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ON THE COUCH WITH: Violent Soho

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ARTIST INTERVIEW

Access All Areas.net.au: Hey James, how’s it going?
James: Yeah not too bad. Just amongst um…actually booking seats for my wedding actually (laugh)

Access All Areas.net.au: Oh my god! (laugh) Congratulations! Are the guys with you at the moment?
James: No no, just myself.

Access All Areas.net.au: Cool. I understand that you guys are working on your new album. How’s it going so far?
James: Really good, it’s actually finished, just has to be mixed which will be going once we get to New York. At the moment, we’ve recorded the album and it’s come up really really well.

Access All Areas.net.au: Have you got a favourite track yet?
James: I do but it doesn’t have a name yet for the actual song. So I don’t how how to explain it but I do have a favourite yeah yeah.

Access All Areas.net.au: Can you roughly describe how it sounds maybe?
James: It’s actually quite the same as our other songs. I mean we don’t try and change our style too much probably because we’re not the best musicians…we’re not gonna push a groundbreaking new material but it’s just the same stuff – pop sort of music that is heavy enough to be able to head-bang to, yeah…It’s recorded by Gill Norton so just a lot bigger and yeah really good.

Access All Areas.net.au: How would it be different than your previous album, We Don’t Belong Here?
James: We Don’t Belong Here was recorded with record labels in Australia asking to sign us and getting us to do demos for them. Basically we said no then to those labels, waited six months and took those demos and made it our album. So they’re just demos…we were really happy to do it that way because other than that…I think half the songs on We Don’t Belong Here are gonna be on the new album because we wanted to record songs like ‘Jesus Stole My Girlfriend’ with Gill Norton. It’s produced by someone of good calibre rather than just in the studio ourselves hitting record, quick, excellent - you know. We did half of We Don’t Belong Here and half new ones that also sound the same genre anyways. So it’s not gonna sound too different ‘cause I don’t know if we’ll ever try to evolve or anything. We’re just trying to do what we do at the moment which is play what we play.

Access All Areas.net.au: What have you taken away from the experience of recording this new album especially with Gill Norton?
James: I supposed it’s in the way you do your songs. It’s just making sure that everyone is able to play them perfectly, as best as we can with all the energy and feelings behind each song. And making sure we’re all sort of on the same page with what we’re trying to do with the songs and really just putting all our energy towards each song by coming from the same area together.

Access All Areas.net.au: Have you guys decided on the title of the album yet? Or is it still working?
James: Still working really, there’s a few being thrown around. But no one sort of confirmed on any. We’re just sort of throwing out names because it’s only going to be mixed around September/October and it will come out end of this year or early next year so we still got a bit of time to work on the title.

Access All Areas.net.au: How would you describe the personal chemistry between the four of you as a band?
James: I think we’re all sort of coming from the same place. We all grew up in the same area together. So we all understand what we’ve all been trying to do with our music. And we all have the same viewpoints, we have the same members for five years ‘cause we’ve never had any different members and we’re all focused in the same way which is just keeping our heads down, writing music and touring. I think we’ve answered in a bunch of first interviews we’ve ever done, we’ve never really sort of tell people what we’re doing. Not out of being rude, only because we don’t know how to do that you know, we’ve just been keeping our heads down and touring, which is all what we focus on. And that’s what we want to do so just have to focus on that together and everything will be fine.

