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ON THE COUCH WITH: Children Collide

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ARTIST INTERVIEW

Access All Areas.net.au: You guys have always expressed how much fun touring and performing live has been. Now you’re embarking on a long tour, The Chosen Armies Tour. Is every show getting easier now, or are the shows getting more demanding?
Children Collide: Well, playing live has always been our shared favourite part of being in a band. If anything the shows are getting easier to play as we go on. Things like stage techs and tour managers were a fantasy when I started in this band, not to mention the support of our management only a phone call away if disaster strikes and I lose a comb or something. Long tours get easier the more you do as well. After the first few gigs you sort of settle into the routine, everyone does their job and things in hand get easier.

Access All Areas.net.au: Will this tour be vastly different than previous ones such as Big Day Out and Farewell Rocketship tour?
Children Collide: Uh, not exactly "vastly" different I don't think, it's still us on stage and they are still our songs. The set list will probably have 1 or 2 new songs in it, and the venue sizes have increased from the last tour (Farewell Rocketship). Johnny has been wearing a moustache occasionally too. That may be different.

Access All Areas.net.au: Is there a ritual that you guys have before stepping on stage?
Children Collide: Well, it used to be a certain formula of drinks then a big shot of vodka before we went on. That sort of dried up somewhere along the line though. I don't know. Maybe a handshake each and a kind word? I doubt that one will last either.

Access All Areas.net.au: Do you guys have a favourite song that you must play at every show?
Children Collide: My personal favorite is skeleton dance. Seeing as it was a single it gets played at every gig by default. I'm not sure that we have a group favorite though.

Access All Areas.net.au: The Chosen Armies clip is an interactive video. What has inspired this?
Children Collide: Well, Johnny had been doing some work for this lovely fellow called Dean who has developed a lens that shoots 360 degree panoramic vision. Dean suggested that it might be good for an interactive video clip and we said "damn it Dean, I think you just might be on to something there". Dean came in to a couple of rehearsals with his magic lens and accompanying equipment and the rest is interactive history.

Access All Areas.net.au: This tour must be important to you guys, since when it’s over, you guys will be taking time to work on a new album. Do you think touring has influenced much of your music as well as your new material?
Children Collide: A lot of the songs that will be on the next album were written before the last one but as far as players, yeah, I think touring does have some impact. You certainly get good at playing songs on the set list but as far as a creative impact maybe not so much. I think a little bit of space from the grind of touring is necessary to really free yourself up enough to write well. Not always true though.

Access All Areas.net.au: Is it possible to give us a little picture of how the next album would sound like?
Children Collide: It is going to sound really, really good.

Access All Areas.net.au: Is the creative process quite different when touring, compared to being in the studio?
Children Collide: Yeah, there's not much of a creative process when touring, unless you mean some of the smells in the van. We also like to be 95% on top of things before we go ahead and record .The creative process, as far as song structure etc is hopefully dealt with by then.

Access All Areas.net.au: Are there times when you would get frustrated, while figuring out the kind of music direction you guys want to take? Or does it usually come easily?
Children Collide: We just sort of follow whatever it is that comes out. I don't think there's ever a point to forcing any band into a place you only "think" it should go. We write very quickly and easily. If a song is giving us hell we usually just record it onto dictaphone as is, listen to it later and try to think of another angle with fresh ears.

Access All Areas.net.au: Your music has received rave reviews both offstage and onstage. Do you guys feel pressured at all to match the next album with the success of your current material?
Children Collide: Well, we can only do what we can do. We'd never release anything we weren't very happy with. I think we are all really looking forward to this next album. If there is any pressure I think we choose to ignore it. Stressing about what might happen ain't going to get us anywhere. We have enough faith in our management and our songs that ignoring the pressure is pretty easy.

Access All Areas.net.au: What is your ultimate favourite line of a lyric from your songs?
Children Collide: "so so so" : social currency.

Access All Areas.net.au: If there is a song that best describes the band’s state of mind at the moment, which would it be?
Children Collide: One of our songs? That we've released? Uh, I don't think there is one. As for a song that is not ours probably anything by Bronski Beat.

Access All Areas.net.au: Bands usually go through changes, some positive and some negative. Does that worry you guys?
Children Collide: Nope. Change is good and unavoidable.

Access All Areas.net.au: Good luck with the tour, and hope to hear your new album real soon. Lastly, what would you like to shout out to your fans?
Children Collide: Hey there fans! Stay in the shade during summer and never eat and swim straight away. Always wait at least half an hour.

