There must be something in the water in Newcastle. Having birthed Australian music greats like Silverchair, The Screaming Jets and The Seabellies, just to name a few, it’s any wonder it’s also responsible for dave the band.
Newcastle’s exciting three-piece indie-rock band have just released their long-awaited debut album, Slob Stories, a perfect combination of DIY punk and heart-on-sleeve lyrics.
Recorded in Chicago with the great Steve Albini (Nirvana, The Pixies), songwriter Noah Church’s raw energy has been harnessed over ten tracks of intense, and beautifully portrayed emotion.
Check out dave the band’s album Slob Stories:
To celebrate the release of Slob Stories, and the contribution of dave the band to Australian music right now, we asked Noah Church to take us through his Top 5 Aussie rock bands.
Strap in, he’s picked some serious heavy-hitters but it’s his reasons for choosing them that’ll have you so engrossed.
Noah Church’s Top 5 Aussie rock bands
Midnight Oil
Midnight Oil are the kings of Aussie rock as far as I’m concerned. I’m only really interested in their pre-political era, specifically Head Injuries.
The riffage on that album is off the rickenbocker. Every time I do a trip up the coast I have to listen to Head Injuries. It has such a palpable feeling of summer and the beach without being a corny surf-rock album. I met Peter Garrett once and he told me, “just keep at it, there’s no magic to it.” He also told me he couldn’t say that publicly, of course. Sorry, Pete.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NjQkx1h5dWI
The Drones
Gareth Liddiard is everything I am not. If I could write, play guitar and sing half as well as him I’d be a happy man. We saw them play at the Cambridge in Newy and it was the best show I’ve ever seen.
You can tell Gareth is a well-read man with a lot going on upstairs, but when they play live he has this primal urgency about him. We’ve smashed Havilah in the Commy countless times.
“Thou shalt find oneself perturbed by less verbose calamities” is probably the best line ever written – we thought he was speaking another language when we first heard it.
The Peep Tempel
The story-telling within The Peep Tempel’s songs is what really gets me. Though ‘Carol’ is an undeniable banger, there’s so much more to the band.
Under the distorted guitars and guttural vocals there’s a warmth and tenderness to the Peep Tempel’s songs. Their last album Joy makes me proud to be an Aussie rock band.
I was lucky enough to see them live and it was one of the loudest shows I’ve ever been to. Blake Scott was using the same amp as me, a trusty Vox AC30. It made me feel better about being stupidly loud. Cranky old sound guys are always telling me to turn it down – I pretend to turn the nobs a little but never do.
You Am I
I got into You Am I towards the end of high school and slowly became hooked. It wasn’t the type of music that I loved straight away but something kept drawing me back to them.
I’ve found this quality in all music that I go on to seriously love. Tim’s songwriting is so sophisticated yet uninhibited, his songs helped me to push myself to do better.
Hourly, Daily was a massive influence to Slob Stories. I like to think our album has a similar motion of feeling like the songs run through the course of a day, starting in the early hours of the morning with ‘Ultrahard’ and ending late at night, lying in bed, with ‘Eating Me Up’.
We’ve been lucky enough to play with You Am I a couple of times. I always try and talk to Tim but he’s so tall and scares the shit out of me. His book, Detours, is also worth mentioning too.
Screamfeeder
I got into Screamfeeder because Gabe told me that a friend of ours was heaps into them. It turned out that the friend was actually into Swervedriver, not Screamfeeder, but I was already hooked.
Kitten Licks is the quintessential three-piece album as far as I’m concerned. There is something enormously special about the way Tim and Kelly’s vocals interact.
I bought Kitten Licks off eBay when I first got into them and it’s lived in the Commy ever since. It’s such a good album for long drives turned up really, really loud.
I’ve been lucky enough to get to know Tim over the last few years. He’s been really supportive of us and has given me heaps of confidence in what we’re doing.
SLOB STORIES TRACK LISTING:
01. Ultrahard
02. Where You Are
03. Footy Socks
04. Get Smart
05. Fine!
06. Brave
07. Capsule
08.Endstart
09. Sadsack
10. Eating Me Up
