Jono Barwick, Hell City Glamours’ bassist and managerial guru, was on hand recently to chat about their forthcoming sophomore album, the difference between the music scenes in Sydney and Melbourne, and how exactly this opportunity to make their own beer came about.
As their presser gleefully puts it, “sure, they can’t get an album finished in four years, but when the chance to make their own beer comes up, it only takes a few months!” Barwick smiles laconically when I ask him about their follow-up to their 2008 self-titled debut, a snarling and rather wonderful concoction that posits what might happen if Guns And Roses, The New York Dolls, and Poison had an illicit love child.
The new album is coming, he promises. “It just needs to be mastered; we’re still fighting about track listing and stuff. It won’t come out until the end of the year! I’d say at this stage – I haven’t really sat down and thought about it too much – October. But it’s all done, we got the final mixes back about six or eight weeks ago, and it sounds pretty fucking good!
“Our new album is going to be a bit different,” he adds with a laugh. “It might surprise a few people!” How so? “There’s a couple of mellower songs,” he says. “I’m not saying they’re ballads, or anything, but [the album] does have more what you would call ‘chill’ songs. I mean, we’re already kind of an eclectic band, within our own style anyway! But there’s more backing vocals in there, and a couple that are straight-up pub rockin’ tracks as well, but yeah! It’s just different!
“And I wrote some bass parts that are too hard to play!” he chuckles. “Which is annoying! But I’ll have some practice before the gig!”
And now these cheeky blokes from Sydney have their own beer for the Good Beer Week closing party. (The two other bands gracing the Cherry Bar stage, Front End Loader and My Dynamite, will have their own beers as well.) How did the opportunity for their own beer arise?
“Well, Oscar (McBlack, vocalist) is actually the brewer,” Barwick explains. “He works for [Young Henry’s Brewery] in Sydney – and the Good Beer Week thing came around. Young Henry’s had a perfect opportunity to open up a market down here [in Melbourne], to expand from Sydney, and so it was finally time for us to get our own little brew together!”
So what kinds of beer are we going to be served on this most auspicious evening? Barwick grins. “Well, Oscar knows how to make beer, and he knows what we like – we’ve got a bourbon barrel-aged red ale going on for us. Front End Loader have a strong pale ale, and My Dynamite’s beer has chipotle in it! This is going to be the opening-up for Young Henry’s here in Melbourne, and as I’m the guy who lives down here, I’ll be helping this work for ‘em!”
I mention that I’m looking forward to trying their beer. Barwick smiles and says, “Me too!” Wait, you haven’t tried your beer yet? “Nope,” he beams, “it’s brewing as we speak!” And, he tells me, it doesn’t have any preservatives in it, which will certainly help in preventing (theoretically) any nasty hangovers.
When asked about the difference between Sydney’s and Melbourne’s music scenes, Barwick deadpans.
“Uh, there is one in Melbourne. That’s about it! Sydney’s been going through a real up-and-down time over the last ten years … venues closing, opening and shutting again – and there’s a distinct lack of small venues; which Melbourne has an abundance of. That’s how [bands] cut their teeth. You can get a gig here in Melbourne. In Sydney, you can’t. It’s not that there isn’t a lot of live music going on [in Sydney], but it is very, very hard to step it up and get a fan base.
“Melbourne’s a lot more vibrant, more people go to shows here – in Sydney, you can’t get people away from their phones! I think Sydney forgets that they have about a million bands right on their doorstep that are a million times better than the crappy bands they see from overseas. Shows sell out in Sydney all the time for those sorts of bands, but you can’t get 50 people through the door on a Saturday night to see something good from your next-door neighbour!” he finishes, with a laugh.
BY THOMAS BAILEY