Access All Areas.net.au: Where do you usually draw inspirations from to write your songs?
James: Most of them is about growing up where we grew up. Basically growing up in a Pentecostal church and school that we went to together and describing those experiences. You know, sort of what’s happened in the lives of people that have everything yet sort of do nothing. All the influences are sort of drawn from that, and the rest of us are struggling while we’re perfect and doing nothing to help anyone. I think that’s what whole focus is and that’s what we’re singing about is what it’s like where we grew up which is probably the same for a lot of people…

Access All Areas.net.au: Sounds really good. You guys have spent some time playing music outside of Australia such as New York and LA. How has the music scene in the UK and the US influence you guys in terms of your music and personally?
James: I don’t think at all. I think we’re heavily influenced by Brisbane music and the Brisbane ethos of doing a band and normally when we go over there, we have a lot of people really come and see us and some are specifically into Australian music. I think it hasn’t impacted us in any other way apart from we know who we are, we know where we’re from and we know what we’re doing and we just sort of do that and see what people think. I mean, it’s definitely a different response over there than what it is here but that’s probably ‘cause we’re just over there where over here, we’ve been touring for five years, so people have either heard our name…and performing in front of Rick Rubin, pretty ridiculous for a band in Australia that plays for two hundred people and an album of demos which sold 1500 copies to end up playing for a producer for Justin Timberlake, Metallica is just absurd. So the excitement over there was really big when we got there.

Access All Areas.net.au: When it comes to emerging artists, how do you find the music scene in the US and UK, compared to Australia?
James: America does what it’s always done. Has a very mainstream focus but also allowed the indie music or underground music to sort of look after itself. Whereas over here in Australia, the lines kind of blur between indie bands and mainstream bands which I suppose cause there’s not so many people so everyone can be sort of into both maybe. It’s different in that sense for sure over there that they have all the separate scenes. Over here, there’re lot of bands that make claim or think that they’re indie yet they are trying to write music for commercial radio. Which is what I mean by, which is why we’re very influenced by Brisbane bands who never really tried to write music for anyone apart from themselves…We don’t really mind when people wanna say what we sound like because we’ve never tried to sound like anything else, you know.

Access All Areas.net.au: You guys have mentioned that performing live in Brisbane has been a tough act because of competition. Do you feel that you guys have grown a lot since then in terms of your music and performance?
James: Yeah I think so. We’ve been playing in Brisbane for a while the band has only grown out of word of mouth and as far as street press or any form of publicity has been really limited but in Brisbane for example, we only did our second interview with the leading street press today and the reason why I say that is just because it sort of has just grown out of the word of mouth. It’s pretty good cause we have a lot of people come to our show, not just checking us out but they’ve been coming for a long time and bringing a friend and all that sort of thing…As soon as you got back from America, we played a pre-show on Monday night at the back of our friend’s shop. We still do a lot of our shows exactly like that where we play sort of freely on the floor, yeah we don’t try to upgrade our level of stage persona or anything like that…

Access All Areas.net.au: What do you guys hope to achieve with the music that you write and send out to the world?
James: I think we’d just like to achieve – that we are a band. We just wanna be a band, we just want to tour and write music and just keep playing. We’ve already achieved far beyond our expectations, as you can imagine. We’ve only been playing our instruments for as long as we’ve been in the band and you know, really not doing much publicity.
We’ve already achieved far beyond what we could ever hope or dream of, so from here on end we just concentrate on being the best band we possibly can that truly represents the Brisbane music scene. I know it’s hard for us starting off being from Brisbane, as in people weren’t too excited by us from the start, and I think it’s just concentrating on representing all the bands that we know and love from Brisbane and that’s what we’re doing obviously. The cover of “Taskforce” by Razar, are actually a band from the same postcode as us in Brisbane. And that’s what it’s about, that’s the first thing that we’ve done. We’ve come back from recording this album, the first thing we’ve done was go in and record a Brisbane song from the early 80’s that truly represents Brisbane and just making sure we’re always paying homage and pay respect to all the bands before us who didn’t really get a chance to get out of Brisbane because people either didn’t take them seriously or there were too many other bigger bands in other states. So our main goal is really to try and represent Brisbane for what it is, not like, you know there’s other bands these days, really pushed themselves from Brisbane like Yves Klein Blue, they’re not actually from the Brisbane scene or anything like that so we’re just trying to make sure that we represent Brisbane music for what it really is, not like Powderfinger or anything like that.

