Touring in support of their self-titled debut album, Little Bastard hit the Prince Of Wales, Bunbury, this Thursday June 19; Settlers Tavern, Margaret River, on Friday June 20, and Mojos on Saturday June 21. DAVID JAMES YOUNG reports.
It’s all about the love of an old-fashioned good time when it comes to the swampy Sydney septet known as Little Bastard. As a matter of fact, the angriest it’ll ever get at one of their shows is an argument over whether it’s a hoedown or a hootenanny.
The past 18 months have seen the band go from strength to strength, particularly on the live front, where they’ve riled up festival crowds and warmed up their largest stages yet for The Beards. Little Bastard’s debut self-titled album, however, may not be quite what people were anticipating – hell, it was even an unexpected turn for the band members.
“The whole thing actually turned out a lot differently than I had anticipated,” says Johnny Took, who provides guitar and one of many voices to the band. “I think what we ended up doing for the album – at least part of it – was a bit more mature, a bit differently paced. I suppose that if it was all the crazy, fast stuff, it would have worn people out – and probably bored them, too. We got the balance right, I think.”
The band spent all of eight days recording the debut, relying on that sense of urgency in both productivity and musicianship that piqued so much interest to begin with. In fact, plenty of the material they wrote didn’t end up making the album, leading Took to suggest a follow-up could come sooner than we think. “I feel like we could go straight in and record another album right now!” he laughs. “There were a lot of older songs that we had to sacrifice, and of course there were a lot of disagreements among the lot of us as to what would make the final cut. We’re really proud of what we got out of those eight days, though. It was a really different experience for us.”
It’s worth mentioning that those eight days of recording took place all the way back in December. Given it’s now June, one might assume that there was a lot of red tape for the band to cut through in order to release the album. Not the case, says Took – it was more a case of finding the most opportune moment. “We just wanted to be absolutely sure of what we were putting out. We’re so used to these songs now, and we’re really certain about playing them.”
As for what the future holds, Took wants to take the album for a test drive in the land of the free to see the reaction it gets. “I genuinely think that there are some songs on this record that would go down a treat if we played them in Nashville,” he says. “It’s a total dream of ours to get over there and see what they make of our band and what we do.”
Pic: Josh Groom
