcore. I’ve been in other bands over the years, nothing heavy. Blues and rock and one cover band that I don’t talk about! I’ve played big blues festivals and stuff.  But there’s nothing quite like the support I have experienced in metal. There is nothing quite like the community, it’s so amazing to see a community that is so supportive of each other.

So there will be no touring with this!

There’s nothing in the pipeline. Collide, we have had to push back twice now. Unify is looking like it’s not going ahead as well. It’s shit but at the same time at least we aren’t dead. You have to take the positives. I think it has given a lot of us time to grow as well. Time to reflect. I was working stupid hours, and I know the other guys in the band were the same. We had no time for ourselves. We can either use this time to loathe in the fact that everything has been taken away, or we can use this time to become better. Really reflect on past practises, how we do things and who we are. Make time for other things in our lives. Take the positives out of being forced to do nothing.

I started Recurrent Verse at the end of April and it’s just gone crazy. I’ve already posted 60 articles and I’m getting more everyday

That’s mental. That’s so good. It’s good to see some new publications around.

I only do Australian bands because there is so much happening here. Aussie metalcore is my passion.

That’s the cool stuff. I don’t know what it is about Australian metalcore but far out there is something in the water here. Jesus some of the bands that are coming out like Elision and Inertia. Deadlights, I’ve always been a huge fan of those guys.

I am so keen for new Deadlights. Mesma is in my top 10 all time albums.

It’s such a good record. Elision’s new stuff has been incredible. The technicality in those boys is amazing. They are a very talented bunch of dudes. I have so much respect for them. Inertia as well, they are one of those bands that I think has the ability to blow up. Outloved have just announced a record. I was like omg this is like listening to BMTH but not listening to BMTH!! It had that impact on me. It was like listening to one of my favourite bands. It was so good to hear. There is just so much good stuff out at the moment.

There’s so many new cool bands coming through too like Ghost Complex, Canyon, Tides Collide, Dweller, Wake the Blind so many good bands

And Lune. I forgot about them. Then you look at the big boys and what they are releasing. Alpha Wolf’s record I thought was really good. There’s more coming from other bands. That 2 year cycle has now reduced to 1 year. To see so many bands releasing stuff is so good. I honestly don’t think I have heard a bad release this year.

I haven’t either. Someone said to me that everything I write is always so positive, do you just not review bad bands! I said to them honest to god there had not been a bad release this year.

I think album of the year has to be Make Them Suffer or Currents. They are my two.

I would say at the moment mine would be Alpha Wolf, Make Them Suffer, Saviour and We Set Signals.

Saviour’s was sick too. It means everyone has to step up or you are going to get left behind.

Diamond Construct is another one! Who would think adding a DJ would work… I’m loving all this experimentation in the scene.

It’s super important to do that metalcore has always been such a non-accessible kind of genre. It’s always been you like it or you don’t. That is definitely changing now, metalcore as a genre is changing with bands like BMTH leading the way. Whether you like AMO or not, it has set a standard for what you can do in metalcore. I personally thought it was their best record.

I personally think that 'Absence' is Infinite Illusions best release so far! After talking to Liam I think we are about to see big things come from the boys. Bring on 2021 when hopefully gigs return, and we can see 'Absence' played in a live setting..

‘ABSENCE’ - OUT NOW

CHECK OUT SUZE’S REVIEW OF ABSENCE HERE

FOLLOW INFINITE ILLUSION
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INTERVIEW: SPKEZY TALK THEIR UPCOMING EP ‘MIDNIGHT CLUB’

It seems it is Tasmania’s turn for new music! Dark Alt Pop band SPKEZY (pronounced Speakeasy) have just released a new single ‘Dopesick’ and announced their debut EP “Midnight Club. Having already released two standalone singles earlier this year, ‘Dopesick’ is the first single off the forthcoming EP ‘Midnight Club’. I spoke to vocalist Luke Vaessen to find who SPKEZY are and what we can expect from them. 

So this song is a little different to your other songs?

I would probably say a lot different. When we first started the band we essentially wanted to try and incorporate rock music, because we were all brought up on rock, with today’s modern type of RNB/Rap music. With this EP, more so with ‘Dopesick’ than the rest of the EP, we tried to incorporate more of our 80’s influences. I think that the main thing for us was to have each band members influences more prevalent than what we have before. The EP is a more cohesive of us as a band than the two stand alone singles we previously released. 

You said that your influences are from the 80’s?

Yes. So our guitarist, who is also our producer, is very influenced by 80’s sounding music. It’s more so him that has brought that influence to the band. Especially Huey Lewis and the News, he said he just really wanted to write something that has that sound. We’ve all played in rock and metal bands over the years. Tyson our bass player leans to more that sort of stuff. Our drummer has a very broad range of influences, but he is more dance music orientated whereas I am a lot more hip hop and rap. 

You’ve definitely got a lot of genres covered!

I just think that for myself I was finding it hard to write music in a band when I wasn’t listening to that particular genre of music. So for us it was just being able to write music that we enjoy and that we hope other people enjoy. People obviously listen to a lot of different stuff. And I guess when I first started playing metal I was listening to lots of metal. Over the course of when you are touring you are listening to metal bands night in and out and you get to the point where you need to listen to something else. I guess that is where it got to for me, and probably the other guys too. We just needed to do something else. 

I have a broad range of musical taste even though I mostly listen to metalcore.

It’s good to have that broad range of musical taste because you get to experience all these different emotions listening to all types of music.

Is the writing process a group thing?

It’s definitely a group thing. We get together at least once a week at our guitarists house and that’s where we will record and write all our stuff because that’s where his studio is. He has taken a much bigger role on in the band this time around. When we had our lockdown he spent a bunch of time relearning all this stuff so we can do everything in-house. It’s made it a lot easier I guess because we know what we want the music to sound like, it’s a little bit harder when you are sending it to someone else and they don’t fully grasp what you are trying to do. It has been good just to be there with each other and just write and if it sucks it suck and if its good its good. 

There are more songs floating around than? 

