Modern Divide Q&A
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Modern Divide Q&A

Geelong has a lot to offer the music world, and if there’s a band that’s proving it in leaps and bounds, it’s Modern Divide – and they only debuted as a band a few weeks ago.
Hi Josh, thanks for taking the time to chat with Forte, how are you and what are you up to at the moment? 
It’s an absolute pleasure and honour! I’m great, currently I’m doing a lot of preparation with the band for our upcoming show; some big things in the works.
Your headline show at Workers Club isn’t too far away, how are you feeling ahead of the show? 
Totally pumped, the band have been slaving away on some massive sounding new songs that we’ll be debuting at the show. Our closing song on the evening will be a total monster! We’re really looking forward to it.
You just had your debut there recently supporting Lepers & Crooks, how was your first time on stage as a band? 
It was a mixture of nostalgia and excitement. Nostalgia because none of us are new to being on stage, our vocalist Matt Jelley used to play guitar for Oceans Collide years ago. Our bassist Keaton Marin was from The Greeting Method and both myself and Benny Watts played in the prog rock band ChimaeraSUN. It’s good to be back doing what we love to do.
Now that the “first time” is out of the way, how do you think your live show will evolve from here on? 
The first show our aim was just to execute the songs well and just test the waters with people and the response we’ve had from everyone since has been astounding, we’ve felt very blessed to have the support we’ve had so far – it’s really driven us to amp up the show into something else entirely. Our show is becoming this ride of ups and downs where we have sections of outright ballsy groove into clean melodic breaks that then build into something different. We kind of pride ourselves on the fact you never quite know what is going to come next from us.
As it is a hometown show, are you looking forward to showing friends, family and general locals what Geelong bands have to offer the music scene?
Absolutely, there is so much the Geelong music scene has to offer and lucky for us The Workers Club Geelong have been providing us with a hell of a venue and stage to prove it.
We did see that there has been a mad writing sesh recently, how new are some of the new tracks you’ll be playing?
There are a few new tracks we’ll be adding into the set for the night, the newest songs are barely a month old, however they include some of the progressions and riffs I’ve had for quite some time. ‘Bitter Promise’ the song we posted a teaser for on our Facebook page is one of the new songs that will be making an appearance on the 19th.
What does an average writing sesh look like for the band? Any snacks of choice, hierarchy to who does what?  
Our average writing process is a bit strange. I tend to write a lot of the material, I have quite a bit stock piled over the years, however I don’t always arrange it – I’m quite scatter brained when I write music. Matt, our singer, sees the method to my madness and will help construct sections out of different parts I bring forward – almost like putting a puzzle together. Benny our drummer writes all the drums in their entirety after listening back to demos and then Keats will add all the low end magic, all that with a splash of a few beers and you have our writing session.
We’ve got to say we love all the graphics that go along with your clips and on your posters, who’s responsible for putting those together? 
Thank you very much, we hear that a bit and we always joke that we hope our music does the visual art justice. The clips are put together by myself, the visuals have been more of a team effort between us, an artist and friend Matty Conway is responsible for the latest poster for The Workers Club headline and he’s done a hell of a job.
Thanks again for taking the time to chat with us, do you have any last words of wisdom you’d like to share with our readers? 
Come see Modern Divide at The Workers Club! You will be glad that you did.
When & Where: The Workers Club, Geelong – September 19