Think about the best possible food court you have ever eaten at. Chances are it would have had 11 different options all which are completely unique, but yet you struggle to decide which one is your favourite as all the options are pretty great. Well, that is also the best way to describe the recent debut album by Sydney act Food Court.
Delivering 11 tracks of fast-paced garage-punk goodness, it’s no surprise that they have been receiving a lot of positive attention since the release of Good Luck, including earning them a spot earlier this year at the esteemed SXSW Festival in America.
According to the groups chilled out lead singer, Christian Campano, the reception is exactly what the band was hoping for – especially after Campano’s lyrics are his most personal and insightful to date.
“We have had great reviews so far, it’s been great. I think people have touched on exactly what we were hoping for and it’s been awesome. It’s great to finally get it out because it’s been a year and a half process,” he says.
“Lyrically, I was trying to delve into my lyricism a bit more and really work on stories, whether they are our own stories or other peoples, just to make them a bit more meaningful so that when we play them live there is a bit more energy and an emotional feeling from the crowd,” Campano explains. “I think for the first EP, I was more so just writing words that fit nicely into the songs, so we spent a lot more time trying to develop the songs. This time around we came up with more interesting song structures, we were really trying to keep away from the standard song structure of garage punk.”
After working with the revered producer John Castle, Campano opened up about the recording process and the bands hectic recording schedule.
“Recording with John Castle was a lot more hi-fi than our earlier recordings so you can really hear a lot more of the intricate bits on this album. I felt some of the songs were a bit compressed on our previous releases.
“He was great, he’s a brilliant guy; really funny and great to work with,” he smiles. “He just tells it how it is and he has a really nice sense of urgency so we didn’t spend too much time over-thinking stuff. We just got in there and smashed the songs out. Usually after three or four takes we would have the ones we wanted. The majority of the songs were recorded live as well which made it a lot easier to create the energy we wanted – we wanted it to represent how we play live. It was a great experience, and Shed Studios is quite a snug fit so we had a great time. But it was pretty intense; we tracked 13 songs in five days.”
In support of Good Luck, Food Court is currently on the road playing a handful of headline dates around the country.
Release: Good Luck is out now on Dine Alone Records.
Written by Alex Callan
