Scott & Charlene’s Wedding
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Scott & Charlene’s Wedding

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It was a good time all round for the band, and “the trip of a lifetime,” says Dermody. “I’m speechless. We loved it,” he continues. It was also a time for technical advancement, as Dermody is relatively new to the world of bar chords, taking it upon himself to learn them for their forthcoming third album, Mid Thirties Single Scene.

 

“We were doing some of the songwriting workshops and some of the kids could play an F, and I felt a bit out of my depth. I just learned bar chords for this record, and I’ve been playing for ten years.”

The Bedroom Suck Records website puts forward that the new album is “an ode to growing up, seeing more of life, and never really knowing where things will end up.” This was likely penned, says Dermody, by drummer and head of above-mentioned label, Joe Alexander, though it may have missed the mark slightly as a summary for the album.

“I think he was trying to be nice there when he said ‘growing up’,” says Dermody.

“It’s an ode to growing old, and being confronted with those difficulties. A mid-thirties single scene man, is different to finding yourself in your mid-twenties. You have a different set of obstacles and pressures when you get a bit older.”

Many of those mid-twenties concerns were captured in SACW’s first two albums, Para Vista Social Club and Any Port in a Storm. The former details shitty jobs, countless train rides and girls, as well as more sobering moments like the death of his mother, a passing he discovered while on a train, ironically, captured in Epping Line. The latter album documents a move to New York, subsequent homesickness and again, shitty jobs. And girls make another appearance too.

But the crappy and sometimes bloody jobs (listen to Gammy Leg and you’ll understand) and heartbreak are all Dermody’s, and that’s the theme that truly binds the albums. They are totally autobiographical.

“The music sounds a little bit different because there are always different members, and I’m growing and changing, but lyrically, I feel like the only thing that changes are the incidents and the actual events,” he says.

Of those incidents, love plays a part, but this time it’s a celebration more of adoration between friends, rather than the full-blown heartbreak romance songs that have been present in other releases.

 
Currently, Dermody has a seemingly attractive job working as a runner on the set of HBO television series The Leftovers. While making music for SACW is not a full time job in its purest sense, it “Will always be a full-time pursuit; always bubbling away there somewhere. But that’ll also be in the mix with painting and working as well,” says Dermody.

This painting, which appears on album covers and has been exhibited independently, is still alive, but the frequency of creation has waned since he returned from New York. But those feeling dismayed, worry not, because Dermody brings good news.

“There’s going to be an exhibition for the release of this record, where I’m drawing a portrait of every person in the band. It’s going to be in a truck, out the front of A Fan’s Notes on Sunday September 18,” he says.

Before that, SACW will play a show that’s part introduction to Mid Thirties Single Scene, part send off before their UK tour in October, and part just-for-the-hell-of-it at the John Curtin Hotel on Friday August 26. Dermody is pumped, but he seems equally ignited for supports Summer Flake, RVG and Crop Top.

“I’ve only seen RVG once and they’re amazing,” he dotes. “I saw them at the front bar at The Tote. I was lucky that I knew someone in the band because I was too nervous to ask any of the others. I was just blown away. They’re incredible.”

Following that, SACW will participate in Electric Goner Boogie, The Tote’s two-day hat-tip to Memphis festival, Gonerfest, which has hosted scores of Australian bands like Bitch Prefect, Terrible Truths and The UV Race.

Dermody recalls it as the highlight of their US tour back in 2014.  “They treated us really nicely, they had good crowds, and we partied really hard. It’s a great festival, and they’re really supportive of all of us. We’re really happy to be playing this show for Zac (owner of Goner Records) at The Tote. They’ve done so much for so many Australian bands,” he says.

Add to this busy schedule the process of accumulating material for video clips, “Maybe for Maureen and another song Distracted…there’s chatter around the place that Matt Neumann from ScotDrakula will help with that,” and you’ve got Dermody in a nutshell. But in spite of running around like the proverbial chook, you get the sense that Dermody, like your uncle, always makes time for a sincere and insightful chinwag, a quality captured by the stories in his songs.

BY IZZY TOLHURST