Hideous Sun Demon launch their debut album, Sweat, this Friday, November 28, at Mojos, with help from Methyl Ethyl, King Cactus, Skullcave and Henry Kissinger. BOB GORDON chats with vocalist/guitarist, Vin Buchanan-Simpson.
So many inter-linking bands – Dream Rimmy and Kitchen People for starters. How did Hideous Sun Demon form amongst all this and what has the journey been like thus far?
Jake (Suriano, bass) and I have been playing together for years in very primal forms of what became Hideous; Blake (Hart, drums) has been a friend of ours for years and Andy (Campbell, guitar) liked us back in the day. It has been a long and arduous process but over the past year and a bit we got our shit together.
What did you want to evoke of Hideous Sun Demon on this debut album?
Since a lot of the sound is energy driven, we have had trouble in the past conveying this onto recording. Old attempts saw us trying to record to click tracks and it fucked everything up, all the soul got taken out of it. We recorded live for the MEAT EP in 2013, and were happy with the energy that came out of that. So with this recording we wanted to maintain that energy whilst going for a less scrappy and more professional sound.
Describe the recording sessions. What would a stranger have seen if they’d stumbled in?
They would of had to get there by dingy because we were on a secluded island. It was a pretty efficient but meticulous process. We spent a good two days I think scratch tracking, then building drums, bass, etc from there. But it was relaxed, fortunately we had a pretty good idea of how we wanted everything to sound so it came together really easily. We played a lot of Age Of Empires and got wet.
You’re one of the more energetic Perth performers I’ve seen. Occasionally like Peter Garrett with a guitar. Clearly you love performing?
When I first started being a frontman I thought it would be really awkward to stand there, so I moved around a lot so I wouldn’t have to see the audience. It kind of just developed from there. People like David Byrne, Nick Cave and Rowland S. Howard, John Lydon and Les Claypool all had a big influence, I think. I do respect people who don’t move around and can still be as engaging, like Television, but it’s just easier for me to boogie.
What was it like to win The Big Splash and how has it affected the band thus far?
It was strange. The thing about band competitions is you are obviously comparing and art, which usually isn’t ideal, especially since there were so many different types of music in the competition. But in saying that I liked the criteria that it was judged upon, it certainly wasn’t a popularity contest, nor was it overly based on aesthetic or pop-merit. It was definitely judging from a music and performance perspective which was good, and the judges all had respectable musical backgrounds. Maria (Florides) really did a good job.It’s proved to be so helpful, prior to The Big Splash we weren’t really known outside our friend group. I think it definitely increased our profile a bit and has led to us getting good shows and opportunities. The money has been put to heaps of stuff, namely the album we have coming out, but also touring, a video, merch, all kinds of stuff.
What are your plans going into 2015?
This week we’re releasing our album, Sweat, and early next year we’re off to Melbourne for a couple of weeks to play shows, including Mangelwurzel’s single launch which we’re really looking forward to. We already have armfuls of shit to put towards another recording, so we’ll be getting into that hopefully around April/May, maybe earlier depending on how much we push ourselves. It might be a 10″ we’re not sure yet. Also, we’re releasing a video real soon that we did with Elliot Green. It’s pretty graphic. But yeah, after the recording we’ll probably head back over East later next year.
