Tangled Magazine

Written and Interviewed by Jamie Evangelista

You’ll be hearing the word ‘Skybombers’ a lot lately and get used to it. They’re one of the hottest new bands to look out for in 2008 and these rockers from Melbourne, Victoria are about to release their debut album ‘Take Me To Town’ nationally. Tangled Magazine chatted to Ravi (bass, vocals) on their songwriting inspirations, encountering cyclones, hanging out with Dave Grohl and how sticky icepoles destined their band name.

How did the band come together?
We’ve known each other since we were twelve years old and all went to the same school. Actually, Sam and Scotty didn’t like each other, we weren’t all friends. Sam and Scott really hated each other in school so it’s kinda funny, they have to become friends after the band started. We’re best mates now anyway.

How did you first get into music?
When I was ten years old, at school we were forced to learn an instrument and everyone had the choice of what you want, everyone was choosing the saxophone. Apparently that was the cool instrument back then, I don’t know why and I chose the double bass cos’ I thought it looked mad. I thought it was the biggest cello I’ve ever seen. So I tried that, got into that from ten years old then I realised that I was a short kid with this huge double bass on my back like a turtle or something like that [laughs]. I decided to get rid of the double bass and carry something which was easier which was the bass guitar. So that was my move from double bass to bass guitar.

Where did the name Skybombers come from?
There’s this ice cream chain around the corner where we used to go to school and they used to sell these really dodgy icypoles, you know the real sticky ones which you try to take it out of the wrapper, it sticks to the wrapper? Well those were called Skybombers. It’s not an eventful name, we just thought it was funny so named it something that was cheap and dirty [laughs].

When you released your EP, Sirens, did you feel it was a good representation of the band at the time?
Back then, we recorded that three years ago now. At the time it was a great representation of what we did. The reason why we recorded that was purely to give that to our friends, just a thanks for coming to the shows. We never thought it was going to be an EP or anything like that, it was just like demos to us. Then that got picked up by management but it never became an EP. This is what we were doing at the moment, it was the five songs we did. It’s kind of change a lot since then. There wasn’t really any ballads and now we do some ballads, heavier stuff. There’s two tracks on the EP which is on Take Me To Town so they got onto it. They made the cut! Some songs we still play, we don’t play three of the five songs anymore. There’s no room for them on the set now.

You’ve played not only at The Viper Room but also various venues across LA. That must be pretty surreal.
It’s pretty unreal to let alone play interstate but playing international was just amazing. It’s a great feeling, it’s humbling to know that we’ve been overseas and played shows out there. We’ve played The Viper Room three times. We played The Roxy as well which is on Sunset. We just got off doing a two month tour around America, we came back a couple of weeks ago and got us to eighteen different states and it was more than thirty shows that we did. We’ve travelled quite a bit in America which is a lot of fun. We saw cyclones, we were in deserts half the time, Playing in America is such a blessing. Not many bands get to go overseas and we do really appreciate the luck we’ve had to go overseas and it’s awesome.

Back to the cyclone, what happened there?
We were just driving in and there was a cyclone on the side of the road. It wasn’t like a small tornado, it was like a big ass cyclone and we were like ‘oh shit!’ We were safe and I took of a photo of it. It’s so bizarre, you really don’t many of those in Australia. We were driving through the desert and we see one and we’re like ‘Yeah, there you go’. We told everyone in America that night, we saw a tornado and they’re like, yeah it happens all the time!

Do you feel there’s a difference between US and Australian crowds?
As an Australian band, yeah, there is definitely. When we go to America, it’s like a novelty, like our accent. They’re like [goes into American accent] ‘Ohh, it’s Aussie’! When we start playing shows, when we supporting this band called X, they’re a punk band from LA, and when we said ‘Hi, we’re the Skybombers’ and they said, ‘Oh, there’s Aussies on the stage’, they got funny accents. It seems like they appreciate us travelling all the way over there to play shows and the funny thing is, we’ve played a lot of small towns as well like in Nebraska, Idaho in all these places. We thought those places would be not into it and it was surprising because they go into it the most. Before we even started playing, we were just plugging in, they started headbutting each other, running around, already moshing and we haven’t played a note yet. They were really into it. So then again, not many bands come through I guess so when they come, they’re really appreciative. At the end, it doesn’t really matter if you’re playing Melbourne, Sydney, Wollongong or LA, the crowds are generally really good. I mean we love playing at home. Our aim is to try to sell out places in Australia, we really like the Australian crowd because people like to dance more here in Australia at the shows. It’s more easy going where it’s more relaxed and do whatever you want.

