Who are we speaking with and what do you do in the band?
Tim Steward, I play guitar, sing, write songs, book tours, do artwork and boss everyone around.
You’ve recently teamed up with Poison City Records to re-issue your entire discography on vinyl. What sparked this project?
Andy from poison City came forward back in 2009 with the original idea. I guess it took a while to gestate, but here we are. We’re really grateful that such a hard working team decided we were worth taking on!
You’ve currently embarked on the national Early Years tour in celebration of the vinyl reissue campaign, focusing on your first two albums. Any highlights so far?
We really only did the one gig so far but it was amazing. Playing Wrote You Off, from Burn Out Your Name which was released 21 years ago, and having pretty much the whole crowd roar out the high harmonies… Wow, that was something else.
Screamfeeder have been together for over 22 years now, which is of course huge in band world. What’s been your secret?
Well a lot of it comes down to luck. We’re lucky that as people we get on well, amuse each other, and have that special something when we pick up our instruments in the practice room. Music comes to us easily, and we all enjoy the others’ style, taste and input. Plus we’re pretty driven. Our ethos as a young band was based on the indie punk scene in the ‘80s in America, where bands would record maybe two albums a year and tour the whole time. It seemed do-able, so we aimed for that as best we could. Australia having so much smaller a population kinda limited how fast we could record and how much we could tour. We pushed it as far as it could be pushed, in hindsight.
You have a slew of shows coming up this month, with the Early Years tour hitting the John Curtin Hotel on October 18 and then with just Tim & Kellie playing solo/duo on Sunday October 19 at Bar 303. What can fans expect from your upcoming gigs?
Well quite a bit of contrast. The full band gigs will be full-on loud, tons of leaping around and yelling really loudly, some sweating, spitting and all that. The duo gigs are a bit more like a laid back comedy show; we play a lot of Screamfeeder tracks and also some of our solo material, and we laugh a lot, get our shit tangled up, give each other funny looks, it’s way less organised. Kinda hard when there’s no drummer holding it all down behind you!
SCREAMFEEDER have been giving it for 22 years, and they’re gonna give a little more at The Curtin on Saturday October 18. For a quieter time, catch the Tim & Kellie solo/duo show on Sunday 19 at Bar 303.
