News 10, Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever 16, Illuminate Adelaide

A celebration of innovation, music, art, light and technology, Adelaide’s winter music and arts festival, Illuminate Adelaide, has announced its return in 2022, lifting the lid on its impressive new lineup. Following last year’s wildly successful inaugural edition, the second iteration of Illuminate Adelaide will now take place over the entire month of July, transforming laneways, venues and spaces across the city with a program of free and ticketed discussions, installations, dance, live music, immersive experiences and much more.

Promising to entice locals, interstate, and international visitors to the city as it brings the streets of Adelaide to a bright and intriguing light this winter, the festival is already looking the goods with its 2022 program, featuring Istanbul-based visionaries Ouchhh Studio’s major exhibition Wisdom of AI Light – an AI-driven multisensory experience that’s putting the art in artificial intelligence; Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett’s ground-breaking band Gorillaz; the return of celebrated Montreal studio Moment Factory’s Light Cycles at the Botanic Gardens; the free city-wide centrepiece City Lights bringing over 40 large-scale installations, projections and immersive works to the city; plus a wider music program that is a glorious journey through music in all its forms and variations.

Curated by co-founders and creative directors Rachael Azzopardi and Lee Cumberlidge, the festival will see local, national and international creatives and technologists alike come together for a vibrant winter with last year’s edition attracting over 500,000 attendees and bringing more than $40 million to the South Australian economy – despite wild weather and a COVID lockdown.

“After an overwhelming response to our inaugural program in 2021 we are delighted to announce for 2022 an expanded program of experiences, installations, and performances showcasing the very best examples of the convergence of art and technology our city and the world has to offer right now,” the founders say.

Further highlights of the 2022 event will be the return of Light Creatures which will take audiences behind the gates of Adelaide Zoo after dark; the Australian premiere of Joanna Dudley’s operatic video installation We Will Slam You With Our Wings which steals from some of history’s most notoriously sexist speeches and recasts them into a feminist war cry echoing through the ages; Futures, a 50-metre walkway of light, sound and mirrors by Lucid Creates; and the Squidsoup collective’s Submergence, comprising thousands of suspended lights visitors can wander among. Spanish 3D-projection artist Filip Roca will also follow up his 2021 festival hit by lighting up Adelaide Festival Centre’s exterior; and permanent nine-storey screen with The Rundle Lantern.

Ouchhh Studio is Illuminate Adelaide’s 2022 Luminary Artist In Residence, and in addition to the aforementioned Wisdom of AI Light, the Studio will also present Ocean Data at Light Adelaide as part of the City Lights program, and Ouchhh Studio directors Ferdi Alici and Eylul Alici can be heard in conversation at an artist keynote address. On the music front, alongside the world’s greatest virtual band Gorillaz, who will be performing their first Aussie shows in over a decade, the festival will shine with the genre-defying music and visual series KLASSIK underground where globetrotting Australian violist Tahlia Petrosian will direct the collaboration between a star-studded ensemble of musicians and Australia’s foremost visual artists across three nights

Gorillaz lead Illuminate including CAPITAL WASTE (Liam Somerville), Robin Fox and Margie Medlin.Adelaide’s huge 2022 winter The Illuminate Adelaide 2022 music program will festival lineup also feature Unsound Adelaide – the international celebration of cutting edge experimental and elecTaking place from 1 – 31 July, Illuminate Adelaide will see the city come alive with lights, live music, visual tronic music – returning to its spiritual home in the southern hemisphere. From art, discussion, installation and much more for its its ground-breaking flagship festival in Krakow, Poland second ever event. to 30 locations around the globe, Unsound has become Words by Talia Rinaldo a magnet for some of the most exciting, innovative and arresting sounds heard anywhere in the world, and its program for Illuminate Adelaide will take over the Dom Polski Centre on 22 and 23 July with heavy hitter Stephen O’Malley of Sunn O))) collaborating with experimental musician Kali Malone, frequent collaborators and mind-bending performers Sinjin Hawke (USA) & Zora Jones (Austria), 700 Bliss (USA) the take-no-prisoners duo of DJ Haram and Moor Mother and Australian cult favourites HTRK, as well as the late-night Unsound Club at The Lab, with Air Max ’97 and Corin and more. There will also be a unique collaboration between Chinese-Australian avant-garde composer Mindy Meng Wang and Tim Shiel at Nexus Arts, and a distinctive lineup across four weekends at The Lab at Light where light and sound will converge to present some of the most cutting-edge new music locally and internationally. Illuminate Adelaide is happening from July 1 – July 31 2022. Head to the festival website for the full program. Made in partnership with Illuminate Adelaide.

