Hey, we’re four guys from different parts of the world that met up in Uni in Sydney and have been travelling around the world playing music for the past couple years.
Your World Stage tour seemed like a pretty outrageous idea. Can you tell us about it and how it compared to your expectations?
It was an insane experience. We left Australia with very little money, just our tickets and friends and fans of ours on Facebook that had said we could crash with them around Europe. We lived in Paris for a month, played through Germany and Sweden before flying to the UK and Spain and Iceland and then a month in the states driving a shitty van around the country eating two minute noodles. In retrospect, we had NO IDEA what we were doing, we just thought “fuck it, let’s go around the world” and figured out a way to do it.
With band members both from the States and Australia, have you had much trouble getting visas and such for the 20 countries you’ve hit in the last couple of years?
Yep. We’ve had the visa scare, the visa delay, as well as the grand prize of a deportation. That was following the World Stage tour, we were still quite young and hadn’t had experience with getting a performance visa for the shows we did when we got back.
Does all the travel make it easier or harder to succeed as a band?
That’s a hard question. When you travel you have to be able to support yourself from the band which adds more pressure. It’s a great experience but it comes with a massive set of challenges as well. I’d say the travelling has been amazing but we would definitely have recorded and released more music if we’d moved less over the past couple years.
How do you think the band would be different if you’d just stayed put in Sydney?
We would have released our debut album by now. Our sound wouldn’t have developed as much though, the past year especially has been really good for us all musically, both personally and in the band. The travelling definitely has a part in that.
The four tracks of The World Stage EP were written in four different countries. How important is travel as a creative muse for the band?
Like any creative art, it’s good to work hard in a safe environment like a studio and it’s good to get out and have a change of scenery, different ideas, different cultures. Whether it’s someone that writes folk music going to an electro house night or changing the city you’re writing in, I think it provides a lot of inspiration.
You’ve spent three months of the last year in Korea. How do Korean audiences react to your tunes?
Korean audiences are crazy. We’re not a pop band there, we were doing interviews with the indie magazines and playing at the rock festivals but even in that scene, the fans were like the K-pop fans you hear about. Some would bring gifts to concerts, wait around ages after a show for you to take a picture, there were even a couple times we met fans randomly into the city and they’d want to shout you dinner or drinks or whatever. Very different culture!
Josh’s brother has now joined the line up. What brought that on?
Dan graduated from the Sydney Conservatory majoring in Jazz, he’s been involved with the band since the start behind the scenes, helping with song arrangements or playing session bass and keys on the recording. We felt like it was a good time to bring him on full time before the album as the sound we’re developing is centred around that four piece arrangement.
You’re on the all-Aussie line up for Festival of The Sun. While the major festivals keep collapsing, local festivals seem to be doing alright. Any thoughts on why this is?
Because it’s local, for lack of a better word. An all-Aussie lineup ensures all the band have predominantly Aussie fan bases = ticket buyers. (barring an anomaly like Atlas Genius) Also being able to create that more intimate, tailored festival experience goes miles in a saturated market. FOTSUN, Secret Garden, Laneway – all my favourite Aus festivals deliver that.
You’re crowd-funding the costs of getting back home from the US. Has crowd-funding been important for your band?
It can good if it’s done the right way. We’ve done it twice in 3 years now and it’s been successful both times. That said, we aren’t planning on doing it for our next release. If anything, we’d do a free download of the album. We’d much rather be on the road touring than sitting around counting pennies from Spotify streams.
What can you tell us about the album you’re going to be recording when you get home?
Right now we’ve got a surf-rock guitarist, pop drummer, EDM violinist, blues keyboardist and 16 songs. It’ll be interesting.
Where can see you play next?
FOTSUN!
Festival of the Sun
December 13th & 14th
Port Macquarie, NSW
You Am I, The Rubens, Ash Grunwald (Featuring Scott & Andy from The Living End), The Beards, Kingswood, Stonefield, Spit Syndicate, The Basics, Glass Towers, Tigertown, The Good Ship, Howlin Steam Train, Set Sail, Gang of Brothers, Whores 4 Pinot, Mar Haze, D at Sea, Kaurna Cronin, Mustered Courage, Kita, James Bennet, DJ Healey and more
