We catch up with Adelaide’s finest purveyors of noise – Horror My Friend.
RP: Thank you for taking the time to talk to the Rockpit. For those not familiar with the band can you bring us up to date in a few short sentences?
HMF: We’re a three piece indie/rock band from Adelaide, heavily influenced by grunge, shoegaze and noise rock. We’re all about 21 and met each other in High School and started this band because we had nothing better to do/
RP: How would you describe your sound? People are throwing around things like ‘alternative punk rock’ with those words in varying orders – how do you view yourselves?
HMF: I would say we’re a bit of a mix of early 2000’s indie/garage rock, along with late 80’s/early 90’s grunge/noise/shoegaze.
RP: Is there a story behind the band name, are you guys big Horror Movie fans, or is it just a very cool name?
HMF: ahhhh no, our name before that was so terrible (named after a pokemon attack) and Horror My Friend was better so we went with that. But, everyone thinks we’re a hardcore band now
RP: You’ve got a reputation in the local Adelaide scene as being a killer ‘live’ band, what do you bring to the stage that others perhaps don’t?
HMF: I suppose, just moving around onstage. We always found it a bit boring when we saw bands that didn’t really get into their songs, so we’ve always made a conscious effort to try and bring some energy/stage presence to our live show.
RP: Is there anything in life that comes close to playing live?
HMF: If it’s a rad show, not really. If the onstage sound is shit or we play shit, It just makes you wanna go home and play playstation or something.
RP: You’ve picked up a nice few support slots, have you prepared your best backstage story for us? Spill the beans!
HMF: When we played with our personal heroes, The Cribs, we played a pool tournament with them in this shit bar (because it was monday and nothing was open), and the punishment for losing was drinking your beer from your shoe. We were one shot away from making them down the shoe brew, but I stuffed up the shop and they won. They found it hilarious/filmed it, but it was still awesome.
RP: Your singles and EP prior to this year have brought you plenty of airplay and acclaim locally, we love the new video for ‘Nothing’ where are you hoping that track will take you?
HMF: Well, I think we’ve gotten to the tail end of where “Nothing” will take us, but it has definitely got us a bunch of new fans and got us a couple of great shows (British India and Loon Lake). I think it’s a lot closer to what we’ve been trying to do since we started aswell, in that it is a good balance between that noisy, fuzzy sound and good pop structuring, which is a trait we really admire in bands like Sonic Youth and Die! Die! Die!
RP: It’s a cool concept for a video, whose idea was that?
HMF: The dudes who made it, Capital Waste Pictures. We wanted to do something on the cheap, but related to the theme of the song and they really nailed it. Those guys are awesome.
RP: You’re also about ready to launch an EP on us, what can you tell us about that and how do you feel you’ve progressed as a band since ‘Lifeblood’?
HMF: I think we’ve become better songwriters for starters, Lifeblood was a big turning point for us in terms of how we wanted to sound and I think we’ve just honed in a bit more on that now.
RP: Tell us about the new EP, why is it absolutely essential we rush out and buy it/download it?
HMF: In our opinion, it’s the best thing we’ve done by a long shot and shows a bit of our more experimental side rather than just 2-3 minute pop songs.
RP: How do you write, are you a band that jams or do you all come in with your own ideas?
HMF: When we first started, we were much more of a jam band, but now Josh or I will come in with a mostly formed song and the rest of us will fill it out.
RP: What are your plans for the rest of 2014 and beyond?
HMF: Well, we’ll be releasing the EP around June – July, with some cool news coming along with that. We’ll also be touring the EP in August I think and hopefully playing Bigsound, if we’re accepted and get to writing again.
RP: What have been your greatest challenges to date, and your favourite moments musically?
HMF: I think the first couple of years of the band, starting up with literally no contacts and no idea what we were doing as a band was difficult, but now we’ve built ourselves up so it’a little easier. Best moments were definitely playing with Violent Soho and The Cribs in one week, late last year.
RP: With technology changing so much over the last few years and seemingly not slowing, and TV force-feeding us the lowest common denominator, what hope is there for real rock music?
HMF: I think a pretty obvious backlash has started to occur against that kind of thing, especially with JJJ in the last few months and people are already looking to alternative sources to find that kind of thing. I reckon a big alternative source will start growing/showing itself pretty soon.
RP: Thinking back to your early memories of music, what was it that firs made you decide you needed to be in a Rock and Roll band?
HMF: Seeing British India/Children Collide (too young to see anyone else) with my friends and I just thought, “I want to do that”, especially if it gets to be your job.
RP: From what you’ve learned so far what is the most valuable advice you’ve been given so far as a musician?
HMF: Send lots of emails and don’t be afraid to annoy people a bit to achieve your goals.
RP: Can music change the world?
HMF: sure.
RP: If you could have been a ‘Fly on the wall’ for the creation of any great album from any period, just to see how the magic happened and it all came together, what would it have been for you any why?
HMF: Oh, definitely ‘Dirty’ by Sonic Youth, ‘In Utero’ by Nirvana or ‘In the Belly of the Brazen Bull’ by The Cribs.’
RP: What is the meaning of life?
HMF: Have fun and do what you want to do.