When did you start recording Take Me To Town and how long did it take?
We started recording Take Me To Town in November last year to Los Angeles to record that and we did that for six weeks. We went in with nineteen tracks and twelve of them made the album. We did a lot of demos back in Melbourne and Sydney and that was what we were going to record properly. We did pre-production for a couple of weeks in Sydney recording whatever demos then when we went over to LA, it tooks six weeks to do. It was pretty quick. We’ve never been in a studio more than a couple of days. It was always demos for us and quickly run through this. We’ve never had a couple days ever to record songs so when we had six weeks to do it, it was awesome, spend a few days on each song and we had more time to mix it around, try new things, different tones. That was actually the first time we ever worked with a producer, it was a lot of fun when we did it. I can’t wait to do it again.

How would you describe your music?
Party music. It’s just like raw rock and roll. It’s real energetic. Our music is very energetic and really base our music on our live performance. The songs have a lot of hooks and catches. It’s just real rock and roll. It’s cool rock [laugh].

Seeing you are an Australian band, how come the album was released in the States first?
It was released in the States first because we weren’t getting much attraction in Australia initially and we were getting played on various radio stations in America as of a year and a half ago they were playing our EP. We weren’t getting any national radio airplay here in Australia and it was happening quite fast in America. LA started playing it first then New York jumped on, it was more concentrated there and it just made sense to have it released over there where’s on the radio first. They were the ones playing it and now we’re on the radio here in Australia. It comes out next week June 7th. It only came out a couple of weeks earlier and in America it came out May 13th. Not a big difference but that was the reason why but now in retrospective it could’ve probably come out the same time, it wouldn’t matter.

On your songwriting, what do you write about and what are you trying to say with your music?
We write about what we’ve done growing up. There’s really youthful songs in there. Like ‘Always Complaining’, it’s about Hugh’s mum always complaining to him about getting a job or getting off his bum, stuff like that. When he was at University, he wasn’t in University if you know what I mean? He was just a lazy guy, sitting on the couch watching TV and his mum was always complaining. Then we’ve got a song called ‘My Morning’s Gone’ which is the killer hangover next morning and it’s just wasting your morning, my morning’s gone. We just talk about the clubs in Melbourne, just everyday life, people you meet. It’s relative to everyone. There’s a song called ‘Teenager’s Dreams’ it’s about people in their 30s or 40s, people’s parents who think they’re still in their teenage years. We just talk about random stuff growing up.

As a band, who are your musical influences?
We all like various bands but as a concensous we like The Beatles, The Kinks, just old school and obviously AC/DC. But more recently I like Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, The Hives. Our producer who recorded our album, he did BRMC’s three albums and he did The Von Bondies, and we love The Von Bondies as well. He also did The Dandy Warhols. It’s three bands we love and he’s done ‘em all. We were on top of the moon just knowing we were working with the guy that did BRMC. The Hives, the most inspiring band to watch, the best live band out there. They give everything on stage and come sweating off stage. No joke, they’re so amazing live. When I saw The Hives for the first time five years ago, I was just like ‘oh my god, I never thought bands could do that!’ and that’s how we base our live performance at. What we inspire to be is like The Hives, second to none. You can’t get better anywhere else.

You just finished playing for The Foo Fighters in New Zealand. How was that? It must’ve been awesome.
It was surreal. So cool. It was the first time we’ve ever been to New Zealand and our first show was playing to 13,000 people [laughs]. It was so surreal. I remember standing up there and I was so scared to look at the crowd. It was a sea of people, it was just huge. You look up and you realise you’re playing for The Foo Fighters and you’re like oh my god [laughs]. We grew up on Nirvana and Foo Fighters as well and we love Dave Grohl, he’s like rock god to me and when we got to meet the whole band, they’re the awesomest guys. They’re so cool. We got to hang out with them both nights and the second night, Dave and the boys invited us to go back to the hotel for drinks. We went to the hotel and we just boozed on. It was really cool. We would’ve been just happy going ‘Hi, nice to meet you’, shake hands but they were more than happy to get photos, drink with us, they were awesome.

Did Dave Grohl impart any words of wisdom?
He didn’t say anything as in words of wisdom but the way he acted after being where he’s got in life, the way he acts around people, he’s just the nicest guy, he’s not stuck up or anything. It’s just more his attitude that I looked up to. He could’ve been an asshole for anything but he wasn’t. He was just the nicest guy, the coolest guy.

Take Me To Town is in stores in the US, and available in Australia on June 7.

Visit the Skybombers’ MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/skybombers