Ocean Alley
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Ocean Alley

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“We’ve just got back from playing a few gigs in Perth for the first time – it was an amazing experience,” enthuses bassist Nic Blom. “We spent the whole summer on the road and we loved it.” Not content to let the grass grow under their feet, Ocean Alley are loading up their faithful tour van once again and heading back out on tour to celebrate the release of Space Goat, the second single from their upcoming EP. “We’ve gotten pretty good at living on the road – we get a trailer for all our instruments and hook it up to the van. Can you believe that we manage to squeeze everyone in the back together? There are seven of us now; it’s always an experience,” he laughs.

Best friends from way back, Blom says forming a band was the natural next step after realising they could all play instruments by happy accident. So from humble beginnings in the backyard shed, Ocean Alley was born.

“When we were younger, a few of us were into heavy metal, hardcore stuff, and we’d go to the local underage club,” Blom explains. “They’d always have cool bands there so we thought, ‘Hey, we could do that.’ That’s also why we like to play all ages shows as much as we can, too.”

Blom says he and the guys are looking forward to playing their gig at Wranglers Studios so much that they’re willing to give up the Easter long weekend. “We’ve played there before and we were eager to get there again, and it just so happened that everyone was free that weekend, so we decided to jump on it. I can’t wait, because there are six tracks on the new EP and we’re planning to play three or four. There are a couple of heavier sections in these tracks, these songs are a bit grungier,” Blom reveals.

But for those of you who can’t wait to get your hot little hands on the new Ocean Alley tracks, Blom admits you’ll be waiting a little longer.

“We’ve recorded all of it, except one song. We need a chance to go back in, but because we’ve been so busy lately we haven’t had time. We’re hoping to put it out after this tour.

“We’ve got some horns on this EP as well,” he adds. “We’ve got a couple of friends to play on a couple of tracks: Jakob Keysell and Nate Porter from The Dinlows. I can tell, you it was a lot of fun.”

From the sound of it, Ocean Alley find kindred spirits in cool customers from the Illawarra in NSW, Blueberry Circuit, who are supporting the guys on several of their dates: “We’ve played a couple of shows with them and we’ve always got along well, so we thought they’d be a pretty good fit to be on the road with us, they have a similar sort of vibe. We never had that connection with a band on tour before.”

Ocean Alley’s natural laid-back approach to live performance and on-stage chemistry, are two of the things that set them apart from their contemporaries. “Each of the boys is pretty easy-going, we never have any arguments,” he says. “It’s all about sarcasm for us and making each other laugh.”

BY NATALIE ROGERS