Sydney folk-rock band Little Bastard are touring this month in support of their debut album. The band’s drummer, Ross, gave JOSHUA BUTLER the lowdown on what to expect as they kick off the tour at Rad bar on Thursday.
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Who are Little Bastard?
Little Bastard are seven mates who really love playing music together.
Members in any previous/current bands?
We all have other projects going on . . . Dan [bass] and Liam [drums] play in a punk/metal band together. Johnny [vocals, guitar] plays in a pop/rock/psych band, I played in a folk band and write kids' songs. There's a lot of diversity in our musical careers. I think it helps with our creativity within the band.
How did the band start?
Johnny and Ed went to school together and were playing music together, and I came along and we all made a conscious decision to make a band where we were all fully and totally committed to the idea of writing and playing music all the time, not just for fun -though it is always fun - and then going back to a day job, but to actually go about making it our lives. Too many bands are awesome and do the hard yards, then get to a point where if they just kept going for another year, they could make a real impact. Then someone leaves because they're sick of being poor, or sick of being away from home, or whatever it might be, and the other guys are left holding the bag, and need to start again.
Describe your music?
Johnny and I have played in rock bands before, same with Dan and Liam, so there's definitely a rock vibe to the sound, coupled with that real love of traditional instrumentation of a more bluegrass line-up. It's essentially rock-country-bluegrass-punk-pop.
Tell us about your new album?
It's hard to picture how your first recording is going to turn out, but we all worked hard in the studio and it was just a really natural progression from spending so much time together on the road playing music, that it all came together pretty organically. We were lucky enough to have Lachlan Mitchell producing, who's made records for some amazing bands, including The Jezabels. That's where the "rock" thing really comes into the sound of the album, that sonic depth. He was a real part of getting the songs past that top layer of "these sound like bluegrass songs" thing.
Tell us about your tour?
We are on tour for about a month, and we get to go to some great places. We're all really excited to get back in the van and have a laugh again. We're also really stoked to be kicking it off in Wollongong. We've had some good times down there.