A few years ago the band underwent a brief hiatus and it seems that absence may have made their little fuzzed out hearts grow fonder. “No we haven’t taken much time off lately, we been pretty busy for a while now, with recording, playing shows and preparing to put the album out,” Phatouros says. In the face of unending challenges that life in the music industry brings, what is it that constantly brings The Volcanics back together?
“Lots of things in life are fun, but this band – to us anyway – has something about it that lifts the enjoyment level higher than other things we do on the side,” he says. “Maybe it’s the rawness of the music, who knows? We all have other friends that we play music with, when the band has no commitments. That’s pretty normal and healthy to do, though this band is our first thing.”
The thing that really sets The Volcanics apart from their contemporaries is their ability to carry their influences so strongly throughout their music, without ever sounding like a tribute or nostalgia band. Of course, to answer how they manage that is a near impossible task for Phatouros.
“I’m not sure if we can be objective viewing our own music and the band,” he says. “We don’t think about it. What we do is we write and play what we like and try making it sound the way we want it to. Influences, yeah they do sneak in and that ain’t a bad thing. Consciously, blatantly copying something or someone, well that’s a different thing. “
As they climb up the ladder of the Oz music industry, their journey has been a long one with three steps forward and then the odd lull but with regard to the local Perth industry and, to the other extreme, the global industry, The Volcanics have enjoyed a fair amount of support and recognition. “Yeah we’ve had a few great nights playing gigs with some great bands in WA,” he says. “I won’t go into naming ‘em all, but I gotta say that the night playing with The New York Dolls won’t be forgotten soon. We’ve toured around Australia when we’ve released stuff in the past, but not really consistently enough to expect much. The band’s had a little radio play with triple j and other stations around the country and also in Europe and USA. I think bands can get ahead in Australia without triple j saturation or any other station saturation. It’s definitely easier with them behind you, but if you really wanna do it clean, you can.”
With a single releasing looming and an eventual album release, Phatouros explains the different recording approach they took this time. “We recorded our first album in Melbourne at Birdland with Lindsay Gravina and Rob Long,” he says. “We had a great time working with them both, they were top shelf and really helped us a lot. This time with our new album we went into YoYo Studios in Perth with Kenny Watt engineering and Rob Younger producing, then went up to Sydney with Rob and Wayne Connolly mixed it with us there. That really made a huge difference working with those three cats, they all went beyond the call of duty and the band’s real lucky for that. We have our new single Get A Move On out now.
In the past, Phatouros has talked about his frustration with playing older songs from The Volcanics’ catalogue but he seems to be at peace with that idea now. “We still play a few older songs yeah. It don’t matter what date a song was written, if it moves ya it moves ya and some people wanna hear the songs they wanna hear,” he says. Sometimes it helps to look back in order to move forward and moving forward is something that The Volcanics desire as much as ever. “We hope the new music will help the band keep moving along on its path and hopefully play some new places we haven’t played before,” he says. “We’ve been offered some things in the past, that at the time we couldn’t accept, but now the band is a lot more mobile and free to do those things, which is pretty exciting. Hopefully with our new album, after playing Australia, we can get over to the good people in Europe and Japan who like our music. We’re glad those people are still waiting for the band to go to their city.”
BY KRISSI WEISS
