“The criteria for us for when we do a gig is that it’s got to be a big party atmosphere for us,” says guitarist Charles ‘Chucky T’ Thompson. “It’s not so much about the scale of the show, it’s just about making sure that when we do it, it’s with bands we love and it’s either for a good cause or a particular reason.”
They’re coming back from hibernation this time to help launch City Streets – the debut album from Thompson’s other band, The Outsiders. It’s going down at Max Watt’s on Friday night, and Thompson is very happy with the lineup.
“This is our big kick off for 2016,” he says. “We’ve got The Outsiders doing our album launch, and we’ve got the guys from The Ramshackle Army who we love playing with because they’re just so much fun. And opening support is the 131’s, who are a straight-up punk band fronted by Luke [Yeoward] who was in King Cannons. So it’s a pretty big bill, and it’s non-stop from 8.30, first band on, right through till past midnight. We’ll be going pretty hard, and we’ve kept it nice and affordable too.”
Thompson feels this show will help to appease the city’s punk loving punters after the recent loss of a certain rock, punk and metal festival – which, incidentally, Area-7 played last year. “From our perspective, it’s really sad that Soundwave’s gone,” he says. “There’s a little bit of a void at the moment. So we’re glad that we’re putting something on that allows the guys and girls that might have gone to Soundwave to come and see a punk show.”
Considering Thompson will be playing two separate sets on the night, he’s in for a heavy workload. But, although he is getting on in age, he takes it in his stride. “I sing and play guitar in The Outsiders, and just guitar in Area-7. I’m a bit of an old dog, but I think I can handle two sets in the one night.”
Area-7 are fairly selective with the shows they play these days, but The Outsiders are planning to keep moving after the Melbourne launch. “It’s unlikely that we’ll do a tour which is 20 days straight or anything like that. We’ll just try to get around all the different cities.”
As far as the future of Area-7 is concerned, they’re likely to carry on in laidback fashion, just picking the occasional gigs that they do want to play. However, we shouldn’t completely discount the possibility of new material.
“We have talked about maybe writing a handful of new songs and may be doing an EP or something like that. But it’s one thing to say it and it’s another to do it. We’re the type of band that, when we do that sort of thing we tend to do it properly. So if we do it, we’ll do a clip, put out some new merch and do a whole bunch of shows. We still want to be involved in some way.”
BY ROD WHITFIELD
