“I‘ve been trying not to freak out…” So begins the opening number and title track to The Hard Aches’ second EP,I Freak Out.
It’s a relatable sentiment for many anxious minds out there, but to be fair, nerves are also something that the Adelaide-based duo of Ben David and Alex Upton have had some trouble keeping in check lately. After all, who wouldn’t freak out at the prospect of undertaking a national tour with one of the fastest-rising rock bands in the country and a hyped UK act, AKA Luca Brasi and Moose Blood respectively? “It was huge,” says Upton, who provides drums and backing vocals in the band.
“Normally, we play to maybe 100 people, and that’s if we’re lucky. On this tour, we were playing to between 600 and 700 people every single night. These shows were just massive. Hell, even the rider was huge – I don’t think I’d ever played a show in my entire life before this tour where there was still beer left at the end of the gig. The Melbourne gig at the Corner was one of our best shows, Adelaide gave us a huge homecoming, Brisbane was a big party night, so was Hobart… There’s just too many highlights to pick from.”
I Freak Out was released just under a month ago through the band’s own Anchorhead Records, following on from the drop of their debut album Pheromones in May of 2015. Although this may seem like a relatively quick succession rate – striking while the proverbial iron is hot, if you will – the reality is that the Adelaide-based band are in a constant state of being one step ahead of themselves, due largely to their prolific songwriting nature. “A lot of the songs that ended up on Pheromones were actually written around the time that we put out our last EP [Organs & Airports] back in 2013,” explains Upton.
“By the time that we’d recorded them, they were at least 18-months old and had been a part of the setlist for ages. With I Freak Out, the songs kind of came together across a period of about nine months or so. Relatively speaking, it came to us a lot quicker – there was a much faster gestation. It’s been good to get to play so much new stuff and have something fresh in our shows for people who’ve been coming to see us for a while.”
Upton also mentions that there is plenty more where that came from. “There’s about a half-dozen new songs that we’re working on right now,” he adds. “There’s probably about 15 more that Ben has just written on his own too. We’ll probably get to work on all of those after this tour and hopefully have an album ready for next year.”
The EP was recorded at Birdland Studios in Melbourne, where its creation was overseen by in-house producer Lindsay Gravina. If his name isn’t immediately familiar, the bands with which he’s worked in the past – The Living End, Jebediah and Spiderbait – certainly will be.
“His studio was really nice,” says Upton of working with Gravina. “His equipment was incredible too. It was such a pleasure to use. Lindsay is probably the first proper producer that Ben or I have ever really worked with – he took on a completely different role to what either of us were probably expecting. The experience was really interesting. It gave us a totally new way of thinking about the way that we make music and the way we record it. I feel like the songs on the EP are all the better for that.”
Prior to heading out on a headlining national tour with Melbourne band Foley!, the band have released ‘Gut Full’, the EP’s third single. Its accompanying video was released last week, making it their fifth in a 12-month period. It’s no accident – creating videos has come to be one of the band’s primary passions.
“I think what I love the most about music videos is that, for us, it’s a chance to hang out with a bunch of our mates and do something that’s fun and something that’s creative,” Upton says. “Better yet, if we don’t have any ideas for what we want to do for a song, then we’ve got a whole think tank to work with – that’s how the video for ‘Glad That You’re Gone’ came about, which was a few of my ideas but mostly our mate Kieran, who also directed it. The video for ‘Loser’ was more or less my brainchild. It’s probably my favourite video out of the ones that we’ve done so far.”
Each of the band’s videos feature what are ostensibly cameos for the Adelaide music community, with appearances from the likes of singer-songwriter Todd Fogarty and Hyder Seek vocalist Bec Stevens. One sneaky reference, however, came in the clip for ‘Glad That You’re Gone’, where a game of Scrabble is being played and the tiles spell out the phrase “ROADHOUSE SUCKS”, alluding to a local folk-punk outfit that the band are mock-rivals with. “That was defintely Ben’s idea,” laughs Upton. “It’s all good, though – those guys ended up getting a bit of revenge by taking a screenshot of the only moment I’m in the video and them making it their cover photo on Facebook.”
The Hard Aches play Newtown Social Club onFriday November 4 with Foley!, and also at Yours And Owls festival, Stuart Park, Wollongong, Saturday October 1 – Sunday October 2.I Freak Out is out now through Anchorhea/Warner.