Like I said we get together once a week. This EP, while it is probably not the most optimal time to release because we can’t tour with it, we are really proud of the way that it sounds. We want other people to hear it and we hope people enjoy it. For us just to get it out there is the main priority so that we can move on to whatever it is that we are going to do next. 

I don’t know that not being able to tour has been really detrimental because most people are in lockdown or some form of quarantine at the moment. Bands releasing stuff are probably getting more attention during this time. There are no gigs, so people are looking to the online content. 

I guess I hadn’t thought about it like that. That people can actually connect to it more and spend more time with the product because at the moment they don’t have a lot else to do. 

Even though you can’t gig you’re actually building an audience for when gigs return. Laying those foundations for when the world returns to some normality. Bands are interacting with fans more too on social media and making those connections which is awesome. And Australia has such amazing talent.

We really do. It’s become more evident to me over the last couple of years. Obviously there is always good stuff from overseas, but I’ve noticed more really good bands coming out of Australia lately. It’s a very good thing. 

I think Australia are leading the way at the moment. 

100%.  I feel like a lot of the bands that are coming through, and they are all really young which is really good, are really putting Australia on the map. 

‘Dopesick’ has obviously gotten some traction because you’ve already had over 6k streams on Spotify in a week?

We’ve received really good feedback on the song. How it’s written, how its been recorded and all that. But also just on the song itself. People seem to be really enjoying it which is always nice. 

What’s the story behind the song?

Essentially it is a conversation between two people, one of which has had substance abuse problems all through their relationship. It’s that person promising to try and get better for the sake of their relationship but realising how hard it is especially with all the outside influences.

Is there a common theme in the EP?

It’s not about substance abuse or anything like that it’s more so a collection of love songs really. However way you want to look at how that love is being portrayed. Essentially they are all love songs but from different views. 

How long have you guys been together?

We’ve been together as SPKEZY for about 18 months or so. But we have all played in bands together or in other bands for the better part of 15 years. 

Have you played any gigs as SPKEZY yet?

We’ve only played two as SPKEZY and both were in Tasmania. In our previous band we toured around Australia. 

Which band was that?

Save the Clocktower. 

So is it basically all you guys but with a new name? 

Yes essentially, there is one less member. Our bass player joined Save the Clocktower just before we broke up. 

I guess you are keen for Covid to end then so you can tour again?

It would be very nice. 

Have you got gigs happening over in Tassie?

They have just started up again, but you have to be seated and no dancing 

Seems to be the same in every state that has gigs. 

Anything you want to tell us?

Just that as a band we really hope that people enjoy the EP. That’s our main aim is for people to enjoy what we do and can find some form of connection to it. 

‘Dopesick’ is a dope track with it’s cruisy vibe and made my Sunday morning coffee just that little bit better.

‘Midnight Club’ will be released on 13th November via all platforms.

‘DOPESICK’ IS OUT NOW.

‘MIDNIGHT CLUB’ EP IS OUT NOVEMBER 13TH. PRE-ORDER IT HERE.

FOLLOW SPKEZY:
INSTAGRAM
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BANDCAMP

INTERVIEW: ILLYRIA TALK WARMING UP TO NEW MEMBERS WITH ‘FROSTBITE’

With a new line-up, Perth based Illyria have just released a new single Frostbite. Don’t be deceived by the beautiful, melodic beginning to this song because things heat up to a frenetic pace pretty quick! I’m loving everything about this tune and how it captures so many elements seamlessly. I caught up with vocalist Ilija to talk bands, black metal, self-production and everything in between!

Hey Ilija thanks for taking the time to chat. What does the world need to know about Illyria?
We’re a very small band from Perth just making our way through in this very competitive and busy world. We are currently working on our third album. We play a form of progressive metal that has black and post rock elements it and because of the whole crazy 2020 scenario we are just trying to consolidate and find our feet again.

It’s trying to navigate releasing stuff in a whole new way I guess

It’s not only the whole studio thing. We really miss being on stage and doing the whole live performance thing because that’s another service you provide as a live band. When you’re in Perth, which is so isolated, it’s kind of restrictive.

That’s it. It’s not only having no gigs but having that distance as well.

Especially with the border restrictions. I understand that, but obviously you have to find new ways of getting your music out there which has been a very big learning process.

Totally. The good thing is more people are taking to social media and things like Spotify to discover new music seeing as there isn’t really any other way at the moment. People are engaging more with the bands to which is good to see.

It’s very true. We have noticed an influx for sure. It’s the retention now that we are learning to maintain. It’s cool that you have 25,000 people listening to you this month but how many more are going to keep listening. There’s a lot of new bands and endeavours that are coming in that you have to stay on top of, so we are just still trying to find our way through this. It’s a big learning curve.

It’s good that everyone is in the same position but it’s also really good because it means that everyone is involved. And everything you do doesn’t just represent your backyard it represents the whole planet really. We definitely keep that in mind when we release our music because I think we can safely say that our biggest audience is everywhere but Perth. Not saying that we don’t succeed here, its great but we have a lot of loyal fans in Europe and the Americas and you have to honour that as well.

You having that black metal element would get you a lot of that European audience. Black metal in Australia isn’t as big as it is overseas.

When I created this project it was because of that dire need and urgency that I wanted to bring that sound to somewhere new like Australia. I was living in Europe at the time and got exposed to the sound while I was there and feel in love with it and wanted to bring it back. It’s worked really well. For me personally I actually enjoy the post rock side, the members that used to be in the band were more the black metal side. I still love black metal, but I don’t get into the dark, gloomy clique sort of thing. For me it’s more a way of expressing an atmosphere and ambience to my liking without getting to depressive. I like to think that our music is a little more upbeat, a lot more Australian in some kind of way. We like to bring that charm in.

I think the best way we like to explain our sound to people instead of whipping out genres is us just saying it’s a roller coaster ride of emotion.

I’m not a fan of the genre label.

Yeah. It’s hard to bottleneck bands into genres in my opinion. I think the best way I like to explain it is I like to bring up emotions instead, I think people get that more. We definitely take pride in our music and lyrics.

