1.Growing Up
My parents took me to see Michael Jackson perform when I was pretty young. Ever since then I think I’ve wanted to have my own band. I feel like there’s so much music inside of me trying to get out! Much of my family are musical too, so I guess I decided quite early I’d be a songwriter.
2. Inspirations
I think as a human it’s easy to immortalise certain people you see achieving the things you’d like to. Michael Jackson and Queen have been my biggest musical influences this way. The first album I owned was Sum 41’s All Killer, No Filler and I’ve spent a lot of time listening to bands like Poison and songwriters like John Mayer and Dave Grohl.
3.Your Band
There’s me on vocals and guitar, Jono on lead guitar and BVs, Matt on drums and Vangel on bass. We all studied at the Australian Institute of Music. It’s exciting hearing the different flavours the guys bring to the foundations I lay – our different backgrounds fuel the creative process. We were pretty stoked to work on our record with Rick Will, who’s also produced artists like Diesel, Jimmy Barnes and Incubus. We also dig having Roly Elias mix us live.
4. The Music You Make
Without being purists, we love the idea of everything you hear live is us playing through our instruments. We like the idea of calling ourselves a rock band: playing alongside other bands like Rufflefeather and Blake Saban has brought this to life for us. We’ve also been shooting for a YouTube channel and will be releasing videos soon. If you see us play live, be prepared to get loose and dance: we’ll rock out as hard as we can for you!
5. Music, Right Here, Right Now
It can be really hard to ‘make it’ as an artist in Sydney. It’s easy to be blinded by the goal and lose sight of how to get there. I think the key is write songs, make records, shoot videos – just keep creating. Sydney is brimming with opportunities for artists, like the myriad of pop-up festivals. Get involved and don’t leave any rock unturned. There’s also stacks of original artists playing venues like the Brighton Up Bar. The only thing stopping you from going is… well, there’s nothing stopping you!
Kill It Or Face It is out Wednesday March 30 independently; and Oliver Goss Band play Brighton Up Bar onWednesday March 30, with Rufflefeather and Sabrina Soares.