Access All Areas.net.au: You guys are already paving the way…
James: That’s only because of the support from everyone else in Brisbane so it’s been really, really good and we’re just so thankful for the help from people like yourself and anyone that’s done stuff for us. It is ridiculous that a band like us has gone so far. We’re not under any stupid ideas that we’re exceptional or anything like that. We think it’s just as crazy as what everyone else does, so we got away with doing what we’re doing.

Access All Areas.net.au: Well we’ll be anticipating your new album! So lastly, what would you like to say to your fans in Australia and abroad?
James: Thanks to everyone who’s coming to the shows. Thanks for supporting bands that probably don’t get much radio time as other bands or whatever and I hope everyone gets a chance to get a copy of the Seven Inch and Razar and [Melbourne’s] God covered by us.

Access All Areas.net.au: Alright cool, thanks very much for your time James.
James: Thanks again!

Interview by Sandy Tan

ARTIST BIOGRAPHY

The suburb of Mansfield, 4122 Queensland married to an International Success Story...Yep, a peculiar coupling you may think, but then, life is full of surprises isn’t it...

Spawned from Queensland's bible belt, four-piece Violent Soho are a reaction against everything and everyone. Taking everyone by surprise with their self-funded, self-released debut LP "We Don't Belong Here", the band then toured the length and breadth of the country with their brand of snarling, gusto rock raising decibel meters and eyebrows, concurrently.

Now having returned after their 2008 whirlwind run of showcases in London, New York and LA - where the infamous Rick Rubin (at his studio in Malibu) and Mr. Sonic Youth himself, Thurston Moore, stood tall at the front - Violent Soho are here to treat you to a razor sharp show or two.

This tour is also the first time the band have been able to play all ages shows in each of the capital cities they head to. Along for the ride are good friends, Sydney band Talons who have their debut album in tow, and are fresh off the road having just finished up a national tour with Regular John.

Regarding international success, it was the aforementioned meeting between Mr. Moore and Violent Soho at a New York showcase in Lower East Side hipster hangout Piano's - where Thurston danced his way through the set and applauding loudly and vigorously - that formed the beginning of a beautiful relationship.

For, by early 2009, the band had signed with Thurston's prestigious Ecstatic Peace record label and were once again headed overseas, this time to the peace and quiet of the Welsh countryside, to Rockfield studio's where albums by Queen, Stone Roses, Oasis and Black Sabbath had been written and recorded in years gone by.
Settling into the farm Violent Soho would call home for the next 5 weeks, the boys were introduced to their producer Gil Norton (Pixies, Foo Fighters, Distillers) and started laying down the tracks that will constitute their international debut album.

So now, with the band relocating to New York in September to mix the record and then hit the road to start promoting it, Violent Soho have decided to put together this one last run of shows in Australia before we bid them adieu and wish them luck on their merry way.

WHAT’S MORE: Violent Soho have recorded covers from two of their all time favorite Australian punk bands, that will make up an incredibly limited edition 7" to be available only at the bands shows.
The tracks are "Taskforce" by Brisbane band Razar and "My Pal" by Melbourne's God. Both songs the band have included sporadically in their live set. This will be Violent Soho's first official release on Ecstatic Peace, and the first time ever you can own Soho on vinyl.

www.myspace.com/violentsoho

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It’s too hard to pick one, we love festivals. In no particular order: Playing the big Dance Arena at Glastonbury 2008, Main Stage Good Vibrations 2007, Splendour in the Grass 2007, Big Day Out 2009...I could go on and on.

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One stage with David Bowie, Queen (we’d have to bring Freddie back from the dead), Daft Punk, The Cure, Bloc Party, Prince & Bon Jovi (yes, Bon Jovi). There would be DJ sets in between by Sven Vath, Boys Noize and me old mate Ajax.

Favourite artist you've seen at a Music Festival? Daft Punk, David Bowie & Bloc Party

What are your tips for attending Music Festivals?
Enter with an open mind and leave with a twisted one.