So who does most of your writing?

I do most of it in terms of the way its all arranged, the foundation of it. I write the guitars and vocals predominantly and the bass player and drummer will review what I’ve done and then we come together and amalgamate it all and put our own bits of flair in. It’s initiated by me or the other guitarist and then we get together and refine it.

Have you guys toured over this side of the country yet?

As Illyria we have only played in WA, but we have all toured over east with other projects. We were looking forward to taking that leap of faith, but this year has been quite the hinderance and I don’t think we are going to be able to do anything anytime soon.

Where did the name Illyria come from?

I was in Ancient History class in year 11 and my first name is Ilija. I was trying to make a solo project at the time and I was struggling with it all and my ancient history teacher got out a map of the Roman empire and one of the provinces was called Illyria’ I had a chat to my teacher and asked how you pronounced it and he was like yeah its Illyria! I told him what I was thinking of doing and he said that it was perfect because it had my name all over it! We did a google search and there was a band called Illyrian at the time, but Illyria wasn’t taken. Google searches for us are interesting because there is a Buffy the Vampire character named the same and historical roman stuff comes up! It’s very charming and it represents me very well. What started as a solo project has now turned into a band 7 years later. I’m very grateful for the journey and for being on this call right now.

That’s is actually a very cool story. What’s the story behind Frostbite?

Frostbite is actually the first song by Illyria that wasn’t written on guitar by me. We have a new line- up now and have two new guitarists. One of them is a good friend of mine and Matt’s that we used to play in bands with called Steph en. He’s a tremendous guitarist to work with, in fact I even consider him one of my massive influences. He’s not played in bands for the past 5 years and he has all these songs banked up. I really liked this demo when I heard it. It’s the first song that I have truly gotten to just focus on the vocals. I wanted to provide something a bit different for the listeners to hear the new line-up. And that we are going in a different direction but still holding on to some of the past. We are just building up our chemistry and the fluency within all of our sounds and styles in the new line-up. Bringing in two new quality guitarists that are far, far better than me technically I really wanted to showcase their ability. Instrumentally this song is quite different. It’s a bit more ambitious but I know thematically and lyrically I don’t think I’ve strayed to far from the path. It’s still about all the typical emotional struggles and battles. I really hope that people like the new package that we are providing. We are working very hard to get our next release out.

You guys have produced everything yourselves?

Yes our bass player produces everything, our new guitarist is a videographer, so he filmed the music videos. And we all have experience in engineering our audio. Everything is through experience and sheer will and desire to do it ourselves. There is actually a whole consortium of self DIY producers in Perth and we all just get together and help each other out. It’s like we are shifting back in to musical tribalism in a way, bartering our services. That works for our dynamic because we are a small community here in Perth.

We love that by self-producing we are not limited to deadlines. We normally take 3 years to release an album, its really nice to have that freedom to go with the flow, to fuel this passionate hobby with four other blokes that you really get along with.

Finally who are your influences?

It ebbs and flows doesn’t it? When I first started this band it was bands like Deafheaven and Lantlos were definitely at the forefront, but you can’t ride on that saddle for to long and you’ve got to find new moments to latch on to. Lately it’s been American Football, Fallujah, Between the Buried and Me and random prog bands from the 70’s. I’m just really stretching out and trying to find stuff that I can latch into to keep writing albums that don’t sound stale.

ILLYRIA ARE:
Ilija Stajic – Vocals/Guitar
Andre Avila – Guitar
Stephen Barrett – Guitar
Daniel Hacking – Bass
Matt Unkovich - Drums

INTERVIEW: CHATS WITH MELBOURNE POP-PUNKERS PAPERWEIGHT (FKA NORTH SIDE STORY)

How has Covid been treating you guys?
Actually, we’ve been quite lucky - we had a lot of our projects finalised just before Covid hit, so we’ve been able to stick to our release schedules, even during lockdown. We filmed our music video the week before that first lockdown was put into place - phew!

You’re about to drop a new single - what can you tell me about it?
Our new single “The Kids On The Ground” is a bop! It’s all about the bittersweet reality of growing up, moving forward and embracing a place in time. It's a celebration of good memories that are no more, and thus was written with the intention of being upbeat and happy with an undertone of bitterness.

What has been the toughest thing for you guys through Covid, being that you are a new band?
Not being able to gig! After all, nothing beats the experience of a live show... we were so ready to get out there and smash it - but best believe, when we’re able to, we’ll be one of the first back on the stage.

Who are your biggest influences?
Haris: The Beatles, Twenty One Pilots, Blink 182, New Found Glory, Green Day.
Luana: Sum 41, Heroes For Hire, Simple Plan.
Basil: Led Zeppelin, Blink 182, Metallica, Rage Against The Machine.
Tom: Blink 182, Ben Folds, The Beatles.

What made you decide to become musicians? Was it from a young age, parents/family influence or a band you heard and that made you think ‘yep, that’s what I want to do?’
Basil: I started playing drums when I was 13. At age 10, I’d play on my older cousin’s kit - it was the one thing I looked forward to every week!
Luana: I do come from a musical family, but my real lightbulb moment was when Joel Little from Goodnight Nurse gave me his guitar pick at the first local show I ever attended - that was all I needed to pick up a guitar!
Tom: School of Rock! Having a family full of different musicians helped broaden my music taste and I now appreciate all kinds of music.
Haris: I don’t come from a musical background, but I don’t have any memories of any time in my life where I wasn't completely enamoured by music/creative storytelling. I guess it has just always been there.

What is on the horizon for Paperweight?
We are always writing and creating. The hardest part is being patient with our release schedule - all we want to do is show everyone everything as it happens! But rest assured we have plenty of things lined up that we truly can’t wait to share. 

Your dream line up to tour with?
Haris: Cannibal Corpse, Baby Metal and The Wiggles would go off.
Luana: Sum 41, Simple Plan, Zebrahead
Basil: All the bands I’d have wanted to tour with don’t tour anymore...
Tom: Blink 182, New Found Glory, Sum 41

Top 3 favourite Aussie acts at the moment?

