AFTER touring and roving the globe The Delta Riggs are back in Australia and the Illawarra is one of the first stops on their calendar.
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The Melbourne band’s rise to fame has been rapid since the release of their debut album Hex.Lover.Killer in late 2013 and the high profile support spot for British rockers Kasabian in Australia in 2014.
With true punk-rock swagger, these four lads turn genre on its head, blending high-energy melodies inspired by the likes of Beastie Boys and Outkast with the “soul and rhythm” of blues and roots. The resulting ’70s psychedelic-punk sandwich will blow your socks off.
Most recently, the Delta Riggs have returned from playing the South by SouthWest Festival in the US. Earlier this year they supported the Foo Fighters in Australia and headlined at regional festival Groovin the Moo.
This month the band will perform at Byron Bay’s Splendour in the Grass before heading to Stuart Park in Wollongong to make up part of the massive line-up for the two-day Yours and Owls Music Festival (October 2-3).
Still revelling in the rave reviews of their latest album - album Dipz Zebazios, bass player Michael “Monty” Tramonte said the band were “pumped” for the Wollongong outing.
Tramonte explained that there had been a notable shift away from Hex.Lover.Killer with the new album exposing a more “natural, authentic and current” reflection of where the band currently are and want to be.
“We started building up our first album (Hex.Lover.Killer) in 2009, we just needed to get a lot of those songs out, it wasn’t really indicative of where we were at,” Tramonte said.
“This was a fresh start. In one year we had Dipz Zebazios recorded and released and it was our take on what we want to do now.
“A lot of the subjects in the new album are loosely based around celebrity pop culture and just generally, the world, as we see it.”
While the name Dipz Zebazios is the product of a fleeting conversation on Greek Mythology over a selection of “chips and dips”, Tramonte said each song was individually “treated as something new”.
“We are punk at heart,” he said. “But punk for me is an attitude and then there is a lot of soul and feeling as opposed to sound … that is where the blues comes in and then there is that groove and hip-hop.
“And then there is a bit of psych in there … and all kids of S#%t.”
The Delta Riggs are finally enjoying some of the perks of the music industry in what has been a “long hard slog” to where they are now.
“It didn’t come immediately,” Tramonte said. “We started playing in 2010… It took us so long to get here.
“It didn’t really happen for us until August 2014 when we played with Kasabian and then by sheer luck we got to play with the Foo Fighters.
“It’s a really good feeling amongst the group right now, people who know us know how hard we have worked, so it definitely feels like a bit of an achievement.”
Indeed the hard work continues as the band look to record their next album, while at the same time slotting in gigs nationwideand being careful not to “stay idle for too long”.
See The Delta Riggs live in Wollongong and get tickets for the Yours and Owls Music Festival on October 2-3 on this link or visit yoursandowls.com.au