Latest / HEAVY Music Interviews / L.O.W Get Loud: Wollongong Hardcore Takes On BIGSOUND

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L.O.W Get Loud: Wollongong Hardcore Takes On BIGSOUND · HEAVY Music Interviews

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: The band low is that is it stand for an
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: acronym for anything.
• 0:03
  Speaker 2: Uh doesn't stand for anything really a lot of people
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: have given us their own interpretation on it give us
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: a few of those uh lords of wollongong is the
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: most common one uh legends of wollongong it's mostly just
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: wollongong based yeah but yeah, it doesn't stand for anything specifically. The, uh,
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: the acronym is in the eye of the beholder.
• 0:30
  Speaker 3: Oh, nice.
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: Nice.
• 0:30
  Speaker 3: Free for interpretation. Awesome.
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: It's always a talking point, I guess. So you guys
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: were about to, um, yeah, you're going to be part
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: of the big sound festival coming up later in, um,
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: next month or first start of next month in Brisbane.
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 0:44
  Speaker 3: So you're pretty excited about that.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: Really excited. Uh, I've been to big sound a few
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: times through work and, um, it's going to be very
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: interesting going on the artist side as opposed to industry side.
• 0:56
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: Um, it's always a big party there and just seeing
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: so many people, you know, throughout music in Australia, they
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: wouldn't necessarily cross over and kind of, uh, the same setting. Uh,
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: it's always pretty funny and interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Really excited.
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: And especially for us as well, like, with being a
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: hardcore punk band, these kind of bands don't really play
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: big sound very often. It's more catered towards the indie
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: rock pop side of things. So it's nice being the
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: token heavy band on there. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: I noticed there's a few, you know, alt rock sort
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: of punk rock guys that have come on the bill
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: for this year, which is nice to see.
• 1:43
  Speaker 3: We like that.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: So you guys describe yourself as like heavy, heavy punk.
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: sort of um general uh.
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah we i guess yeah yeah but uh we kind
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: of like to label ourselves as hardcore like very much
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: in the in the hardcore world yeah no but um
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: yeah it is i guess at the end of the
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: day heavy rock music.
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah yeah yeah well metal you know it's all metal
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: is metal yeah that's awesome so um have you guys
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: so as a band before you haven't done big sound.
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: No first time Oh, that's awesome.
• 2:16
  Speaker 3: That's awesome.
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: How long have you guys been doing your thing together for?
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: Just over two and a half years now.
• 2:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah, nice.
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: So it originally started as a Dave singer and lead songwriter.
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: He just put some songs together with him and a friend,
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: just like all over laptop, all digital, and released those.
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: but then got a show offer to play a show
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: at Wollongong and he needed to get a band in
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: for that. So I jumped on bass and Tom, who
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: still plays guitar in the band, jumped on guitar.
• 2:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: And yeah, we played that first show, which was with
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: World Peace and Soul Rock from the US. Nice. And
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: then we had a couple of shows with a bit
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: of a revolving door of drummers, but then we locked
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: into our current drummer, Brian, And Brad, who plays lead guitar,
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: jumped in as well.
• 3:15
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: And that's been a solid lineup for just over two
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: years now.
• 3:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah, nice, nice.
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: So you change hats every so often, which is always
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: a good.
• 3:24
  Speaker 3: Thing to do. Yeah. Like when you're playing.
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: In a sports team, you play the opposite position so
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: you know how to handle it.
• 3:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly.
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I just stick to bass.
• 3:36
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I play bass too. I sing and I play bass.
• 3:39
  Speaker 3: That's me. I'm done.
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, even then, that's a bit of an ask for me.
• 3:43
  Speaker 3: Really?
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: But we get through it.
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so you're not predominantly a bass player? Are you
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: just something you do on the side?
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but I'm just not very good at it.
• 3:54
  Speaker 3: Hey, it's got four strings. You can't fuck it up
• 3:56
  Speaker 3: too much. That's what my brother used to tell me.
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: And I'm only using two of them.
• 3:59
  Speaker 3: Yeah, even better.
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: You know, like I didn't even realize the whole two
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: string thing was an actual thing until someone said like
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: the presidents do it. The guy from Morphine, Ben Strang,
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: just plays with two strings.
• 4:11
  Speaker 3: I'm like, fuck yeah. Yeah. They're unnecessary. Like guys are
• 4:17
  Speaker 3: like me. I'm just like, get six, would you? Like,
• 4:19
  Speaker 3: come on.
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, let the guitarists do the technical stuff.
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we just do the beat, bro, and, like, stand out, like,
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: even out the stage presence.