Haris: With Confidence, Between You & Me and The Dead Love
Luana: Between You & Me, Drastic Park and Terra
Tom: Children Collide, Stand Atlantic & Down For Tomorrow 

Catch Paperweight's 'The Kids On The Ground' below and jump on their socials to keep up to date with what they are up to.

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INTERVIEW: KYLE FROM BABIRUSA TALKS ‘HUMANOID’, DREAM LINEUPS, AND ALL-AUSSIE FAVES

On the back of their first three releases Brisbane Deathcore outfit Babirusa (or Pigdeer as they may now be known!!) are about to release their debut album Humanoid. A concept album that follows the journey of 343, vocalist Kyle Williams sat down with me to talk about the band and the album.

Hey Kyle thanks for dropping by for a chat.  Who are Babirusa?

So originally the band was started by Dean and Tate about 6 years ago.  Roughly 2 years ago Dean moved in with Rangi and I’d always go round there and hang out. Dean had recently started up the band again after about a 4-year break so Rangi and I jumped on and started doing some stuff. Checking out what they had written previously. Reece came around and he and I started writing lyrics and trying to see what we could come up with. It was decided that Reece would join the band too. It all just fell into place. Basically we were all just hanging out and it happened!

Your album Humanoid is out on the 28th August.

Yes the album. Originally there was just an EP written about 6 years back, but we added on to it and just decided to go with the full album. The whole album concept is based around a character known as 343 as he’s being ripped between reality and a cybernetic world run by a sinister artificial intelligence.

“Upon re-entry 343 quickly finds that he should not have chosen to return to the Cybernetic world as he is captured and held against his will. Told by a disembodies voice that he is akin to this technological entity, a mirror of sorts, and that he should be willing to cast aside his body if only to elevate himself to a higher form and plane of existence. The voice eerily telling him that it is time to become a part of all things… Unable to understand exactly what was meant he begins to panic, wanting desperately to wake up and be rid of this nightmare. In a catatonic state, his mind races as he feels more fear than he ever imagined possible, questioning the very essence of his being and the reason for the existence of all humanity if he is to be turned into something unknown against his will”

You guys all collaborate on the writing process?

Dean and Tate usually write their thing and Rangi adds his drums. Reece and I then sit down and write the lyrics together. We’ll change the song up a bit if needed, sometimes we will add a bit to the instrumental side too. It’s a step process, it’s pretty cool though and it works well. A little conveyor belt to get the song ready.

Did you guys have any gigs lined up for the release?

No, we were hoping to tour off the album, but nothing is confirmed yet. With restrictions we aren’t sure what we are allowed to do gig wise or what’s even available. We will just keep pushing our presence online. Making a post and having people share it really gets the reach out further, especially at the moment.

What bands do you guys draw your inspiration from?

We’re all very different. Tate listens to a lot of Volumes, The World Alive, Issues etc. Dean and I are more into bands like Within Destruction and Vulvodynia. Reece is an old school boy, his would be As Blood Runs Black and that era of Deathcore and Rangi listens to bands like Meshuggah, and Animals as Leaders. He’s also in a punk band called Pandemic so he listens to that kind of indie rock stuff as well.

What would be your dream line up to tour with?

Signs of the Swarm, Slaughter to Prevail, Within Destruction and especially Vulvodynia.

What about an all Australian line up?

Inhibitor, The Gloom in the Corner (they’re the sort of band you can get up on Spotify, hit shuffle and the content is always good) and Thy Art is Murder.

If you’re a fan of Deathcore then you don’t want to sleep on these guys. What they have released so far has been damn good and I’m keen to listen to this album from start to finish.

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Babirusa’s album Humanoid is out on all platforms on the 28th August.

Hit the link to pre-order the album HERE

Babirusa is:

Rheese Peters – Vocals

Kyle Williams - Vocals

Tate Senhenn - Guitar

Dean White - Guitar

Rangi Barnes – Drums

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INTERVIEW: BRISBANE’S HARDCORE ‘HEADWRECK’ TALK NEW MEMBERS, NEW SINGLES, DREAM LINEUP, AND AUSSIE FAVES

After their previous band disbanded in 2018 three Brisbane mates decided to continue their music journey together. After some searching they added a fourth member and in late 2019 Headwreck was born. Their first single As Is (featuring Luke Harriss from She Cries Wolf) also dropped at the same time. Headwreck have just released a killer second single Good Grief. I caught up with vocalist Connor Hickman

You have a new single! I was excited to see it pop up on my newsfeed. It’s been a minute between singles for you guys.

We released ‘As Is’ in December last year and we were actually trying to push for ‘Good Grief’ to be out mid-April. With all the quarantine and stuff we just got shut down. I had to fly to Mt Isa for work and then we couldn’t get our promo photos done. It was just a nightmare.

It’s a bizarre time that’s for sure.

It is. We’ve been trying to stay as busy as we can and working towards trying to get more new music out by the end of the year.

As in an EP??

Oh no. That’s the big scary thing! We are just big believers in the whole single game. We really like doing that. Not everyone always stops and listens to the whole EP apart from a select few. It’s better for us to just stick to singles and put out our best work. Our drop box is full of music so it’s good to just try and figure out what’s best at the time and drop that.

The single game seems to be the way a lot of bands are going now. Redhook being a great example of how well it can work.

That’s the exact example I was talking to Callan about the other day. I didn’t realise that they hadn’t actually done an EP or album

Speaking of Callan how did he end up in Headwreck?

He’s been involved in the band one way or another since day one. We actually asked him if he could fill in on bass and just from that it developed so much further. Instantly he was helping with aesthetic ideas for our graphic designs for logos and ideas for music videos, helping with song writing and the vision process of what we were going to do next. He told us from the start that he wouldn’t be able to be in the band because he’s super busy with Days Like These stuff and that was all good with us.  We actually asked him before we played with She Cries Wolf back in February, probably about 30 seconds before we went on stage, if he wanted to be our full-time bassist and he said yeah! We did kind of put him on the spot a bit…

And speaking of She Cries Wolf how did Luke (Harriss) end up doing guest vocals on ‘As is”?

