Access All Areas.net.au: Hey Joel, how you doing? Goodnight Nurse: Good, how are you? Access All Areas.net.au: Real good, so your band, Goodnight Nurse, have a new album, Keep Me on Your Side, and it is released on iTunes currently so when are we expecting the album to be released in stores. Goodnight Nurse: The physical copy of the album is released 19 July but you can buy the album off iTunes. Access All Areas.net.au: I’ve listened to the album through iTunes. Goodnight Nurse: What did you think? Access All Areas.net.au: Real good, I had no preconceptions of what I was going to get so I was pleasantly surprised. The Night is a great song. There were moments through the album where I heard influences from Taking Back Sunday, Jimmy Eat World and AFI. All bands I like. Goodnight Nurse: We’ll that’s a real good compliment because they’re all bands we love as well. Access All Areas.net.au: You guys have a national tour here in Australia coming up? Goodnight Nurse: Yeah we’re touring with The Getaway Plan, we’re really excited about that it’s gonna be cool to come over, we’re here at the moment (Australia) preparing for a show on an airplane tomorrow as we fly to Queenstown in New Zealand. Access All Areas.net.au: Is that the one with MTV? Goodnight Nurse: No we’ve already done that one where we played flying to Sydney from New Zealand for the MTV awards. But this one is from Sydney to Queenstown. So it is actually our second Airplane Show. Access All Areas.net.au: How does an airplane show actually work? Goodnight Nurse: We kind of just cram into business section, there’s an area that is cordoned off between economy and business, they remove the cordon thing away and we cram in the seats pretty much. It’s interesting because it’s a little bit different from you regular rock show. Access All Areas.net.au: So is it prize winners or just general punters who get to watch? Goodnight Nurse: I’m not real sure this time, I think it is to coincide with the Queenstown Winter festival, so it’s a flight from Sydney to Queenstown. I guess it for people who want to go from Sydney to the festival from Sydney. There will be some media as well and probably a few prize winners. It’s kind of a captive audience because they can’t leave. Access All Areas.net.au: It’s quite a lot of dates for the tour with The Getaway Plan, have you done many tours of Australia? Goodnight Nurse: We’ve only really done one tour which was a 3 month tour of schools it was really fun, in NZ we did 120 in 5 months, we’re used to doing long stretches of shows. We love touring, playing live and seeing new places. I think this tour is 16 shows. We’re really looking forward to it.
Access All Areas.net.au: Do you guys have a preference with All Ages to over 18’s. Goodnight Nurse: They’re both pretty different, I think they both have their own good points, the all ages always have a lot of screaming kids which is good for the ego and the over 18 everyone has a few drinks and a good time. I like the fact we can do both types of shows we love that we can appeal to both audiences because they both have their own benefits. Access All Areas.net.au: You mention before you did 120 shows in 5 months by the end of that are you just exhausted and tired of playing the same songs? Goodnight Nurse: Yeah we were pretty sick of playing the same songs all the time and you can get bored. We were playing off the reactions of the crowds but straight afterwards we went into the studio to start preparing for the new album so we had something to look forward to and were very pleased to play something other than what we had spent months playing over and over. Access All Areas.net.au: With a tour of 120 shows in 5 months how many shows would you do a day that would have to be close to a show every second day. Goodnight Nurse: Yeah, because it was NZ it’s hard to do all pub/clubs shows in different cities in NZ because of the distances you have to cover so we’d do school shows during week days and pubs/clubs on he weekend. We were doing almost 2 high schools a day and then 2 shows on the weekend. The most we did was 9 shows in 6 days. It was tough for the first 2 weeks were so exhausted but then we just sort of got into a rhythm and the rest of the tour flew by. Access All Areas.net.au: I know this is a general question you must get a lot but where did the name Goodnight Nurse actually come from? Goodnight Nurse: We need a good answer for this question, we used to make up a lot of stories but in reality, when we came up with the name we weren’t really good and didn’t expect the band to go too much further but it stuck and now I really feel that the name sit well with band. Access All Areas.net.au: So were you aware that there is a Buster Keaton silent film from 1918 called Goodnight Nurse? Goodnight Nurse: I’ve heard about that one and there is also a porn film with the same title but I am yet to see that