Three years in the making, what sets RISING apart?

It’s the story we’ve all been hearing a bit too much lately, something cool and original was planning a 2020 drop, but was faced with countless cancellations, postponements and delays, only to come out of the weeds with a 2022 release.

Words by Ben Lamb

RISING was one of the few to survive the lockdowns, coming out of Covid with a jam-packed 2022 program bringing artists of all types to our stages. With 225 events, 14 world-premieres, and 801 local and international artists, RISING already has the look and feel of a festival three years in the making. “It’s been a wild ride,” curator Woody McDonald says, “but it’s been exciting, so much has changed for the better in the last two years. The idea that we actually have a festival happening in a month is very exciting.

“There are two themes to the festival, the Japanese sub-theme, and also the Jim White In Residence. They’re two things I really like about this year’s program. On top of that, there’s some well-known stuff and some obscure stuff in there, but it’s all worth checking out.” Prepping a festival in Covid times is a tough feat, Woody noting that internationals were booked while border closure rules were still up in the air. “When we started putting it together, we thought there’d be a week-long quarantine requirement. Now that no longer counts, and we didn’t know anything about capacity limits for venues either.”

The ever-changing rules throw a spanner in the works when it comes to major festival curation, as internationals need to be approached a few months out.

“We didn’t know how much a flight would be, or if there’d be any rule changes for them entering Australia, a lot of artists weren’t willing to spend two weeks in quarantine for example,” he continues. “That’s how our Japanese program came about because initially, Japan and Australia had a very similar attitude towards Covid, and other countries were in a very different stage.” RISING isn’t your average Melbourne arts festival. In the vein of Vivid or Dark Mofo, it’s an opportunity to catch acts that are a little different, yet some of the most highly regarded in the world. Despite its forebears, from its earliest inception, RISING always aimed to be original.

“We’re using this opportunity to present things that Melbourne audiences will respond to, and might not necessarily be mainstream enough for outdoor festivals, or may not be appropriate for that type of thing,” Woody explains.

“This year, we’re trying to fit in with the initial vision of Hannah [Fox] and Gideon [Obarzanek], [RISING co-artistic directors] and where they see the festival going. I guess the music is responding to that, which covers a lot, it’s got everything from more avant-garde to contemporary art.”

Staged from June 1-12, RISING will prolong Melbourne’s emphatic re-emergence right into the heart of winter, with a huge array of events each night. “Melbourne city really lends itself to that, it’s an easy city to access,” Woody adds. “It’s a good city to catch a train in and do a few things in one night, and with something like RISING, you could probably go to two or three different shows in a night and do something else in the city.

“It really works in that way. I think there’s a lot of Melbourne that is set up really well for that type of experience. I think Melbourne in winter is great too, particularly when you’re indoors. It’s a great city to be in and go and see shows in.”

There are so many amazing music festivals in Melbourne, each offering something different to audiences. The standard formula features a handful of stages, with artists playing shorter sets.

This is an area where RISING 2022 stands apart, fans can immerse themselves in a performance for hours, in an intimate setting. “I think we’re not ready to be around huge crowds straightaway,” he says, “so, it’s nice to go and see something a little bit more curated, and a little bit more intimate.”

The festival’s program packs wow-factor. You can catch highly-regarded US performers like Moses Sumney and Lucy Dacus, hugely impressive local talents such as Tkay Maidza and Sampa The Great, or visual art havens like The Wilds and Golden Square.

Woody notes that opening the doors back up to internationals across all of the different performance areas will inject some new life into the Melbourne music scene.

“I think it was really fun with localonly line-ups when the borders were closed, but now there’ll be a new type of stimulation in Melbourne,” he says. “So, having these artists back, it feels kind of great. Although, I’ve seen so many great local shows recently, that’s hopefully not going to stop anytime soon.”

RISING Festival runs across Melbourne from June 1–12.

‘Fuck it, I’m not doing any of those grand concepts, I’m going to do just the most basic shit I can and have fun with it.’

RUNNING TOUCH

Ego, Carmine and American coffee

Words by Joseph Carbone

While researching for my interview with local dance and electronic powerhouse Running Touch (Matthew Victor Kopp), I give his most recent Insta posts a look-over. I already know that he’s in Los Angeles – our Zoom call is at 7am for myself, and 2pm for him – where he’s preparing to play Coachella with Hayden James. A post of his, however, catches my eye: one where he touches on probably the biggest hurdle for a Melburnian in the States. The coffee.