We approached Luke ages ago. When we were recording As Is, originally we really wanted to have a feature of some sort. we talked about it and decided we may as well shoot for the moon and ask Luke. Growing up in the Brisbane music scene I’ve been watching She Cries Wolf since I was 15-16. Luke’s always been approachable and happy to have a chat with me. I shot him a message and just said Hey man would you like to be on our first song, and he said yes. We got him to record his section and it’s all history from there.

What’s your writing process?

So it’s pretty much bare bones. We self-record ourselves so it makes it a lot easier. Jamo spends a lot of time writing stuff and coming up with ideas. He’ll record an instrumental and put it into a drop box and we will nit pick at it for a bit, make changes and restructure songs a little bit. We complete the instrumental part and then I come along, start listening and think about what I want to write about. Then I do what I think pretty much every other vocalist in Australia does, and looks to the phone notes and find one of the 1000 little one liner’s I’ve written and try to work off something like that.  So I put some lyrics to it and then Jamo, Callan and Sam have a look at it. We may reshuffle and reword things a bit and then we record it. We sit on the demo for a bit till we are sure we like it and then record it. Jamo has a little home studio and we do the final take then he will mix and master it all.

It’s good to be able to do the whole process ourselves Factors like the cost, being able to sit on it and listen to the song to make sure it’s 100% what we want. I feel you get a much better result, from a vocal stand point, you ‘ve got all the time in the world to perfect it. I think that’s the way of the world now.

And with social media and music platforms these days you can release it and hit your audience immediately...

100%. With both singles that we have out we’ve done a little campaign before with Ophelia from Collison Course. She is an absolute gem. I was saying to the boys the other day that she obviously really cares about what she does, and we are so thankful to her for that.

If you could tour with your dream line up who would that be?

We’ve actually been asked this question a couple of times and I’m not sure if the boys would have the same answer, but I have a very definite one.  Days like These (Callan’s and Jamo’s other band) we always joke about it and say how much fun it would be. You know the four guys in Headwreck and the 4 guys in Days Like These but 2 of them overlap!! So the 6 of us plus Andrew who does the photos and filming for us.

You’d only need one van!!

Exactly! And it just sounds like so much fun because we are all really good friends. It’s actually something that is super achievable for us too which is really exciting.  Before the world ended we actually had a show booked and Sam was getting married the next day, so he wasn’t able to play the gig. So we were looking at who we could get to replace him and instantly the first person we thought of was Noah!! Sorry if you read this Callan…. Then we were like we can’t have 3 members of Days Like These and me playing and then straight after them playing again. It’s going to look pretty stupid!! That gig ended up getting canned with Covid.

Who are your Top 3 Australian acts?

Alpha Wolf: they are just so so good. I remember seeing them in 2017 for the first time with their new line up and being absolutely blown away by how good they were. And that’s a band that you can listen to their discography from start to finish and really appreciate the progression. Their new song Akudama and the video for it is crazy. I saw a comment on the YouTube video –

 Producer: How many special effects do you want

 Alpha Wolf: Yes!

Slowly, Slowly:  I first heard Aliens a couple of times on JJJ and have been absolutely hooked since then. I try to see those guys live as often as I can. Benny’s just so amazing. It’s definitely a genre that I have always listened too – bands like Violent Soho The Smith Street Band etc.

Stepson: I’ve always loved these guys; they are the nicest people. Here’s a story for you.. In 2015 I was going to catch about 3.5 hours’ worth of buses to try and go see them on the North side of Brisbane and I actually managed to convince one of my friends who had their license to go. That was the second time I saw them and I spent most of the set singing along,  it was such a good show. Since then I’ve been hooked on every release. I get so excited for the music that they put out.

I’m pretty confident with those answers and I’m so glad you said Australian.

Special mention Ocean Grove, Trophy Eyes and Columbus

People are taking the time during lockdown to explore the bands more and spend the time listening to the releases and discographies-

I think its way better to sit down and listen to someone’s discography. Say a band drops an EP, it’s so important to listen to it right through from start to finish. Give yourself the chance to sit and relax and really appreciate why they picked those songs in that order, why there’s a little flow on bit at the end of one song that rolls into another. Just little things like that, like we talked about The Rhapsody Tapes before. You listen to that and it’s pretty much one song for that whole album because each song flows into the next. The songs have been picked for that reason; it’s been made like that from start to finish. And some of the songs on there if you listened to them on their own you’d be like well that’s a bit weird. The way What I Love About a Natural Woman flows into Beers, that’s just how an album starts, it brings you in and puts you in the mood and then bang straight in to it. Same with Slowly Slowly, their lyrics are so unique, I can’t even explain it. You almost have to read it to make sense of it, they’re so good.

Another band that I have just started to get into that I’m beating myself up for not doing sooner is Bloom. They are so good, and their lyrics are awesome. They are going to be huge they are just so good and so personable. I was watching the hate5six full live set; you could see that their music is obviously pretty important to them.

You can find Headwreck’s latest single Good Grief on all platforms.

HEADWRECK ARE:

Vocals -Connor Hickman

Guitar – Jamo Benadie

Bass – Callen Batson

Drums – Sam Conroy

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INTERVIEW: DAMON FROM ALIENIST TALKS NEW SINGLE, COVID TIMES, AND FAVE LOCAL ACTS

Picking up the support slot for Northlane and Gravemind on your home turf after only playing a handful of gigs is not a bad way to begin your bands career! Wollongong’s Alienist got to do just that earlier this year. Having released one single Social Faker back in October the guys were ready to take on the metalcore world when Covid struck laying to rest gigs for the foreseeable future.

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How did Alienist come about and where did the name come from?
We haven’t been around for too long, only about one year. We formed from a failed cover band and decided we wanted to start writing our own music so it just kind of started from there.

