“We did a reunion show in April 2011 with Horsell Common at the Arthouse,” remembers guitarist/vocalist Andrew Kitchen. “We got to play there and that all came about through a casual chat on Facebook that turned serious. We were amazed to see the response and the fact that there were people from every part of Australia at that gig, it was just amazing. And for me personally and for the other guys, it was just a highlight of 2011 just to get back and play these songs again. In the three years that we didn’t do anything, we got the occasional offer and none of them really sat well with us, we were like ‘we could play that’, but we didn’t want to be that band, you know, that finished up and just kept doing gigs. So I really, for no other reason than to have integrity and that, I really just wanted to go ‘well look, it’s going to have to be unreal for us just to go, “Alright, well let’s really consider it.”’”
Those final shows at the Arthouse; which brought together bands both old and new and in many cases reunited, proved to have just the right ingredients to get the guys in Antiskeptic back up on the stage again and from there, according to Kitchen, there really was no turning back. “The main reason was actually the response from that gig, and I guess I also feel like the band took several years to kind of really find our sound. And I reckon by the last EP that we put out, we’d actually kind of found it and arrived.”
With the help of hindsight, the last few years really helped Kitchen put the whole thing into some sort of perspective and realise just exactly what the band meant to him. “I guess in the time off, being in a band for so long and then not being in a band you just very quickly realise just what the band was for you,” he adds. “In some ways it was like your social circuit as well, so like you’d have really good mates in other states around Australia and then you’re not in the band anymore and it’s like when do I see them again? So its like, if anything the three years off has just made me realise just what an amazing experience Antiskeptic was and the main thing is that I get to have however much of that over again. Performing music to people, writing music, recording music and performing music to people really is just such an honour.”
Phase two of Antiskeptic has seen the band unveil a new lineup, as well as expanding to become a four piece with the addition of a second guitarist. When the upcoming tour finally comes up in our conversation, Kitchen cannot contain his excitement at the prospect of getting up on stage again and rocking out just like the old days. “I think potentially that moment when you walk out on stage and hopefully people just raise up a big chant, you know, and the first thing I’ll do is swing the guitar around my back and do a whole massive row of high-fives across the front of the stage. It’s just a magic moment, you know performing songs for people and we’ve got a few new songs that we’re pretty keen to play for people as well.”
In under a year Antiskeptic has gone from a chance reunion show to preparing for their first Australian tour in years. There’s a new lineup, new songs and in talking to Kitchen, you get the sense that there is a whole new energy to the band and a whole new sense of enjoyment. “Part of the whole experience, in fact most of the experience of getting over to Adelaide and Sydney just for this particular tour is the travel. And we are, like we’re not flying, we are driving in the Tarago all together so it should be a lot fun. As cheesy as it sounds, half this tour will be about getting that energy and half of that develops, I think, off stage and getting to know each other, having fun driving and talking to each other about books and songs and movies and life and relationships and whatnot. And that’s kind of how I think the band really becomes a unit.”
BY JAMES W NICOLI