So, naturally, my first question for the local legend is about how he was finding the quality of American coffee. He smilingly responds: “How do you think? It’s no good, I don’t know – I wish I had describing words to give to you. “I don’t know what’s going on, but someone’s got to make a change.”

Who better to dictate change than Running Touch? After founding the Australian nu-metal band Ocean Grove, he made the switch to a solo career that exploded onto the Aussie music scene with his 2017 EP A Body Slow. Blending grunge, nu metalcore and hardcore punk, Running Touch’s vocal, keys and sample work characterise Ocean Grove’s studio production. The singer, songwriter and record producer has been producing steadily for other artists ever since, including being a featured artist in tracks for Adult Art Club, Verboten Berlin and Hayden James. So far, it’s paid dividends, he’s racked up 130 million streams and is – at the time of our interview – preparing to jump on stage to perform the Hayden James song ‘Better Together’, which he features on, at arguably the world’s most coveted festival before his debut album Carmine drops.

“I’m very grateful, very excited obviously,” he says. “The two things I’m really excited about are one, it’s not my show so I don’t have to bear the burden of playing one of, if not the, best festivals in the world. Two, being a solo act, I don’t really get to share many moments with other people because it’s just me, but it’s Hayden’s set, and it’s his first Coachella so it’ll be really cool to share a moment and a milestone with him. It’s fun, feels like you’re part of the group. “The majority of my time here has just been purely studiobased and recording. It’s incredible,” he explains. “I spent the start of 2022 preparing for this trip, refining workflow, knowledge, and practice. It’s different to the way I’ve done studio sessions in the past, so recording heaps of music and hopefully we see some of it.” There’s a five-year gap between A Body Slow and Carmine, and fans have been eagerly awaiting more music from the man behind bops like ‘Aubrey’ and ‘When I’m Around You’. He tells me that he had studio time booked in at the start of 2020, but Covid ground his album to a halt alongside the wider world. He considers it a blessing in disguise.

“It took a fuckin’ minute, that’s for sure,” he says. “It took maybe a year, year-and-a-half to make, because of Covid it was pretty stop-start.

“Man, I’m super happy I didn’t release it. It’s one of those things that I’m really grateful for, it happened very fluidly, it wasn’t rushed. My shit’s already all over the place because I’m more of a producer than an artist now, I have no fucking idea how I could’ve done it.” That doesn’t mean that he’s entirely satisfied with how the album rollout has gone. In the lead-up to Carmine, no less than six singles have been released, double an average album cycle. With all six singles featuring on the 13-track album, Running Touch shares his anxiety over how this abnormal approach has become a source of anxiety for him: “Because of Covid we were just like ‘Oh fuck what are we going to do, do we have to write more songs?’ It really made it… interesting is maybe the right word. Strange.”

Equal parts glittery and glamorous, Carmine features soaring choruses, heavy reverb and reflective verses that capture a nostalgic electronic sound. In describing the vibe of the album and what it means to him, Running Touch shares a somewhat paradoxical overlook: simple and complex all at once. The artist is known for his trail-blazingly unique blend of styles, influenced by the textures of tech-house, pop, indie rock and hardcore stylings. Within his tracks, the multi-dimensional Melbourne musician constantly pushes past the boundaries of the expected within his work. Tracks in Carmine will be moodily electronic with hints of funky guitar and pop vocals, although according to Running Touch, staying focused with his impressive ability to meld genres proved a “real challenge” for him.

“It’s hard not to chase those things and follow your ambition … and you’ve got a bit of ego there as well, in terms of knowing you can do something. Going into this I was very worried that it wasn’t going to be cohesive - I still don’t know if it is, I don’t know if people are just being nice to me and just fucking bullshitting me,” he laughs.

“Man, I’m super happy I didn’t release it. It’s one of those things that I’m really grateful for, it happened very fluidly, it wasn’t rushed.”

— Matthew Victor Kopp

But on the artwork (the work of Darren Oorloff, a former Melburnian now in LA) and the title of the album (carmine is a dark shade of red that represents lust and violence), he presents a refreshingly straightforward vision: “I really liked the colour red and I was like ‘Fuck it, I’m not doing any of those grand concepts, I’m going to do just the most basic shit I can and have fun with it,’ and just picked a colour and I ran with it. So that might be a bit simple but, honestly, that’s all it is. It just really helped, it felt more honest. I’m not trying to push anything, I’m a simple man. It’s like I’m in grade three and red’s my favourite colour.” So what does Running Touch listen to in his downtime? He surprises himself with his answer, as his favourite new song was found on TikTok.

