Interviews

Twelve years ago one of Australia’s most hard-working bands started off in Brisbane when Shane Parsons and Simon Ridley moved from Bundaberg for university studies, and soon after they formed DZ Deathrays and started playing local house parties in Australia’s third biggest city. A decade later and after relentlessly touring the world, including opening up nights for bands as Foo …

1977, the year of the so-called “German Autumn”, when the Baader-Meinhof axis flared up in one last burst of terrorist outrage before being effectively eradicated by a wave of suicides, was the year in which Krautrock as a whole was winding down or settling into mainstream, de-radicalised careers. The Neu! legend, however, was destined to lie in abeyance for decades. …

Victorious and flagrantly bloke-ish, Mando Diao stormed onto the indie rock scene with their debut album “Bring ‘Em In” in 2002. Soon after their debut it became clear that Sweden had its own band with the universal musical pedigree of Oasis and the same arrogance and tongue-in-cheek attitude that quickly earned them a following and lots of attention from media. …

According to pop folklore the garage (that abiding signifier of homely suburbia) was the place where aspiring guitar legends thrashed through their rehearsals. Thus “garage” became a sobriquet for the crude and raucous sounds pounded out by a legion of three chord wonders wielding Vox and Fender guitars, the mixture always heavily spiked with fuzztone distortion. However, garage is a …

For every rock’n’roll millionaire there are thousands of talented artists scratching out a living. The choice is a tricky one: to establish a career takes an enormous amount of work and time just to reach out to an audience and become established. One of those bands that continue their struggle, a band that certainly deserves a bigger audience considering their …

Sweden’s “best-dressed rockers” Royal Republic, as declared by a German magazine, were back with their fifth album “Club Majesty” in May last year, a band that built their reputation by hard work on stages across Europe. Their maniacal live shows and irrepressible sense of style and humour have earned them a well-deserved reputation and a huge fanbase across Europe, especially …