Interview by Sandy Tan

INTERVIEW: October 13, 2008

Access All Areas.net.au: Firstly, congrats on the new album… I bet you guys are stoked to finally have your debut album out!
Ryan – Children Collide: Yeah, thanks! It’s been so long coming… I was just thinking about it this morning how long it’s been from the start getting it ready and releasing it… it’s taken atleast a year and waiting is generally the last thing you want to do when you’re in a band. You just want to get it out there and start playing it.

Access All Areas.net.au: So, tell us about your new album?
Ryan – Children Collide: We sort of viewed the album… when we started it we already had a lot of songs that were really old and so with this album, from the beginning, we wanted it to be an introduction to the band because the band has a broad range of songs that all sound different from each other and a lot of people think that we just write the same songs and it’s definitely not how we feel so we’ve looked at it as an introduction to the band through this album and make it the best album we could and we were lucky enough to be able to have worked with Dave Sardy on this so it definitely came up trumps.

Access All Areas.net.au: What’s the reaction been so far to the album?
Ryan – Children Collide: Really, really, really good! It’s been good because we’ve just been touring it for the past couple of months and we’ve had the opportunity to see how the singles have been going especially how they react to them every night and being able to watch more and more people knowing them so it’s been really good.

Access All Areas.net.au: Did you achieve what you wanted from the album?
Ryan – Children Collide: Yeah definitely… ever since I was 17 I have always wanted to record an album with Dave Sardy and nobody understood why I was so be-wildered… I was literally telling friends that I wanted to make an album with Dave and they were all like “bull shit”. I love how it sounds and we love what he did to the album. We really enjoyed the experience of recording it as well as we were in the middle of Hollywood and it was great to meet and work with new people all the time.

Access All Areas.net.au: What surprises do you think fans will find from the new album?
Ryan – Children Collide: Some of the songs have already been released previously but sort of re-done them. Devils Child is one song that was on the EP ‘Glass Mountain Lies’ there was me, Johny, our Tour Manager and Woody Annison sitting in the studio having a couple of drinks playing with bass loops and playing some weird noise and it was basically a jam and we put it on the EP and we’ve never played it live until we got to LA… it was never a song it was just a loop basically and so we went in and rehearsed it in the studio and Dave made it in to a song. We’ve still never played it live yet but we’re going to start to.

Ryan – Children Collide: There’s a couple of other songs on the album that are also other old ones with extra sparkly bits added.

January 2008
Access All Areaas.net.au: Congrats on the new EP, you must be pretty excited to have some new material coming out!?
Children Collide: Yeah its good its all starting to really snow ball which is nice... we got back from overseas and we've got new management and she's going nuts for us at the moment so it is all happening and it feels really good.

Access All Areaas.net.au: Can you tell us a little bit of background about the band?
Children Collide: Yeah, when we started I was living with two of my friends and we started getting really drunk and we started jamming a lot in the lounge, I had known them for years I had been doing other music and I had been writing acoustic songs in my room over a sad break up and that got me in to singing and she bought a drum kit and we started jamming and we got excited with what was coming out of it so we quickly put together a gig on Halloween and that was about two years ago and then from that there was a booker that got us a slot on a Vice gig but that gig was really bad for us but from there everything we did felt like a step up but it's fun and we've pushed through living on Vegemite and toast but hopefully soon we'll upgrade to Jam on toast!

Access All Areaas.net.au: Where'd the name – Children Collide – come from?
Children Collide: We had a meeting about this and we were going to make some f**ed up story about this but the truth of the matter is that when you share houses and for this matter its terrible for bills but we divided our phone bill up and up the top of the bill Heath wrote 'Children Colide' and I really liked it and actually wanted to steal the name for something and then we started and we came back to that and thought that would be a really good name for the band.

Access All Areaas.net.au: 'Glass Mountain Liars' is your latest EP – the second EP from the band – how does this differ to your first EP?
Children Collide: There's more a difference in the production value, with the first one I really liked and I really like this one and I like to do things differently every time. The first one we recorded in a Tin Shed and this one we were in a nice proper studio so that's one big difference right there. On this one we have a new drummer so the songs are much more developed, the songs are more varied on this one as well and I've got bigger guitar sounds on this one and yeah that's probably all the things that make it differ.