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly.
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: No, I love that, but, yeah, I mean, like, good
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: bass is really simple, really. When you get complicated and technical,
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: it's just, people just, they like about it too much.
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah, and, like, no one really remembers, like, when
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: you're doing all the crazy technical stuff, but, like, when
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: people think of an iconic bass line, it's simple as fuck.
• 4:53
  Speaker 3: Oh, absolutely. It's three, four notes. Yeah, yeah. It's all
• 4:57
  Speaker 3: three chords anyway.
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: But, I mean, obviously you can't take away from, like, legends,
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: you know, such as Les Claypool and, like, Flea, but,
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: you know.
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah. Les Claypool is why I started playing bass.
• 5:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah, he's in my rubber fingers Claypool.
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: It's crazy. He's like, oh, I thought I could do that.
• 5:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah, he made it look so easy. He's like, man,
• 5:14
  Speaker 3: I've got the smallest hands in, like, ever.
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: Like, I'm going to play jazz bass for that very reason.
• 5:19
  Speaker 3: It's like... Yeah.
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: It's hard, but it's neck's thin, but like the actual
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: bass itself is like bigger than most. So I look
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: like a child behind mine. But anyway, so yeah, bass
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: is a good choice.
• 5:30
  Speaker 3: Good choice.
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: I can identify very closely with where you're at. So
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: how many guys in the band?
• 5:36
  Speaker 3: Three or four?
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: There's five. Oh, five.
• 5:39
  Speaker 3: Okay, cool. So you've got drummer, obviously, lead singer, two
• 5:42
  Speaker 3: guitarists and yourself.
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: Is that?
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's correct. Cool.
• 5:45
  Speaker 3: Nice.
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: Nice. And so, um, have you guys got an album
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: out or some singles you've done said that you'd done
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: like the in sort of in, in house or digital, uh,
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: few tracks that you did.
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, so we, I think we have about four
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: songs that was just recorded with our Dave and his friend.
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: Nice.
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: Uh, but since then we put out an AP that
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: we recorded all live. Yeah.
• 6:10
  Speaker 3: Cool.
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: And we recorded and released another song die guilty, which
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: came out, uh, Late last year, I believe.
• 6:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: And then we just recorded a new song that's about
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: to come out on a compilation with some bands from
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: Melbourne that comes out in a couple of weeks, I believe.
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: Excellent.
• 6:27
  Speaker 3: Excellent.
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 6:28
  Speaker 3: Compilations are good to jump on.
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. Not many people are doing them anymore. So
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: it's kind of nice to be on one. And it's
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: a bunch of Melbourne hardcore bands on there too. So
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: it's kind of, we've been to Melbourne a couple of
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: times now, but it's still like, us breaking in down
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: there a bit.
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and you've got to prepare to travel outside
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: your comfort zone, as they say, but it's good, you know,
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: and things like, you know, Big Sound gives, you know,
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: that platform, that opportunity to, you know, make it, make
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: yourselves known in the northern states, in the lovely city
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: of Brisbane land, which is, you've got a great, you know,
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: it's great on your metal heavy scene, it's the music
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: scene in Brisbane is held, and likewise with Melbourne too,
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: so being from Wollongong, do you find that, like, like,
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: an advantage, not being right in, like, you know, Sydney
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: and having to compete with, you know, others and sort
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: of giving yourself, like, a bit more space to sort
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: of break in?
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: It definitely has its advantages and its disadvantages. Like, it
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: is a nice point of difference. And I think people
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: really appreciate the uniqueness of not, like, kind of looking
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: the same or sounding the same as a lot of
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: the bands that are in the major cities.
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: Like, I guess, like, you'll find a lot of bands
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: kind of do similar things in capital cities like Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne.
• 7:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: Just by the nature of it and especially being bigger scenes.
• 7:59
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: So we kind of just do our own thing and
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: I think people appreciate that. Yeah. But also, So at
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: the same time, because you're not in those spots directly,
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: like you kind of get overlooked for a lot of
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: opportunities and some bands do get.
• 8:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah. So yeah.
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: So you guys, um, when are you playing in, we're
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: about to be playing in big sound fest when you
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: hit the, um, the big smoke of Brisbane land.
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: So we're playing at the Tomcat on the 2nd of
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: September at 8.30. And then we got the graveyard shift
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: at Rick's at 11.15pm on Thursday the 3rd of September.
• 8:40
  Speaker 3: Oh, cool. Cool, cool.
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, both great venues. Tomcat's a good one and Rick's
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: is good too.
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: So, yeah. Yeah, I do love the backyard at Rick's.
