Violent Soho
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Violent Soho

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While the band have performed a handful of shows across the country since winding down their album touring cycle, the upcoming national tour marks the band’s first headline run of dates in over two years. As Luke explains, the outfit have been keeping themselves busy with preliminary groundwork on their follow-up LP. “Basically it’s just been about writing the album. It’s really hard to write while touring, especially in America. We’re sharing one hotel room, so to get time alone to write while people want to sleep is hard. The rest of this year, besides touring, has just been about hitting the rehearsal room. We have a lot of ideas to work through. Just throwing songs at the band and seeing what works and what doesn’t.

“It’s funny, after all these years of playing you find what you used to like and what you used to be happy with you now find boring. It’s a natural progression – you need to keep writing until you’re happy. It took a while to find our feet, but now we’ve hit our stride and heading into summer to record our whole second album. Tinderbox was done as a teaser for the record, I guess. Just writing, writing, and doing more writing.”

Tinderbox marks the first release from Violent Soho since freshly inking a deal with the I OH YOU stable. “When we got back from America I had never even heard of I OH YOU. Then I heard of them through Shane from DZ Deathrays because we caught the same bus in the morning. So it was in the back of my head. Then I remember seeing Bleeding Knees Club around and thinking they’re such a good band. It came about and then I met [label founder] Johann [Ponniah], then I saw that I OH YOU were really young but they have just the right attitude when it comes to putting bands out there. They just try and create a party and make it fun, that’s the way I see it. And it is fun,” Luke laughs, as if recalling a multitude of heady jaunts at once. “They put the bands out there without sacrificing any of the music or making people do shit they don’t want to do. We’re really happy.”

With an ever-changing musical climate, Luke is philosophical about Violent Soho’s successful homecoming after spending considerable time Stateside. “In Australia it’s hard. Yeah you could get played heaps on triple j, but if you compare them to Nova, is it success if you get on that radio station instead? Or if you don’t get on Big Day Out? There are so many ways bands can be perceived as being successful or not. I never really thought about it. I care if my band is touring and working. So I suppose success is if you can keep going and keep working,” Luke muses. “I think the album did well in Australia. To get nominated for an ARIA is pretty cool. I don’t know what the hell they base that on,” he laughs. “And record sales, I don’t think they really mean anything these days. If you get high record sales, doesn’t it just mean a heap of old people are buying it? That’s the way I see it, they don’t know about Rdio or Spotify, they’re just buying it from JB Hi-Fi. I don’t know if I want a heap of old people buying my music. In all honesty man, if we came back from America and no-one wanted to work with us and no-one came to the shows, then I’d accept it. But there was enough drive there when we got back, we were thinking ‘this is awesome’. For me, that’s success.”

Etched upon the coat of arms-style artwork for Tinderbox you’ll find the 4122 area code – representing the band’s home suburb of Mansfield. The championing of the ‘burb is an indiscernible blend of pride and pisstake. “It’s funny, I think we sold it so much that people think it’s a town, but it’s a suburb. I think there is something special about Mansfield and the postcode 4122. What I think that makes it special is that for one, it’s where the band grew up. It’s special for us. I think it kind of says something when there is a ridiculous amount of churches for a small area, Pentecostal churches and schools. So I think it kind of stands apart. That’s what we were surrounded by growing up, and I think it’s always going to have a place in our music as what we revolt against,” he grins.

BY LACHLAN KANONIUK