We had a massive list of names that we all thought of and through the process of eliminating the lame and taken names, we landed on Alienist. We thought it was fitting because of the psychological analysis definition, and we tend to do that with our lyrics, about the world and society anyway.

You’ve all been in bands before then?
Yeah, we’ve all played music here and there for a long time. A couple of us have more experience in touring and bands than what I do, but we are all experienced in different ways. We got started and released our first single Social Faker and then started playing gigs in October 2019,

And then you score supporting Northlane and Gravemind!
That’s right. I think we had only played 3, maybe 4 shows and then Social Faker was in a competition run by Unearthed that I think got added automatically and yeah we got a call from triple j and they asked us if we wanted to play with Northlane and Gravemind on the Wollongong leg, so that was pretty insane.

You’ve recently released a new single. Tell me about Severance.
While we were gigging we just kept writing and adding songs to the set list. Severance was a later one that we wrote for the setlist before the Northlane gig.  After Northlane, we decided to take it to the studio and record it. We’ve been going to the same producer Clay Segelov, at The Brain Recording Studios, in Sydney.

The song itself is about something that we all feel, separating yourself from the world, there’s a lot of ideologies and things like that that the world likes to portray and support that a lot of us just don’t agree with.  It’s even more relevant now because we all know that unfortunately the world isn’t in a great place at the moment. Sometimes you just need to take a step back , you know, cut yourself off from the world,  look at yourself, and take that time to not get involved in all the drama, the horrible things that are going on at the time.

Who does most of the writing for you guys?
Mostly me, I have a whole set up at home and usually I’ll write a lot most nights on my own. There’s probably dozens and dozens of songs worth of material there but you know we sort of scrape through that and make sure we pick the best parts.  We also like to get together and have a couple of the boys come over and I’ll play guitar, but we’ll bounce off of each other with ideas. Jake does his drums parts, he’s an incredible drummer, and then the lyrics I’ll do with my screamer and that’s pretty much what we do. We practice every single week, make sure that we jam out the songs so they’re perfectly tight. We just love playing together. Even if we didn’t play in the band together, in terms of gigs, I think we would still get together every week just ‘cause we love each other so much

So you guys have known each other for years?
I met Anthony and Chris only a couple of years ago but Lachlan, Jake and I have been friends for a very long time, since school.  Since then though, all the experiences we have shared, it doesn’t matter how long we have known each other I suppose. I can’t imagine being in a band where you’re not great friends. The band is definitely a family, were brothers.

In a post-covid world if Alienist could tour with any other Australian acts who would be in your line-up?
Oh, that’s hard, there are so many Australian bands that we look up to.

Polaris – in terms of writing and influence they are up there for us in that regard. Northlane, Gravemind, Alpha Wolf, Make Them Suffer would definitely be up there, Dealer would be amazing. They are definitely the ones that stand out.

Covid doesn’t seem to have stopped a lot of bands from releasing new music.
Yeah, as much as covid sucks it’s been really good for bands in terms of their online presence and listening numbers, and hopefully it’s given everyone a chance to write a lot more music and spend time perfecting the craft and the sound. It’s really good to see how much everybody cares about the music in the industry.

Everyone is bringing it in the scene at the moment. In Hearts Wake are killing it with their new stuff, and DVSR are starting to release their stuff, and obviously Justice For The Damned with their new album. They’ve adopted a much heavier hardcore type sound it’s pretty insane.  All the new releases are just insane actually, there’s no flops at the moment.

I’m really looking forward to seeing what Windwaker release, I know they’ve been working really hard. They have a very unique sound, and even though they have softer bits as soon as they hit with the hard-heavy guitar riffs, the stuff they write …  it’s just incredible

I’ve also noticed that a lot of overseas radio shows and the like have picked up Australian releases and are spinning them.
Yeah we got picked up by a few people in the UK and the US. It’s really nice to see that they are looking at the smaller bands in the metalcore scene and just picking them up regardless of country.

What does post-covid look like for you guys?
Post-covid is hopefully incredibly busy. During covid we recorded a song in collaboration with a rapper in isolation. We did it remotely with our producer over zoom calls. That is hopefully going to come out in next month. We’ve been working tirelessly on our EP that we are going to record in the next couple of months. Obviously waiting patiently for venues to re-open and hopefully jump on a tour or jump on a lot of shows. Hopefully, we will have an EP out by the end of the year, and a music video and a single, and we’ll just keep pushing this train and hopefully get somewhere with it.

I’m so keen for post-covid shows, seeing as there won’t be any overseas acts for a while I’m hoping for some pretty sick line-ups to tour together.
I’m so excited for it all to start up again too.  Hopefully by Sept/Oct we will be back in the swing of things.

Finally, what are your top 3 Aussie acts at the moment?
Number one would have to be Polaris. I get more drawn to the melodic-djenty sound that’s going on at the moment so for me personally it would also be Thornhill, Alpha Wolf or Make Them Suffer.

ALIENIST ARE:
Vocals - Lachlan Forsberg
Guitar - Damon Renes
Guitar - Anthony Vella
Bass - Chris Olliffe
Drums - Jake Ceely



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INTERVIEW: DAVID FREELAND CHATS ABOUT LUNE’S LATEST RELEASE, GHOST

Melbourne’s Lune released their debut EP Ghost this week and are even about to hit 100k streams on Spotify for the title track. Our new writer Suze caught up with Lune’s guitarist David Freeland for a chat;

Hey David thanks for taking the time to chat with us. For those unaware, can you tell us a bit about Lune.
We are a relatively new band, a couple of us are from other bands (Blind Oracle, I, Valiance) and a couple of us aren’t but we have all been around in the music scene for a while. Our first single, Ghost, came out in November 2019 we followed up with 2 shows. A release show for Ghost with In Vanity, Vatic and Advocates and a bushfire relief show with BLKLST, Foxblood and The City. We are keen for some more but for obvious reasons it’s not really happening at the moment. This project has been in the works for about 2 years or so.  