“This sounds really rude, but I’ve never heard a good song on TikTok, I just haven’t. I’ve heard stuff that’s really well done, but it’s nothing special. [Then] I found a band on TikTok, and I was like ‘Oh this is actually really good’ and it’s fucking incredible. They’re called Quarters of Change, and the song is called ‘T Love’. I was just listening to it when I was going for a walk, and I was like this is really fucking good. Last night it was just on repeat for me. Shout out to Quarters of Change.” We finish our interview and hang up. It’s 7.45AM and I need a coffee. Thank God I’m not in LA.

Carmine is out now through Island Records Australia. He’ll be playing The Forum on May 21, tickets on sale now.

Photography by Robert Collins

With Outright, ‘there is truth behind the music’

Words by David James Young

Minutes into her conversation with Beat, it’s remarked to Outright frontwoman Jelena Goluza how exciting it is to talk about the band in the present tense, as they prepare to release their first album in nearly eight years. “We’re lucky we bloody survived,” she responds – both in a self-deprecating manner, given the time between albums, but also with an undercurrent of incredulity given the circumstances of the last couple of years. “So many bands didn’t. So many people didn’t.” Forged out of this period came Keep You Warm, the band’s second studio album and their long-awaited follow-up to 2014’s Avalanche. Although its title may seem endearing on surface value, a fire rages within its greater context. As Goluza reveals, it serves as just part of one of the album’s more cutting lines, as heard on the song ‘Burn’: “I won’t set myself on fire/Just to keep you warm.” To her, the line – and the song itself, by proxy – is a reflection on “managing compassion for ourselves.” “There’s thrashy metal tunes, there’s some really melodic punk... we even have a slow stoner-metal track that goes for seven-and-a-half minutes. Our songs are normally done in two! We really wanted to see what could we do differently – to reflect where we’re at. We’ve been through so much, and we’ve had all of this time to be creative. Why not open it up?”

When Outright first arrived on the scene with their 2011 demo, the chorus of the first song used a common saying: “Gotta be the change I want to see.” Goluza has always embodied this saying – she speaks her mind, and she stays true to championing progressive issues. It’s not done for likes, it’s not done to keep up appearances – it’s bigger than that, and Keep You Warm is testament. “We are all impacted by the political context and structures that we all live in,” says Goluza. “I think we can’t help but write about it, because we give a shit. We like to interrogate the way that we operate in the world around us, and that means interrogating our personal feelings too. Hardcore, metal, punk and everything in-between offers so much more to us when we know there is truth behind the music. God knows we all have plenty that we feel and want to express.”

Keep You Warm is available for pre-order through Reason and Rage Records.

Maple Glider falls back in love with music

Words by Talia Rinaldo

“I was quite uncertain for some time about pursuing a career in music,” Tori Zietsch, the award-winning artist behind Maple Glider, tells us, “but after I wrote all those songs, I just had this real drive and energy to record them and perform again. I’d sort of already weirdly put myself back into Melbourne, mentally and emotionally at some point, and just wanted to get back into it.

A vulnerable, visceral, and altogether enthralling experience, Maple Glider’s debut album To Enjoy is the Only Thing is a striking set of vignettes from Zietsch’s life; growing up in a restrictive religious household, falling in and out of love, cross-country and international travel, longing, alienation and more. Moments both unremarkable and life-altering, but always deeply felt, brought to vivid life by the beauty of Zietsch’s artistry and wry sense of dark humour. The collection of songs quickly caught the attention of the Victorian music industry, with her Maple Glider project nominated for three Music Victoria awards: Best Solo Artist, Best Folk Act and Best Breakthrough Act, crowned the victor of the latter by the public. “It can be intense at times,” she says. “I found that after not performing for a while and then coming back to performing again, all the songs still feel pretty raw, there’s a lot of feeling there.

“It’s a nice feeling though; to enter into a space that you have been in the past within a song and then come back out of it. I’ve been doing music pretty solidly since I was like a teenager. So, I was always gigging a lot and then I released an EP with another project and it was then that I needed to take a little break. That’s when I went travelling and went to the UK and then I ended up writing all this new music and that was the start of Maple Glider, unknowingly,” she says. “There are so many musicians here that I just really love and adore and am a big fan of, so it’s nice being able to like connect with new people as well since being back in Melbourne and find this whole kind of new space to share music in.”

