1. Growing Up
My mum immersed me in the greats from a very young age. Roy Orbison, The Everly Brothers, Chuck Berry, Leslie Gore, Patsy Cline, Del Shannon… She also force-fed me ABBA which I loathed at the time, but as an adult I’m in awe of their pop smarts and glad it’s now fused somewhere deep in my DNA. I think the main thing I took from being reared on this era of music is the importance of the song – a great vocal line and a solid structure. It’s definitely put me in the “three chords and the truth” school of songwriters.
2. Inspirations
Chuck Berry was probably the guy who lit the rock’n’roll fuse for me, but when I went out to discover contemporary music as a tween it was AC/DC and Guns N’ Roses that drew me in first. The strongest and most influential period for me was grunge. Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Soundgarden and Stone Temple Pilots were the soundtrack for my teenage years and remain some of my favourite acts of all time. A few of my favourite albums include Ænima by Tool, Jeff Buckley’s Grace, Vs. by Pearl Jam, Strange Tourist by Gareth Liddiard and any of the Rage Against The Machine stuff.
3. Your Band
We all cut our teeth on heavy stuff, loud guitars, big amps. I guess this is us mellowing a bit… A little bit. We love the folk and roots stuff but our rock background has imbued The Siren Tower’s music with a very strong backbone that lends everything an extra weight. Combined with the very strong and focused spirit of Australiana that we build our music on, the end result is something we hope is very unique. We didn’t set out to reconnect with the long-latent Oz rock sound but it seems to be an association people are making, which is cool.
4. The Music You Make
Stylistically we get thrown in the ring with artists like Chisel, Midnight Oil, Something For Kate, Paul Kelly and the like; and again, we’re thrilled to be uttered in the same sentence as those names. Something that we do share with that golden era of Oz rock is the importance we place on the live show. Ultimately we’re a rock band and we aim to leave everything on the stage. If people like the record we want to make sure they never forget the live show.
5. Music, Right Here, Right Now
The music scene’s the same as it’s always been for the most part; if you can wade through the over-produced cookie cutter stuff and the trendy fashionista shit, there’s great music to be found. For us, the hard part has always been just getting a foot in the door… we’re not what you would call a ‘hip’ band, no synths or banjos as yet, and radio is always hesitant to back something that doesn’t reflect the tastemakers of the day, so every tour happens when we work enough to save the money to do it. Every town we get to is a trip we’ve paid to make, but it’s worth it to us to take our music to the people that have found something in it; something that is of use to them.
The Siren Tower play The Great Northern, Newcaslte on Thursday October 31 and Upstairs Beresford, Surry Hills on Friday November 1.