Tell us about that.
Nathaniel wrote all the lyrics and Krys did pretty much all the music on this project.  On the new stuff we will be writing collaboratively The project kind of came about as a side project for Krys so I wasn’t initially involved but a lot of it was done by Jamie Marinos and Krys then I came in later and added my production elements and Nathaniel did the vocals. So with the influence kind of stuff I think they just range from all your classic heavy bands , I can only speak for myself but a lot of like the prog metal stuff from the early 2010’s Periphery, Tesseract, and then your classics like Metallica, Slipknot and Slayer.

You’ve melded your sound; you guys don’t quite sit in a specific genre.
That’s the plan, it’s humbling to hear someone say that, it makes me feel good, like feel somewhat accomplished that we fit outside of some sort of category genre that someone has created in their mind.

I guess we are jumping onto some sort of new wave of metal. It’s probably difficult to come up with classifications for this stuff in real time, a lot of that stuff comes up in retrospect. I guess for the time being the less expectations about the way the trend is going the better, we can just completely approach it with a fresh mind.

I’m a big fan of bands that sit outside the norm of specific genres and are happy to experiment with their sound.
That’s what I’ve always strived to do, unclassifiable essentially, as much as possible but then again if someone wanted to call us metalcore, deathcore or whatever then that’s fine as well. It’s not something I personally subscribe to though. If it helps people understand it. If it gets us on a Spotify metalcore playlist then that’s fine by me!

It would have been tricky with covid because you haven’t been able to do shows and gauge a following…
Yeah it has been. The only thing you get to see is comments on social media and reading reviews and stuff its really impossible to translate that into a metric that you can comprehend

You’re not far off hitting 100k streams for Ghost on Spotify. Where you expecting that sort of response?
Yeah that’s real surprising. No way, nothing like that. Because Krys and I used to play in I, Valiance we were expecting a little bit of boost off the back of that but nothing like 100k streams. That track has surpassed most of the songs I’ve released in my 7 years!

You’ll be keen to get into live shows once restrictions are lifted..
We are talking about it. We have one member from Newcastle, Harrison our drummer, so it would pretty much be a situation where he would have to road trip it down depending on the situation. It’s also dependant on whether it’s safe to do so. We are looking at doing a Melbourne launch show as a starting point, we obviously had dates and stuff planned to go with the EP release which won’t happen, that’s all been canned. So, we are pretty much just going to take it one show at a time.

What are your plans for release day?
I’m taking the day off work and will probably meet up with the guys and take it from there. I guess then we’ll jump back in the studio and keep working on the new tracks. We’re always writing that’s what we like to do

So, you have more songs in the works for another EP, or an album or just a few single releases?
Again, it’s hard to gauge what people’s reactions will be because there are no tours or shows or anything like that. Depending on if shows start to free up and the momentum we gain from the EP, we’ll probably look to follow it up with a couple of singles. We have an album’s worth of material, but we don’t want to release it all too soon. It’s impossible to know really. I’d like to say we’ll have another couple of tracks out because we have been writing so much. The stuff that we have already written but not released on Ghost feels old already so we just kind of want to get it out there. We’ll probably talk to someone who knows what they are doing to work out a plan.

There are a few bands that are going down the single release path.
Yeah look I admire the art of the album but the thrill of having multiple releases days a year is very appealing as well. To continually assert our relevance especially right now with the way things are.

I think you guys will be okay after tomorrow, there’s been a lot of talk about this EP!
I hope so. Yeah that’s real humbling even seeing all the pre-orders come through on Bandcamp and stuff it’s just so much more than what I expected. We are literally such a puny band and we haven’t been around for even a year! The response has been so good.

To finish off what are 3 of your top Australian acts at the moment?
Justice for the Damned – They have a new album out this week too (Pain is Power) I’ve toured with them back in the day and I know they put on a great show. They work extremely hard and are one of those bands where they just get everything right and now they are getting the payoff from that.

Alpha Wolf – I’ve pre-saved their new album (a quiet place to die). I’ve toured with Mitch a lot and played tonnes of shows with them. We’re pretty close with those guys. Big respect for them they work hard as well.

King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard -I’ve got the new live King Gizzard album Chunky Shrapnel that just came out. They are probably my most favourite Australian band I froth them so much.

LUNE's debut EP 'Ghost' is available everywhere now HERE and on BANDCAMP

LUNE are
Nathaniel Smith - Vocals
Krys Smith - Guitar
David Freeland - Guitar
Tyler Hendley - Bass
Harrison Mills - Drums

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INTERVIEW: ON THE PHONE WITH PROG METAL LOCALS, RELIQA

Sydney’s Reliqa have had a massive year. From supporting Sevendust when they toured, to playing Big Sound in Brisbane, and making the Good Things Festival band final. Things aren’t slowing down for them either. Recently releasing new single “Mr Magic” early in May, which is one of the standout single releases this year, the band has now signed with Destroy All Lines Agency.

I caught up with Reliqa vocalist Monique Pym.

Congratulations on your recent signing with Destroy All Lines Agency.
It’s awesome, so cool. Basically, it happened the day we released Mr Magic, or maybe the day before. That must have sparked something, I don’t know exactly how it came about but we received an email and spoke to Bailey Graham who is our booking manager over there. He has been super awesome so far. It’s fantastic to work with someone, and a company, that you have respected for a long time. Bailey is really on the ball and is genuinely passionate about our music too which is something important to us. He’s on top of his game and I really respect that.

You have some talented bands on the bill with you.
There is such a diverse range on there. We’re working in the realm of the more progressive side of stuff. That was never really a realm of music that I had explored until lately. A lot of people have been calling us progressive, that’s a title that has been a little bit thrust upon us but I’m okay with that. And considering that’s kind of our umbrella genre now I’ve been discovering bands like Circles, Dead Letter Circus who we have known for a long time and Ebonivory who we share the roster with. We played with them towards the end of last year, they are genuine guys and extremely talented.

