Tasmania’s Luca Brasi have gradually revealed a bigger sound in recent years, and their latest offering, last month’s If This Is All We’re Going To Be,has already secured the hard working quartet’s upward trajectory. Beat caught up with their charismatic frontman, Tyler Richardson, to congratulate them on a job well done. “Thanks mate – we’re really stoked with how everything has turned out,” says Richardson.
It’s been three years since Luca Brasi’s sophomore album By a Thread sent shockwaves through the punk rock community, but that doesn’t mean the band members have just been sitting around enjoying the ocean air in their hometown of St Helens. Rather, in the last six months alone Richardson and co. have toured the country in support of the new album’s lead single Aeroplane, hosted their own weekend festival Til the Wheels Fall Off, and organised a deal for a split release with UK punks Apologies, I Have None – all while putting the finishing touches on album number three.
“We’ve been working on this album pretty seriously for about two years,” Richardson says. “Before that I’d been working on little parts, bit and pieces, but for the last two years I’ve been really solidly writing to get ready to go into record.”
Having spent the majority of the last seven years on the road, Richardson says that when it comes time to bunker down in the studio, they prefer being closer to home. “We rented a space in Hobart again, which is awesome because we’re all still trying to work and study fulltime, as well as be in the studio at night. It was brutal but we managed to get it done – and we’re so proud.”
If This Is All We’re Going To Be was produced by Adelaide’s Jimmy Balderston (The Amity Affliction, Grenadiers, Gay Paris). “We flew him down here for the better part of a month, after we rented the studio out. That was our time in heaven and hell, I guess you might say,” Richardson laughs. “Even though recording is exciting, it becomes a really full-on process. It has its ups and downs.”
When the album was ready to be mixed, Luca Brasi chose to enlist big name engineer Brian McTernan (Senses Fail, From Autumn to Ashes, Circa Survive). “Brian was someone we were looking at for a while as a possible candidate. He’s worked with just about everyone over the years,” Richardson says. “We wanted to keep the raw edge of the music, but we also wanted to sound polished, which is something we hadn’t really pushed for before. I think Brian really helped us to get that big-sounding-but-polished record that we’ve always wanted to make.”
Luca Brasi’s latest singles Cascade Blues and Anything Near Conviction reflect the four-piece’s desire to push their own limitations, both musically and lyrically, while maintaining a sense of where they come from. Richardson’s has the rare ability to convey emotion and vulnerability amid a soundscape of driving guitar lines and hard-hitting drums – and If This Is All We’re Going To Be is full of those memorable moments.
“I keep saying it, but this time it feels like we have actually melded all the elements of what we like and what we wanted to achieve, and it happened a lot more organically than usual – we never had to force it.
“As much as it sounds like a cliché, we wanted to make a cohesive record that you could put on and listen to from the start to the finish, just like one big piece of music – and I think we did it.”
Luca Brasi have a lot to smile about, and be prepared to see a lot of them over the coming months. “The first tour for this record is a tour with our buddies The Smith Street Band, and once that tour is done we’ll be busy till at least the middle of October.”
BY NATALIE ROGERS
When and Where: Max Watt’s Thursday June 16 – Saturday June 18, The Corner Hotel on Saturday August 27.
If This Is All We’re Going To Be is out now via Poison City Records.
