DIANAS
Nathalie Pavlovic, Dianas
Nathalie Pavlovic, guitar/vocals How would you describe your Big Splash experience to this point? It’s been really great - minus the nerves associated with being ‘judged’ - all the bands are super friendly and we’ve seen some cool shows
THE BIG SPLASH Entertain Us...
Timothy Gordon, Lucas Jones, Matty Van Leeuwin and Nathalie Pavlovic pre-Big Splash Photography: Michael Wylie Location: Beatty Park Leisure Centre
The Big Splash 2013 Grand Final happens this Saturday, August 10, at The Bakery, with Scalphunter, Dianas, These Winter Nights and Apache, plus after-party guests The Chemist and Sugarpuss. BOB GORDON made the finalists jump in a pool in the middle of winter for our front cover. It was a Nirvana Nevermind homage, honestly. It’s been a friendly battle happening for the last few months, but it all comes down to makes the biggest splash this Saturday at The Bakery. The heats were hotly contested at Mojos, Ya-Ya’s, The Bird and the Rosemount Hotel, with four grand finalists emerging but many more bands have come a long way, along the way, and
will no doubt be hitting stages more often around Perth. Saturday’s first place-getters will receive $10,000 cash; Second place-getter will receive $2,500 in prizes (courtesy of Kosmic & Yo-Yo Studios); third place gets to play The Beaufort Street Festival (courtesy of Jump Climb).
Have you discovered any bands that you particularly like? Golden String is a pretty new band who were really cool Did you enjoy being a Nevermind baby for the photo shoot? It was pretty fun, the water was so nice! Swimming in winter is pretty good. After a while though it got pretty cold (laughs).
How have others described your music? How do you describe it? We quite enjoyed Justin Walshe’s introduction on the semi-final night. I think he said something like ethereal garage pop. I guess we would There’s also the Enchantment Award, describe it as surfy/garage/dark-bubblegum-pop. presented by The City of Fremantle which will Actually I stole that from someone else’s description as see a band securing a performance on Saturday, well. I think it about covers it though. November 9, at The Norfolk Lanes Festival. Entry is $15 (plus booking fee) If your band wins the $10,000 prize what will you through nowbaking.com.au or $20 at the door do with it? from 8pm. We really want to record an album! So most of it will go towards everything to do with that. We also really need to buy a good guitar amp, we still just borrow our friends’. It’s pretty bad.
SCALPHUNTER Matty Van Leeuwin, bass
scene, and for us getting to break out of our normal Oh wow (laughs) this is always the hardest punk/rock/hardcore scene for a few shows has been question. Ah, I guess someone once described us as a eye opening and a great learning curve. mix between The Bronx, Every Time I Die and Cancer Bats, but with an infectiously upbeat attitude. But I Have you discovered any bands that you think we all really just play what comes out, we are particularly like? definitely a go-with-the-feel type of band and just From The Big Splash? Yeah, for us the two play music we love to hear. Obviously we all come bands we have played with that stand out so far are from a rock’n’roll /punk background and we can’t The Dianas and Red Engine Caves, both bands that deny our roots, but we are always looking to expand we dig heaps. Also from our heat we loved Leure, our sphere of influence. In a line, she was awesome. The calibre of musicianship we Scalphunter are a fun lovin’, high energy punk have seen has us all banging our heads together rock’n’roll machine! wondering, ‘why us?!’ If your band wins the $10,000 prize what will you Did you enjoy being a Nevermind baby for the do with it? photo shoot? We have a 10” EP coming out in To be honest I did, it was a great way to November and a 12” split with three or four other Scalphunter meet the members of the other bands in the final bands from around Australia coming out early How would you describe your Big Splash and also chill out after a week of solid gigs - did I next year, plus we only just released our WA punk mention we played four shows last week? Was 7” split a week ago, so for starters we will be paying experience to this point? Oh wow, firstly let us just say that great to represent Scalphunter at The Big Splash off all that. Next up is to head back over East again Scalphunter feel completely privileged to not only competition and would gladly do it all over again. and finally include all those places we wanted to have made to the final, and that the quality of Even got a lift home from the photographer who go but couldn’t afford from Adelaide to Brisbane and everywhere in between! We are also lining up all the bands that we have played with has been was a supreme human being! a South East Asian tour for next year so the $10k amazing. Just getting to share a stage with them is just awesome! The Big Splash is really bringing How have others described your music? How do will go a long way to helping us get our tunes to a whole lot more people. great quality bands to the forefront of the WA music you describe it?