To Enjoy Is The Only Thing is out now through Pieater and Partisan Records.

At the time of writing, The Curtin has been sold to overseas developers and the beloved operators’ lease expires in November. The City of Melbourne has granted the venue interim heritage listing and the Victorian union movement has implemented a ‘Green Ban’ seeking to avoid demolition, yet still the Curtin faces an uncertain future. Bryget Chrisfield checked in with Pablo Alvarado, creator of Bone Soup touring group, and Cash Savage (of Cash Savage & The Last Drinks fame) to discuss the gaping hole that would be left in Melbourne’s already-decimated live music scene if The Curtin fell prey to developers.

In 2017, Marlon Williams played a one-off show – with no support act – during which many new songs were premiered live before he headed into the studio to record his second album, Make Way For Love. To launch the 2018 Liars album, TWTWF (Titles With The Word Fountain), Angus Andrew owned the stage dressed as a bride, veil and all. That same year, The Libertines performed a surprise show at The Curtin the night before their official gig at The Forum. The likes of King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard and Amyl & The Sniffers have graced that stage on their way up, and let’s not forget New York City’s irrepressible goth no-wave queen, Lydia Lunch, hollering, “Kiss my ass, Kim fucking Kardashian! You overblown fucking tool!” – mass-hypnotising those assembled in The Curtin’s distinctive L-shaped bandroom thanks to her acid tongue and witty wordplay during 2019’s Dust & Shadows spoken-word tour. Those precious recollections are just a smattering that immediately spring to mind. We can’t imagine these shows being as special had they taken place in any other bandroom on the planet. “Sometimes you have a band that just doesn’t suit certain venues, you know?” Alvarado concurs. Bone Soup has “aligned with The Curtin” many times over the years to introduce Australian audiences to a diverse range of oddball, independent international acts “because venues have an identity, and that open identity that The Curtin has, meant that I always felt comfortable throwing things that perhaps would not have been such a good fit in other places.”

The Curtin’s celebrated, curtained bandroom – with its intimate, 300-patron capacity and no-bullshit aesthetic – prides itself on being an inclusive and welcoming space for all. “For me, it’s always been one of my favourite venues in Melbourne,” Alvarado says. “It’s always been a well-run, really chill, inclusive, welcoming space; there’s a lack of cliquiness. It always feels like this unassuming, humble spot and then you go upstairs and

WHERE WOULD MELBOURNE BE WITHOUT THE CURTIN HOTEL?

The Curtin Hotel has always celebrated the weird and wonderful, helping to shine a spotlight on many brilliant bands that owe a debt to the small-cap venues they cut their teeth on.

Words by Bryget Chrisfield

can see some of the best live shows in Melbourne… it’s always been a good vibe and it’s eclectic – I love that.” “It carries folk acts and all sorts of different genres, but it’s also a good rock room,” Savage chimes in. “It’s just a bandroom – it is what it is; you don’t go in there for any reason other than to watch a band. It works, you know? And there’s always a party going on downstairs for some reason.”

One of the very few remaining music venues in Carlton, the fact that The Curtin plays a crucial role in Melbourne’s rich tapestry of live music venues is undeniable. “[Melbourne is] one of the – if not the – most musical cities in the world and so these [smaller-cap live music venues] are really important; they really affect how culture is created and happens, and [The Curtin is] an eclectic bridge between the north and the south that just completely activated that whole section of the city,” Alvarado stresses.

The Curtin also plays a crucial role for emerging artists – local and international alike – by acting as a measurable stepping stone. “I remember when we sold out The Curtin – we had the album launch for The Hypnotiser there, which is now three records ago – what a big deal that was for us,” Savage shares. “And that meant that we could start pushing into the bigger rooms. If you sold out The Curtin hard, you could have a crack at The Corner.

“I really love The Curtin bandroom. I think it’s just a really nice, intimate space. Plus, because there’s that whole gap there [the mid-venue stairwell], the sight-lines from the back are great. The sound’s good and over the years they’ve bumped up the lighting. It’s not pretentious, it’s just a good, solid bandroom.”

Alvarado says promoters could build trust and reach out to The Curtin, knowing they’d be up for it. “They would be like, ‘We haven’t heard of them, but that’s the kinda thing we wanna do’,” he tells.

