“It went berserk,” says singer/guitarist Mathias Northway. “It went to #1 on Bandcamp and we’re looking at it going, ‘Are you serious?’ We couldn’t understand how. Of course [it was selling in] Melbourne, but it was mainly Germany, the States and Scandinavia.”
Twelve months after its initial release, Child has finally been pressed to vinyl, and you could accuse the band of being rather sluggish in transferring the album to shiny wax. In Child’s defense, however, they ran into a few obstacles along the way.
“With that [immediate response], along came about eight or so record offers,” Northway says. “We had an offer from [Austria’s] Napalm Records and they were trying to sign us good and proper. The contract and lawyers and negotiations took about four months, all for it to be withdrawn at the very last minute. That left a bad taste in our mouths, because we’d wasted so much time. We were about to change our lives to cater for it. As part of the contract, we had to tour Europe in July, so we were getting ourselves ready for that, but then it all fell through.”
Despite being understandably dismayed, this hiccup didn’t send Child straight back to independent squalor. Rather, the new batch of shiny LPs – which get launched this Friday at The Tote – wear the insignia of Berlin label Kozmik Artifactz.
“Kozmik Artifactz popped up and said ‘The rep from Napalm you’ve been dealing with is really gutted it didn’t work out, but we really want to press the record’.” Northway says. “We were like, ‘Oh man, of course. This is great.’ We went with them mainly because they’re really honest. There’s no strings attached. Basically they have the rights exclusively for vinyl, which means that we still own everything.”
Given this overseas deal has only just been finalised, one wonders how listeners in the Northern Hemisphere were directed towards Child’s music in the first place. Even Northway’s not quite sure, but he’s got a hunch.
“I think we’ve got to thank the internet bloggers,” he says. “Clint, who runs Hand of Doom Radio, he’s a champion for Melbourne heavy stoner, blues, doom music. He was one of the first to get wind of it and through all of his contacts throughout the internet, it just spread. I remember seeing his face at so many of our early shows and I think that’s where the Europeans caught wind of it.”
When the deal with Napalm Records fell through, so did Child’s European tour plans. However, they’re still determined to capitalise on the fervent European interest. As such, the plan is to be on that side of the planet by October.
“We’ve all gotten really excited about playing music and being able to do it in any way and anywhere we want,” Northway says. “If people are really appreciating what we’re doing, that gives us more incentive to do it and to do it better, with more honesty and more integrity. It’s a natural progression. We want to get ourselves into a position where we won’t have to worry about whether we can pay the rent or anything.”
Child aren’t the only Melbourne band presently making a dent in Europe. Without underselling the merits of their peers, Northway points out that Child’s breakthrough helped to spotlight what’s happening elsewhere in this town.
“With the attention that we were getting, all of a sudden the bands we were playing with were getting looked at as well,” he says. “Bands like Horsehunter, who I reckon are going to go on to big things, Watchtower, Seedy Jeezus. Our good mates Dead City Ruins, who we toured Indonesia with in November, they’ve just jumped over to Europe to make a crack of it and they’re going to stay there. King of the North are heading over, Don Fernando’s heading over.”
Melbourne’s been proudly boasting about its preeminent rock’n’roll ranks for decades. Now, thanks to the Internet, plenty of local underground acts are receiving attention from further afield. Still, it’s not as though giant bags of money are flying around.
“It’d be nice to live the fantasy and live all the stories that I’ve heard from older peers, like Masters Apprentices,” Northway says. “All this stuff like, ‘When we got signed, they flew us to England.’ But it just doesn’t happen like that anymore. The big labels, there’s only four of them. It’s worth just digging in. If you’re playing in a band, you may as well be starting a company at the same time.
“We all changed our lives in order to play in Child,” he adds. “I moved over from Adelaide in 2011 specifically to start this band. It’s fortunate that it worked out and got spread abroad. If it hadn’t, I’d still be busting my arse and playing just as hard as I am now.”
BY AUGUSTUS WELBY