one. Access All Areas.net.au: Wikipedia lists you as NZ’s Blink 182 is that a title that sits well? Goodnight Nurse: It’s fine, I don’t really think we sound like Blink anymore, early on I think we sounded like them but now we’ve generally got our own sound but it’s complimenting to hear that people associate you with bands you love. Access All Areas.net.au: How long did it take to record the album? Goodnight Nurse: We spent 5 weeks recording in Melbourne recording with producer Lindsay Gravina (who has worked bands such as The Living End and Thirsty Merc), It took a lot longer to write for the album we spent a year before that writing and demoing new songs. We didn’t want to release an album we were proud and that had some good songs mixed with some crap songs. So we took our time and worked real hard on making sure the album worked was something we felt would give people their money’s worth. Access All Areas.net.au: You can definitely see the change in style between the first album, Always and Never, and Keep Me on Your Side. The new album is so much more melodic. Goodnight Nurse: I think our song writing has got better since the first album, we’ve always strived to write strong melodic songs and we had a few songs on the first album that were similar but not a lot. So we’ve really worked hard on perfecting our craft and I’m pleased because I think it shows on this album. Access All Areas.net.au: I really liked the song Jessie for the album it shows how far the writing process has come for you guys. Goodnight Nurse: It’s funny because everyone thinks the song is about a girl but it is actually about our guy friend Jessie. Who went through a whole bunch of stuff, if you read the lyrics you’ll see it’s about a guy that found his girlfriend was pregnant and went through a whole bunch of other stuff. It was an intense time. So it’s a song for our mate. Most think it’s a love song which in a way it is but not in the way most people think. Access All Areas.net.au: On a totally different note just to peak my interest, if you were playing a show where you could have any 2 bands to play with who would it be? Goodnight Nurse: I think the rest of the band would want Blink 182, if they were still around, because they are band they all love and such an inspiration on us early on & Jimmy Eat World who is one of my favourite bands. Access All Areas.net.au: Thanks for your time and have a great tour. Goodnight Nurse: You’re welcome
Goodnight Nurse’s new album Keep Me on Your Side is released nationally in Australia 19 July and are currently touring nationally with The Getaway Plan during July.
Interview by Geoff Reid
Goodnight Nurse
BIOGRAPHY
Having provided the unquestionable radio anthem of the year so far in New Zealand with ‘The Night’, Goodnight Nurse return across the Tasman, back to where their new album ‘Keep Me On Your Side’ was created.
Recorded at Birdland Studios in Melbourne with producer Lindsay Gravina (The Living End, Thirsty Merc, The Galvatrons) Keep Me On Your Side has achieved instant success for Goodnight Nurse at home, hitting #1 on the iTunes album chart and debuting at #5 on the NZ Album Charts.
But having spent so much time in Australia working on the album, the band are itching to get back and tour the country where all the hard work came together.
Goodnight Nurse have steadily been making inroads in Australia for the last couple of years. After releasing their debut album ‘Always And Never’ in 2006 through Warner Music, they toured the East Coast for 3 months on the Rock The SchoolsTour, and played the Gravity G-Fest in Perth with Kisschasy, Gyroscope, Parkway Drive and new tourmates The Getaway Plan. In 2007 they won the MTV Australia Video Music Award for NZ Viewers Choice, performing on the red carpet at the event. They then spent time in Sydney writing for the new album before heading to Melbourne for 5 weeks with producer Lindsay Gravina.
Their following in NZ is formidable – they’ve had a Top 40 single there every year since 2004, and they now have two Top 5 albums (their first album Always And Never debuted at #5 and went gold in it’s first week). They also have the most prolific myspace page in the country, with over 1 million views and over 2 million song plays to date. 2008 has already been a huge year for the band - their latest single ‘The Night’ is one of the most played songs on NZ radio and is now in it’s 10th week in the NZ Top 40, and follow up single ‘I Need This’ is promising to be another hit. They’re in high demand, and have their second headlining tour of the year booked in NZ in September.
But for now Goodnight Nurse are hanging out to get back and play shows across Australia, the country that played such a big part in their new album, and is quickly turning in to a second home for the band.
“Keep Me On Your Side” released Saturday 19th July, 2008
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