It's rare that an unknown band's CD works its way across your desk and makes an instant impact. Rare, but so very rewarding when it does. So it was with the Hoodlum Shouts, a four piece rock band from Canberra made up of brothers Sam and Josh Leyshon (vocals/harmonica and drums respectively), Luke Robert (bass/vocals) and Mike Caruana (guitar, vocals). The band summon the tense ghosts of Midnight Oil and The Dead Kennedys as much as evoke more recent locals like The Nation Blue, The Drones and curiously - but with great affect - early Art of Fighting. There's a rural melancholy to their angst, one that has room for harmonica, field recordings and sparse, hanging chords, as much as powerhouse drumming, thundering riffs and the taught, captivating, wobbly voice of Sam Leyshon.
Hoodlum Shouts have only just self-released their debut six-track EP (Horses and Human Hands
) and are yet to play a show outside of the ACT and NSW. We spoke to drummer Josh Leyshon over email about where the band have come from, where they're going next and what they're on about.
Hoodlum Shouts - 'History's End'
So who are you?
We’re all more or less from Canberra and have been playing in various rock/punk bands for years. Those bands had either finished or dried up and we were looking for something else to do. We all knew each other from playing together previously, and we all knew each others playing style and sound so it was a fairly straight forward process of getting everyone together. We’ve only played a handful of gigs locally because we’ve put a lot of effort getting our EP done first. Now we have something to work with and follow up with touring. We have a run of shows on at the moment in Canberra for our EP launches and around those we are getting regional shows and Sydney and Melbourne before the year is out.
There's six songs on the release but it runs at half an hour. Is it a short album or long EP?
Some people have called it an album but it’s an EP. Although we’re not too concerned with categorisation. We would probably consider an album for us to be over 45-50 minutes.
What was the recording/writing process? The production sounds excellent; it's clear and melodious but suitably heavy without sounding thin or overcooked.
We had pretty much been writing for most of 2008. We booked the studio (Damian Gerard) at the start of 2009 and worked towards getting everything ready for a pretty tight session of recording for 3 days, mixing for 2, and final mastering. It was very much a live style of recording, not too many studio tricks or anything like that. The songs were complete before we entered the studio, apart from the odd tweak here and there. I really think it captured a vibe, a real snapshot in time as everything was done so close together and we had little time to dwell on it hence the result, warts and all.
Apart from geographical location, we chose Damien Gerard Studios because we really thought it suited our style. It’s a small studio in Balmain which mainly records rock bands. If you look at their credits there are a lot of old Aussie rock bands that have been there at one time or another, from Celibate Rifles and Front End Loader to Rob Hirst and Hoodoo Gurus. Also we know a few Canberra bands that have used them in the past and they have said good things. (Engineer) Russel Pilling was excellent to work with. He really knows his stuff, loves his rock and really knew what we were on about. You get the feeling he's been doing this for a long time. It was a very smooth process, we couldn’t be happier with the result.
Hoodlum Shouts - 'Tony Mudgee'
The lyrics (and much of the atmosphere) seem steeped in a colonial/rural kind've angle. Maybe it's the Midnight Oil vibe of the passionate wobbly voice and the harmonica with the rock guitars, but is that kind've thing something that the band talks about? Or cares about?
Yeah it is somewhat directed toward that aesthetic, though it's not entirely resolved. Sam (Leyshon, vox/harmonica) is definitely interested in those themes, as we all are. All members have contributed to the lyrics to some degree but also it is a reflection of our current physical and social surroundings up here in the bush capital. The music definitely evokes those themes so I'm fairly certain there is a subconscious thing happening there. Its funny someone once mentioned we sound like Oils on Valium, probably due to us being down tempo and a bit heavier in comparison. I can see some similarities and we all love and have a lot of respect for bands like the Oils but we assure you it's not intentional and we are all about our own brand of noise.
What sort've bands are you into that have maybe brought you to this point?
We are into a lot of music. Without mentioning a thousand names, bands we dig in a rock setting are fairly raw, honest, and loud but with something a little different to offer. They’re often bands that don’t do things by the book production-wise or arrangement-wise. We really like bands that have a sound that defies the music style. For example Future of the Left - (
recent TheVine interviewees) - have this immense live, heavy sound, but they play fairly catchy tunes. Pop with hard rock sounds. Even though we are entirely different I think we have a similar sentiment to the way we approach our music. And regardless of style or sound, bands that approach music that way really inspire us.
The EP appears self-released. Is that the deal? Anyone distributing it at least?
We did it ourselves because it was the only way we thought we could get any attention, (so that) we actually have something in our hands to show people and we can go from there. We are currently getting it into select stores (Landspeed Records in Canberra, Missing Link in Melbourne), selling it at shows and via word of mouth. We don't have any distribution at the moment so we are going the DIY path for now.
What's next?
We're currently playing a bunch of shows and are booking regional towns and cities for the rest of this year. You can check our myspace for dates. We are also aiming to get an album done within a year.
www.myspace.com/hoodlumshouts