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: It's going to be funny playing out there.
• 8:52
  Speaker 3: No, it's a weird little spot, but it's a very
• 8:55
  Speaker 3: old venue.
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: It's a very good venue itself. much loved in a scene.
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: A lot of those walls can talk.
• 8:59
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I could imagine.
• 9:03
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: No, the valley in Brizzy is, it's such a good,
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: good spot for, you know, live music and a lot
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: of bars like, you know, Tomcat, um, they're around that scene, uh,
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: many bands play, which has been really great and, you know,
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: big and small too, which is kind of cool actually that.
• 9:18
  Speaker 3: Can accommodate, you know, reasonable size and, and, uh, and small.
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 9:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah excellent yeah the.
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: Valley is uh it's always such a funny area to
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: be in there's so much going on.
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: It definitely is it can be a strange place at
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: times but it can also be pretty cool i think
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: if you you don't loiter around you just go to
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: wherever it is that you're heading to and then stage
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: left you know you're pretty you'll be pretty all right
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: but it's when you're Just don't mingle with the others.
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: Try not to spend too much time with that Mac is. Yeah.
• 9:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah. All the seven 11 on the corner.
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: That's just like weirdly like a convenience store in the
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: corner of nowhere yeah yeah yeah no definitely and then
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: don't make eye contact is the other thing yeah just
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: yeah wherever you are no it's um it's good good
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: value so yeah so that's um that's exciting and so
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: obviously once you um you do that um plans to
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: do any more shows for yourselves or just lock in
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: and make some more music.
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: Um, we actually have a pretty packed schedule throughout the
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: rest of the year. So that, um, that compilation that
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: I mentioned earlier, we're doing some launch shows for it.
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: So we'll be playing the, uh, the Queensland leg of that.
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: So we'll be back up in Queensland at the end
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: of September. Excellent.
• 10:36
  Speaker 3: Whereabouts are you playing up there?
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: Uh, we are playing the Gold Coast, Brisbane and Nambour.
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: Nice.
• 10:43
  Speaker 3: Whereabouts in the Goldie Moes or Vinnie's?
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: I'm assuming Vinny's. I don't actually know the venues. Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah.
• 10:50
  Speaker 3: They're both.
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. We've played Vinny's before and it's like one
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: of our favorite venues in the country. Yeah.
• 10:56
  Speaker 3: Cool.
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: Again, it's a weird place. It's got two spaces, but yeah.
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: I just ain't worried I'm going to get mugged before
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: I go in the place.
• 11:03
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah.
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: Southport's a crazy area. Yeah.
• 11:05
  Speaker 3: Stadport. I know. It's a bit.
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 11:07
  Speaker 3: Again, just got to have your wits about you.
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: Okay. Yeah. For sure.
• 11:15
  Speaker 3: Cool. So that's good.
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: So Brisbane, I'm sorry, Gold Coast, Brisbane and Sunshine Ghost,
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: did you say that.
• 11:20
  Speaker 3: You'll be doing?
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And then we'll be doing Sydney and Wollongong the
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: week after that on the same run of shows. And
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: then we're playing with Negative Approach, Wollongong at.
• 11:32
  Speaker 3: The end of October.
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: Nice.
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: And then we have our, we do a yearly Christmas
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: show where all the money gets donated to charity. Oh, cool.
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: In Wollongong. So this will be the third time we've
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: done it, and that's happening in December as well.
• 11:47
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's awesome.
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: That's good to hear. That's a nice way to put
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: back to the community.
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, we've got a couple of other shows
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: here and there that haven't been announced just yet before
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: the end of the year.
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: Well, it certainly sounds like you've got your hands full
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: with that. your day jobs and uh and with the
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: band which is always.
• 12:05
  Speaker 3: Good yeah yeah.
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: It's a very busy time.
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah and you know when you when you work in
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: music as well it's kind of makes it you know
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: it's everything's congruent it kind of you know works it's
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: a lot easier to manage and people are understanding yeah
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: no it's.
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: Good yeah yes it's very.
• 12:23
  Speaker 3: Helpful yeah.
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah awesome well look thank you so much for coming
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: and having a chat with us today at heavy and
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: um I'm sure that some of us will be getting
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: along to the big sound shows and catching some of
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: you guys in action. And we look forward to seeing
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: some more of you and interesting to see what comes
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: and hopefully there'll be lots more.
• 12:46
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: Thank you very much for your time. It's been a
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: good chat.
• 12:49
  Speaker 3: Likewise. You take care. Have a good weekend. Thanks Luke.
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: You too. Bye.
• 12:52
  Speaker 3: Bye.