Hi guys, thanks for sitting down with Forte Magazine! How are you? Did we hear you were grooms-men recently?
Yeah, you have heard correctly! We just attended a wedding for a good friend of ours on the weekend. It was tough going from our Melbourne album launch on Friday night straight to a wedding, but it was a great day.
You’ve just released your latest album ‘Double or Nothing.’ What’s the reception been like so far?
The reception so far has generally been positive! We decided to launch the album with two dates; one for our hometown area and one for Melbourne. We had a great turnout at both of the launches and the feedback has been great.
It’s been two years since your last release, Gilligan’s Boots EP, and between then and the latest release you’ve signed with Elapid Music Management. Has this had any influence on your new work?
We had spent a lot of time playing regular gigs after the release of “Gilligan’s Boots”, and we all decided the next logical step was to write a full-length album. When we met the girls from Elapid Music Management it was great timing! The writing and recording of the album was mostly finalised by then but they helped us get our tour ready to support the release of ‘Double or Nothing’.
Is there a different process or more pressures when working on an album rather than an EP?
I don’t think our process had really altered too much, but we certainly felt a bit more pressure in finishing songs. We were trying really hard to make sure we weren’t just writing music to get an extra track, we wanted to make sure all the tracks were ones we really believed in.
We had a peek at the snaps on your website, the underwear and teddy bear photo is nice… Do you have any crazy stories from playing?
Well yeah, actually quite a lot! We’ve had a lot of fun over the years. One of our favourite stories happened after a gig near our home in Gippsland. We decided since we weren’t tired we should head to Crown with the money we had just been paid to play. We left around 3am and arrived around 5am. We walked in and placed $50 on number six on a roulette table and what do you know? It came up first roll! We won almost $2000 and had a very busy morning before making the long exhausting car trip home only just making it back in time to load our gear out from the gig.
You guys are from regional Vic, and in the last few years there’s been quite a number of successful bands that have emerged from regional Victoria. Why do you think that is? When you play regional vs metro areas, is there a difference in vibes?
It is great to see that the regional bands can be just as successful as metro bands. If you work hard enough and maintain a good working relationship with the venues and organisations in regional areas they can be very helpful in getting you in front of decent crowds. We have certainly been lucky with opportunities to support great bands like ‘Kingswood’, ‘Stonefield’, ‘Bluejuice’ and many more just on that basis. It can be tricky though being so far from regular gigs that happen in Melbourne and other metro areas.
Can regional Vic be expecting a tour from you soon?
Yes! We have begun our ‘Double or Nothing’ tour now which will see us travelling to Geelong (9/12/16), Warrnambool (10/12/16) and Bendigo (17/12/16) before a few interstate shows as well.
Details for all of our shows can be found via our Facebook.
The new album ‘Double or Nothing’ is available for download through iTunes or it can be streamed through Spotify – https://open.spotify.com/album/45wijDcXjt5Do6wuXfO0PK