Apache
APACHE
Timothy Gordon, vocals How would you describe your Big Splash experience to this point? Incredibly surprising, in the best way possible. I usually don’t really support the animosity that band competitions tend to create between musicians, whether they realise it or not, but The Big Splash has really just been all fun and games with a bunch of amazing organisers and musicians. I really look forward to seeing it develop over the next couple of years.
THESE WINTER NIGHTS Lucas Jones, guitar/vocals and hop away with your lawnmower. I’ve lost sight of where this analogy is going. But yeah, The Big Splash has been awesome. We’ve had the opportunity to play at some killer venues to some incredible crowds with some insanely awesome and inspiring bands, and there are simply not enough adjectives in the world to describe how good it’s been – we’re really thankful to have been a part of it all! Also, Andrew (Ryan) and Maria (Florides) have been beyond awesome. They’ve given us so much feedback and guidance to improve us as a band in general, and we really can’t thank them enough for that.
These Winter Nights How would you describe your Big Splash experience to this point? The Big Splash experience has been a bit like getting a pet kangaroo. It can be exciting and awesome, with the kangaroo teaching us how to box and whacking us in its pouch and hopping us around places. But it can also be kinda nerveracking, because at any moment the kangaroo could suddenly go mental and kick you in the face 14
Have you discovered any bands that you particularly like? Yeah, definitely! Seriously, every band that we’ve seen and played with have been insane, but personal stand-outs for me have been Apache, Lanark, Scalphunter, Golden String, UPNUP, Spaceman Antics and Villain. All great bands creating some really cool music, and I’d highly recommend checking them out if you haven’t already! Did you enjoy being a Nevermind baby for the photo shoot? Yeah it was great fun and a really cool concept! I don’t think I’d actually been in a legit body of water for quite a while before the shoot, so I had to kinda relearn how to swim/float/flop
Have you discovered any bands that you particularly like? The quality of the bands in The Big Splash is absolutely superb. These Winter Nights have been a about for it. But yeah, it was cool, and it was the personal standout, they sort of seem like a really nice first real photo shoot thing I’d ever done, so it hug in musical form. But all the heats that I have been was an awesome experience. to have never really seemed like ‘heats’, just really, really damn good gigs. How have others described your music? How do you describe it? Did you enjoy being a Nevermind baby for the photo We’ve been described as having an epic shoot? and cinematic sound, and being like Mumford & Yeah, that was a funny one. I hadn’t really Sons crossed with Something For Kate crossed with been relayed the getting-really-wet details of it so it Sigur Rós, which is like, the greatest description we was a rather big shock, especially as I had to wear those could ever have imagined! clothes for a gig at The Bird later that night. But who We describe ourselves as being an doesn’t love a good old fashioned dip? alternative folk band; we each have a range of different styles of music that we listen to and are How have others described your music? How do you each influenced by, so we bring them all to the band describe it? and blend them together to make our sound. But We keep getting told that we are rather yeah, Mumford/Something For Kate/Sigur Rós, I’m psych rock which I personally find rather confusing, as down with that. long as people don’t describe it as shit I don’t really mind how they want to describe it. I’d probably describe it as If your band wins the $10,000 prize what will you alt rock but that sounds pretty boring, so let’s go with do with it? music that you would listen to as the rapture begins. We’re currently in the process of recording our debut album, so if we win the cash we’d be If your band wins the $10,000 prize what will you do putting it towards all the mixing and mastering with it? costs and also towards funding a killer tour. Also I’ve been pitching a couple of different ideas we’re really keen to make some These Winter Nights to the band but the common consensus is to continue socks... like, the really comfortable fluffy ones. So building the studio that we have been putting together if we have any money left over we’d also put it so that we can have more control over our songwriting towards their production. Actually, thinking about process and keep developing as a band. Although I it, we might just make $10,000 worth of socks. Socks really want to invest in some sort of $10,000 pillow fort are awesome. and some really nice pajamas. X-Press – First on the street, Wednesdays