“Without The Curtin taking risks and backing up small promoters – which is really hard to find – we would have no infusion of new culture and new energy. It’s a business and you could imagine those promoters thinking, ‘Well, let’s make ends meet,’ but if you’ve got some upstarts who are just excited about music, you need venues like The Curtin to trust them and provide that platform. That’s something that would be totally lost if we lose somewhere like The Curtin.

“The Curtin would really get behind us, they’d print the posters, they’d get the lights,” he continues. “I don’t feel like The Curtin ever takes the bands or the promoters or the punters

for granted. Without The Curtin, Bone Soup and my little touring agency wouldn’t have been able to take a hold.

“I think there’s always a cultural focus and appreciation for the way The Curtin’s been run. The Curtin could just be any building, but it’s not; it should be heritage listed because of its location. It’s the love and the culture that the owner Rusty [Benjamin Russell, owner/operator who also tends his own bar] and Paris [Martine], the booker, collectively created that make it such an important force.

“The Curtin has good booking and it’s run really well by people who really love the scene and so it’s always a comfortable time,” Savage commends. “I really like the way that they operate, Rusty and Paris. So we will often sell out The Corner and then throw a sneaky Curtin show in just for fun – because we wanna support them – and they always make it really fun for us. They always look after us.”

The Curtin Hotel is located on Lygon Street in Carlton and open every day except Monday.

Photography by Ian Laidlaw

The Smith Street Band return to their roots

Things that are entrenched in Australian pub rock culture: drinking Melbourne Bitter tinnies at The Tote; knowing to respond “No way, get fucked, fuck off” to The Angels’ ‘Am I Ever Going to See Your Face Again’; and The Smith Street Band.

Words By Alex Callan

Over the last decade, The Smith Street Band haven’t just dominated the pub rock circuit, they’ve defined their permanent spot in the history books. After touring relentlessly and constantly releasing albums both under The Smith Street Band and in varying solo projects, the group haven’t just embraced a hard-working DIY ethos, they’ve truly lived it.

With the group currently hard at work on album number six, which is being recorded at their home-grown studio in regional Victoria between a string of tour dates, we thought it would be the perfect time to catch up with the group’s guitarist Lee Hartney to find out how it’s shaping up and in particular, if the new material is headed in the same synth-oriented direction that their previous album Don’t Waste Your Anger took. Peaking at number one on the ARIA Charts, Don’t Waste Your Anger featured more electronic elements than the previous albums, showing the band’s departure from their previously punk rock sound.

“Nah, this is actually kind of the opposite,” laughs Hartney. “I’m sure if you spoke to the different guys in the band, everyone would probably describe the songs in a different way, but for me, this album has gone way simpler. In a lot of ways, it’s gone way back to the sound of our first or second album.”

The band’s debut album, No One Gets Lost Anymore was released in July 2011 via Poison City Records, and received critical acclaim in Melbourne, hailed as one of the best Aussie albums of the year due to their infectious sound melding high energy punk-rock, elements of 90’s indie-rock and a distinct story-telling style of vocals. The strong debut was followed up by the thought-provoking, fist-pumping Sunshine and Technology merely a year later in 2012. They’ve since gone from playing house parties, storm drains and pretty much anything in between, to being one of the most energised and talked about punkrock bands in Australia.

“We are more just trying to have some fun with it, rather than stressing and trying to make this an amazing album in a way. Strip it back, have some fun, just do what we used to do.

“We just do what feels right at the time. I don’t see why any band really ever should have to think that they have to do a certain sound. This record can sound like this, the next one can sound like something completely different.

“You can do whatever you want really; you shouldn’t have anyone over the top of you telling you that you need to sound a certain way or do a certain thing, you just do what feels right, and what you’re having fun with.”

When asked about why Hartney feels The Smith Street Band are constantly changing their sound, he put it down to one thing: Wagner’s poetic and earnest lyricism.

“Our band is so strongly lyrically driven. I think with the lyrics that Wil writes, he could do that over the top of any music and that’s the thing that people really relate to,” he explains.

“From the beginning, we’ve always had slower songs and heavier songs on all of our albums, but I think the thing is that it all ties it together through the lyrics. So, even if we did something that was musically an electronic song or something like that, it’s not going to lose fans because I think just the lyrics are the thing that connects with people so much. “I don’t think we’d really lose people that much if we drastically changed our sound, but even if we did, I don’t think we’re ever going to really change anything too crazy. “It’s always sort of going to be us, it might just be a trumpet playing a guitar line instead of a guitar, that sort of vibe.”

The Smith Street Band are heading on a 13-date national tour in August.