Melbourne four-piece rockers Society Of Beggars have announced their first ever tour, ‘A Tour Called Night’, taking place across venues in Australia throughout November. Forté chat to the band.
We’ve noticed your logo is very similar to a popular Netflix show called ‘Stranger Things,’ is there a story behind that?
It’s a homage, which I believe is french for theft. We’d been playing with logos for quite some time and actually had that font for a while. The guy who does posters for Cherry Bar in Melbourne did it and we kinda just played around with it, put the borders around the letters and made it much more Stranger Things-ish.
I saw in the past that you have drawn inspiration for songs from books – any literary influences for An Angel Called Night?
We always take inspiration from weird places. For example, Yianni saw a piece of sheet music sitting on an old piano while visiting a relative back in Adelaide, which had the lyrics ‘the stars will remember, and so will I’ which became the bridge of the song. We also took a lot of inspiration from film rather than books with this song, stuff like ‘The Lost Boys’ and ‘The Warriors’, which will become more apparent when the video is finished.
I also read that you guys do a lot of your recording and writing at night, which looks like it’s had a massive impact on your EP creatively… Would you say that’s a fair call? Also, is it just a coincidence that you’re all night owls?
It’s definitely not a coincidence. We wanted the songs and the feel of the whole EP to reflect all kinds of different emotions. It’s almost structured in a way which a big night unfolds, right up until the sun rises at the end. There’s a lot of music already out there already representing the daytime, the ‘big smiles I’m so happy’ kind of stuff. We wanted to put out something a bit darker, something that leaves it up to listener to decide how they feel about it. The only real way to do that is to record and write at night, in the moment. And usually I’m a morning person! But I had to change up my game on this one.
You worked with Lindsay Gravina to produce this EP- knowing that he’s worked with aria nommed bands like Violent Soho and The Living End, did you feel like there was an added pressure or nerves there when showing him ideas?
At first, absolutely. He doesn’t know this, because we didn’t bring it up during recording, but a few years ago I actually came to his studio to play guitar on a session for some friends, and I wasn’t prepared, and he intimidated the shit out of me. So much so that I left. When we went back, I was anxious about it, but he instantly clicked with the band. Our first meeting with him went until 4am on a weeknight. He got in the trenches and worked through everything with us. His blood is in this EP as much as ours, and he’s truly the 5th Beggar.
You’re touring through Bendigo and Geelong, have you toured regionally before? Is there much difference in your metro fans to your regional?
We have done a couple of shows regionally before, but nothing like this. We’re definitely excited about it, and about meeting new peeps and just generally hanging out. Most of the regional fans seem a bit more open minded about music taste, which is more in line with the bands way of thinking – there’s no pretence, if you’re good, you’re good, and that’s all that counts.
What’s next after this tour?
The video for ‘An Angel Called Night’ will be out soon, then we send the EP out into the world. More shows, more broken guitar strings, more drinks, more hangovers, more beroccas. And in between that, we do what Pinky & The Brain always tried to do, which is try to take over the world.
When & Where: The Workers Club, Geelong – November 4 & Music Man Megastore, Bendigo – November 19
Photo by Peter Desborough
