It was almost ten years ago that two school friends in the midwest of New Jersey began toying around with instruments in their parents’ basements.

Since those formative days, The Front Bottoms have gone above and beyond the wildest dreams of vocalist/guitarist Brian Sella and drummer Mathew Uychich. On the back of their fifth album, the ironically titled Back On Top, the folk-punk outfit were able to push through to a wider audience and even crack the top tier of the Billboard 200 album charts. Even better for Sella, however, has been the band’s extensive touring regime.

“We were on the road for more or less a year solid after the record came out,” he says. “I’m really grateful that people seemed to really enjoy the new music, and that the shows themselves were getting bigger. This record has taken us all over the place. It’s really been such a positive thing.

“For me, The Front Bottoms is a live band – the best way to experience this music is by seeing us play it, because that’s when you’ll really get it. For us to get to do that at all these amazing shows and these big festivals – I can’t begin to tell you what that means to me.”

Completed by bassist Tom Warren and multi-instrumentalist Ciaran O’Donnell, The Front Bottoms have built their way up from floor shows to theatre sell-outs and back again. Their incremental but steady ascent can be almost completely credited to their grassroots fan base, which has expanded with every release and resulted in a fandom unlike nearly anything else in the current realm of indie rock.

“Some things you just can’t explain – and that, to me, is definitely one of them,” says Sella of their rise from cult favourites to something resembling mainstream appeal. “It was actually on a tour that we did over here with The Smith Street Band where we started to see a big change in our audiences. We’d play some random place out in Ohio, not expecting anything of it, and something like 2,000 people would show up. We’d get all these messages online of people waiting in line to come and see us. When we played in New York City on that tour, I was getting all of these tweets about people that had slept on the pavement and camped out so they could be the first in line.

“To this day, that kind of response to what we do makes no sense to me. All I can say is that I really hope that Front Bottoms shows are safe places for these kids, who really just want to come along and express themselves.”

The Front Bottoms’ sixth album will most likely be written in 2017, although not necessarily released this year. Before we get to that, however, there is the small matter of their first-ever headline tour of Australia. With Adelaide’s premier melodic punks The Hard Aches in tow, the excitement for these relatively tiny club shows is already palpable. Sella, on behalf of the rest of the group, cannot wait.

“The way I see it is this: we are travelling to the other side of the world to play music. To have an intimate feeling with however many people that come to see you play, that really does mean a lot to us. I’m not going to say that it means more than one of those crazy 2,000-people shows, because we definitely love doing both. There is something really exciting, however, about having a touring relationship with a location that is still quite new. After the Smithies brought us out that first time, we were immediately in love with the place. We get to come back, and we get to play these new songs for everyone.”

You can feel Sella’s smile radiating down the phone line as he reiterates what is clearly a favourite mantra of his: “It’s all a positive thing, man.”

The Front Bottoms, along withThe Hard Aches, play The Bald Faced Stag on Friday January 27.

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