The Scare interview
Dardenelles interviewThe Valentinos interviewPharaohs interviewQueensland may seem like an unlikely breeding ground for an aggressive punk rock band, however for the last two years The Scare have been blowing audiences away with their own brand of blistering punk both in Australia, and most recently in the UK, where they have been based for the larger part of this year. Reputedly knocking back offers from major labels, and with write ups in NME and major support slots for bands such as The Blood Brothers, Alexisonfire and Pretty Girls Make Graves, The Scare look set to take on the world.
How and when did The Scare meet?The Scare finally and completely came together in September 2005. We had been together more or less about one year, having picked up Brock Fitzgerald about half way along. Wade, then with his band Taking Sides, became our new bassist one August night in Brisbane last year. We were all randomly hanging out in an alley behind some strange building. None of us knew any of the others would be there at that point in time or why we were there and we were all kind of looking confused at one another, then looking at Wade – all thinking the same thing. We told him ‘yo Wade why don’t you just fuck your life up completely and come hang out with us for an eternity of mental torture, bad luck and scraping the barrel’ and he was like ‘sounds amazing doods, my bags are packed’.
How would you describe your music?I probably wouldn’t. However, I’d really like to come across as a right wanker so I’ll say something like, ‘we like to make a kind of music that not even we understand. That way it never gets boring’.
You guys apparently refused deals from major UK labels when you were living there recently, what was your reasoning for doing this?Apparently one interested label said they didn’t like some demos we did earlier in the year so before anyone even got a chance to tell us what ‘direction’ they think we should head in we decided, ‘hey let’s go and do some more demos like a billion times better than the last ones and just tell them to fuck off’. We didn’t like their roster of bands among other things.
Who would you say are some of your biggest influences musical or otherwise?Personally (not the whole band), I take influence from the Gipsy Kings and Ian Svenonius musically but I guess also a mixture of the films Eraserhead by David Lynch and Paul Thomas Anderson’s Boogie Nights with Marky Mark.
After living and performing both in the UK and Australia, how does the Australian music scene compare to the often hyped overseas music scenes? It doesn’t compare really. Unlike Australia, the UK has an actual music industry that small bands can work in to generate a fan base and become an established band. It works because of certain tools like NME. It also works because live music culture is just as important to the English people as sport and in compliance with its massive drinking culture there are fucking thousands of good pubs and venues all over the country. Venues exist because poker machines aren’t a big deal so pubs still see a viable profit in hosting live bands.
What are the greatest and the worst experiences The Scare have had as a band?The greatest would be the recording session we did in France recently. It was at a studio on a farm in Normandy and we had everything we needed, we all clicked perfectly, the songs came easily, we were completely in our own world.
The worst would be the day we had a show with Forward Russia in Leeds. The day consisted of us getting lost on the way and crashing into some crazy woman’s car. The woman called the police which was totally unnecessary. We left her and got pulled over by the police so they could confiscate our van for not having insurance. The police arrested our tour manager Phil and took him away. Forward Russia’s tour manager had to come and rescue us from this busy under pass in downtown Leeds. Phil returned after sound check and went to have pizza in a little park together. After we ate we found a half-dead guy bleeding all over his head and upper body. He’d obviously been beaten badly, though from a distance we just saw red and being Aussies we just assumed that it was paint and he’d been chroming. How wrong we were, so we called an ambulance and tried to help him and while we were waiting for the ambulance some of his drunken friends threatened us and tried to chase us away. That was all in the space of about three hours.
Has it been a struggle to get your music out to the masses, or have things sort fallen into place naturally?I’m not really sure if we’ve tried to get our music out to the masses but things haven’t really fallen into place naturally for us. We’ve worked really hard with touring and basically giving up any other aspects of our life we once cared about because we love playing music and we’re really happy about that.
When are you planning on releasing an album?Next year.
What’s next on the agenda for The Scare?Recording an album, Touring and hopefully going to the United States once we’re all 21 or maybe before. I don’t really care