I am loving Mr Magic. It’s probably my single of the year so far. Where did the concept come from?
Mr Magic was the first time we really approached a song that was fully fleshed out from a personal perspective rather than our previous music that has been very conceptual, and storytelling based. We decided to make a conscious effort to step in a different direction this time. To write something that is important to us on a more topical scale. It came about when the bushfires were happening over the summer period. It was a time of absolute crisis for the whole country and when you’re in a vulnerable position you look to the people in power and say how are you going to help us through this? What sort of navigation are you going to give us moving out of the crisis? You get angry when they don’t respond in a responsible way. I don’t need to name names, but we know someone who was spending some time outside of the country… Not to get too political but it is absolutely driven by things like that. I am going to mention this though - there’s a lyric in the song that kind of hits the nail on the head. I’ve never really spoken about it, specifically in that realm. At the end of the song there’s a lyric that says, “I’ve got a trick for you, play on your perilous act, I’ll watch you disappear, at any minor setback.” That was the one where I was like Boom!!

You’re trying to demand accountability from these people who have the power, they have the platform and they have the listeners to really do the right thing. You rely on them to do that but time and time again they really let their people down. The song really comes from a place of anger.

What’s going on now in America is absolutely telling to how we were feeling in Australia at that time. You want someone to look up to, to do something and guide us through.

That’s their job!
Yes, you’re right. I get a little fired up about it. I’ve been trying to stay as switched on as I can. While all of us have been in a place where we are looking to someone to help us a lot of us haven’t been in the situation of being completely oppressed by the police state and things like that. You’ve just got to say something. If you have any sort of power, influence or platform to put out a message then it’s time to use it. I think that’s really where the song came from.

Hopefully, we can use some of this crisis and really make sure that this thing won’t happen again, I’m not talking about the virus because that may well happen again. I’m talking systemised oppression and things like that. If these things are still happening in 2020 then we can’t let them happen in 2021 and so forth. We need to stay switched on and be willing to listen and learn.

And to speak up and call people out
Exactly. I read somewhere that being not-racist isn’t enough anymore, you need to be against racism. To call out the people who are saying and doing the wrong thing. If we’re tying it back to the song and the motivation to the song it’s about all of us having accountability, not just the people in power. We all have accountability to do the right thing. It’s a bit of a call to that.

What does the future look like for you guys? Is there an album in the works?
There are a few things on the table. We are definitely working as hard as we can. We have discussed the idea of a larger release like an EP or album and we are excited to jump into that but at the same time we are taking this time to experiment with out release strategy a little bit. It’s something we’ve really thought about coming into 2020.

There are bands like RedHook, who have inspired us. They have done some amazing things, touring internationally and major festivals, and if you look at the music they have out, it’s all singles. It makes you think how incredible that is. I admire them because they are such hard workers.

We want to see how we go with a few singles first, gauge the interest for an album.  Any artist knows an album is such an amazing intricate piece of work, you invest so much. And we are used to writing conceptually too and we really like doing that. We have two English majors in the band so writing narratives and stories is something which interests us.

Meanwhile we are going to focus on working with Destroy All Lines, getting some solid shows lined up, hopefully some festivals, and using those singles as a consistent steady flow for us until we are ready to release an album.

The last 18 months have been massive for Reliqa. What would be your most memorable moment?
We were thinking about this recently. When you sit down and look back, the last 12 months have been big for us. It’s been exciting so it’s hard to pinpoint just one. I would probably say my personal moment with Reliqa is Big Sound 2019. Travelling on the road with my band was so much fun and so ridiculous. Being able to play outside of our comfort zone in Brisbane, where we hadn’t hit until then. Discovering that we had a whole fan base up there we didn’t realise we had. We had so much praise it was surreal, it was like ‘Is this really happening ‘. The Elephant Hotel, which was night three, was particularly special. We had a great crowd and it was an outdoor venue, like your typical festival. It was a perfect set up. I got off stage and actually cried a little bit, which I never do. We had support from a bunch of people that I got to meet for the first time too. Shout out to Browny from Wall of Sound!

That’s how I discovered you! He put up a post about you guys.
He makes me so happy. He’s such a dedicated guy. I remember meeting him the first night of Big Sound. I looked out for him. When we found each other, we had the most massive bear hug!! It was such a special moment. And meeting Tim Price and Ophelia Symons for the first time too. It’s more of a personal thing getting to have a milestone like that but even from a band perspective it was pretty massive.

What are your top 3 Aussie artists right now?
Northlane - I had a hard time getting into Northlane to begin with. You know they’re one of those bands that you want to like but it just didn’t click. The last year Alien came out and I was like far out this is a whole different realm of music that I haven’t heard from them before. Maybe I just wasn’t listening enough or properly. I feel like that album really clicked with me and I’ve been obsessed with it since. It’s been a massive influence for me. Instrumentally, Mr Magic’s chorus was kind of inspired by Bloodline. Enemy of the Night blew me away. I really admire and respect their confidence to be able to be so raw and so real with their lyrics. It really hits close to home for a lot of people

RedHook – RedHook are definitely one of them. The first time we ever played together was supporting Sevendust last year. She was an idol for me, she is such a legend. We became friends and we have played with them a few times throughout 2019. I admire what they do, I went into that earlier. Testing the water with a different approach through releasing singles, especially as it’s kind of taboo in the metal industry. A lot of heavy music fans want albums and bigger releases so to try the single style is quite interesting. I think they are doing it justice and I admire them for that.

Voyager- You can’t go past Voyager; They are doing some unique and awesome things. When I first listened to their new album ‘Colours in the Sun’ I was blown away. You know when you find the music and you’re like right that’s it, that’s me in a nutshell, that’s my sound. The mood I was in and what I was feeling, I chucked on the album and Colours started playing. I was like YES! I got up and danced around and got crazy to it. I’ve been listening to their music avidly since then. I always mention them when asked who inspires you or has a sound you want to reach. Voyager hands down really take that title. We got to play with them in Sydney last year which was really cool. I’d really like to reconnect with them sometime in the future, I’d love to play with them again.

Thanks so much to Monique for her time and awesome words. Check Out Mr. Magic and their previous releases now, and keep an eye out for more!

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