Access All Areaas.net.au: How would you best describe your music to someone unfamiliar with it?
Children Collide: This is probably a question I've been asked in every interview and I always find it hard to answer. I think we consciously think, and we do not usually think of anything consciously it's like what happens happens and after the fact we then go back and craft it but one thing was that on top of my mind, don't write music that sounds like anything else. We try to keep it very different but I say to people it's a little punk rock but branches away on different parts but one thing we definitely aren’t is a sound band where every song sounds the same. We treat each of our songs like a child, as an individual and every child is different.

Access All Areaas.net.au: Your last EP hit the shelves in 2005, what have you guys been up to between now and then?
Children Collide: Just drinking all the time... I'm drunk right now [laughs]... nah we've been rehearsing and gigging a lot, we've met lots of people and made lots of friends, we are on to our third drummer since then and that seems like a long time a go that first EP, even though we recorded it over a year ago and released it under a year ago it so seems like a long time but we've also been working our day jobs as you do to pay for the band when your band costs more than you make. We've been to Brisbane once and Sydney heaps and heaps.

Access All Areaas.net.au: You’re playing homebake next month, you must be pretty excited to have scored a coveted spot on that festival?
Children Collide: Yeah we got a really good slot. I think it's an afternoon slot about 4pm and when we got the gig I was really worried that we'd get a really early slot where people are still rocking up. But the guy who booked it, Joe, likes the band so its nice its also, like I was saying before, we've made lots of friends from bands we've played with over the last year and a lot of them are playing at Homebake so its going to be on big party and that's one of my favourite things to do is to hang out with friends.

Access All Areaas.net.au: When a fan goes to a Children Collide show, what can they expect?
Children Collide: Heath stomping around, Jim yelling shit out randomly and me bleeding on my guitar not really knowing what I'm doing!!! The picks ups on my guitar people find interesting because they are different but otherwise they'll just be seeing us getting in to it and not giving a shit.

Access All Areaas.net.au: What are the plans ahead in 2007?
Children Collide: Very internationally focused next year. Probably Australia will see some kind of release in the new year but don't know yet what it will be but then an album later in the year and the rest of the world will see a release in the UK definitely and we'll push Japan, the US and other territories. We'll tour the world in March, well not the world but UK and Japan and try to see more of this country a lot more of it…. Who knows if they will change but that's the plan so far.

ARTIST BIOGRAPHY

Social Currency is a dualism.

On one hand it is a cynical joke. It’s about a DJ getting a headjob under the decks at a club. It’s about a girl wearing all the right brands. It’s about kids starting a band so they can be cool at parties. About rich guys flashing money around to score hot girls and hot girls flashing themselves around to score rich guys (or rich girls scoring hot guys). It’s about over the top fancy cars parked out the front of over the top fancy cafés. And a million other things. Social Currency, what’s yours? Is it worth it? Does your life mean anything without it? Does your life mean anything anyway?

The other side to this is that the song is kind of about hope. It’s about accepting the trappings and the pitfalls and rolling with the punches as well as rolling in the filth of that ever so fake side of society that knows no other kind of currency. As all assets, material and otherwise, become a form of social currency. Believing in what you do while realising the complete futility of it all at the same time.

Having an awareness of life is to live a dualism; it is truly human to know denial. No one is genuinely remembered for who they are, just what they did, who they impressed, depressed or caressed.

www.childrencollide.com

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MY FESTIVAL EXPERIENCE

The Beautiful Girls
Your most memorable Festival moment or experience?
Probably the first time we played Falls. It was in Tasmania and we were on a side stage in the afternoon and were just happy to be there. Our friend Mason Jennings played before us to about a hundred people but by the time we came on the entire festival crowd was at our stage! There was literally about 50 people at the mainstage. It was mayhem with too many people in a small area. The front barrier got knocked down and the crowd sung every song so loudly we couldn’t hear ourselves. There’s been many amazing festival stories but that was the first and I’ll never forget it.

Favourite Artist you’ve seen at a Music Festival?
Probably Snoop Dogg at a festival we played in Detroit.

What’s your ideal Festival line-up?
TBG, Pantera, Biggy, Soundgarden, Nirvana, Fat Freddys Drop, The Clash, The Specials, Kate Bush, Tenor Saw, Tanuki Dub, The Dead Beat Band, Daft Punk, Led Zepplin, Johnny Cash, Bianca Jade

What are your tips for attending Music Festivals?
Turn up, bring your ticket.