Like the rest of us, Budgewoi pop-rockers Short Stack have been affected by the events of the last two years.
The global pandemic is the reason for the repeated delays (something lead singer Shaun Diviney says "sucks") of both the band's comeback album, 'Maybe There's No Heaven', and its attached national headline tour.While Short Stack's overarching confidence in their fifth studio album and first new material in six-plus years is definitive, the uncertainty that still remains around the tour, intended to take place in June-July, affects both Shaun and bassist Andy Clemmensen's take on the album.
"This is what Short Stack feels like now." - Shaun Diviney
"Our engagement with our fans is such an important thing in what we do," begins Shaun.
"It's difficult not to have control over it, which is number one, and the second thing is, no one knows when it will end [the pandemic], so that's the most frustrating thing at the moment."
"It's been weird," adds Andy. "I think the three of us [third member of the group is drummer Bradie Webb] are in a similar circumstance where we've been doing normal people boring things, life, and I've kind of lost a lot of my stage confidence?
"Half the reason I wanted to do the band again was to get some of my confidence back, some of that energy, some of the things I used to do.
"We're at the point where we're releasing new songs, but we still haven't done those shows and I feel somewhat a little bit of imposter syndrome. I'm just kind of rolling with the punches."
Although they know other musicians who've been in a far less opportunistic positions than themselves the last couple of years and have, in Andy's words, been "completely screwed" in terms of actual musical endeavours in that time, Short Stack have been able to hold onto their "normal" lives to a degree.
The tone of Shaun and Andy – who at the start of our conversation saw one sharing jovially how he was checking the surf, the other excited to soon be welcoming his second child – gradually dims to become more reflective, an air of humility and gratitude hovering around the discussion.
That divide between their normal lives and life as Short Stack has, for Andy at least, created some sense of being disconnected from their new album.
"Somewhat," he says, drawing out the 's' through careful consideration. "It's a lot of things," he says, highlighting the differences they've experienced with this album, including their dealings with their label UNFD, who they signed with in March 2021.
"They're a lot more casual with their approach on a lot of things, which has been a nice steppingstone," Andy says of the Melbourne-based company.
"The last photoshoot we did was super relaxed. It ended up being the [photos] they chose was literally just us talking sh.t at each other about absolutely nothing. The photo you're [scenestr] using for the cover, Shaun was like, 'I bet everyone's going to be thinking: Why the f... are these wankers standing in a tyre?'."
And on that note, we're back to unsolicited giggles all 'round. Sometimes, as with their photoshoot, you need that element of humanity to bleed through to understand that although these guys are musicians, they're also family men.
Indeed, many people who grew up with Short Stack, running with them since the early days of songs like 'Princess' and 'Sway, Sway Baby!' back in 2009 are in the family game themselves now.
Gone are the dramatic sweeps of the scene-kid fringe, baggier are the pants where skinny jeans once were clad, bottles for bub occupy the hands where guitars once were wielded – at least some of the time anyway.
"Maybe we'll be more personally relatable," ponders Andy. "I dunno, to other people we might just be a bunch of awkward dads!"
Andy and Shaun are, like many of us, guilty about lying about their age. "How old are you now?" Shaun asks Andy, "like, 45, 46?" “Thirty three, mate," comes Andy’s apathetic reply, "still younger than you," his final jab met with wild laughter from his bandmate.
A quick Google of photos of Short Stack from back in the day returns the most epic collection of haircuts. Copious amounts of hairspray clearly used to get the perfect backcomb, the blunt fringe days that Andy jokingly says they miss "just a touch".
"I look back at everything we've done and sometimes I'm like, I'm stoked that it's happened but there's not a lot of times where I'm like 'Oh I wish I was back then', because it's great that it's happened, it's great where it's led us to now," Andy says sagely.
There was no pinnacle moment in the creation of 'Maybe There's No Heaven' by which Short Stack threw caution to the wind and abandoned all care as to anyone else's opinion or expectations of their sound. Instead, the outfit kept working through demos pushing through sonic boundaries.
"We originally wanted [the album] to sound like Blink-182," admits Shaun, "because they're our favourite band. We gave up on that pretty quick and experimented electronically."
Steadily, Short Stack approached a more concrete vision of what they wanted. "It took a little bit to nail it down exactly," Andy says, "and once we had it, yeah, everything else clicked."
A year ago, Short Stack dropped the single 'Burn You Down', which was quick to garner astonished reactions from old-school Short Stack fans: 'I don't think this is Short Stack anymore!' No, Dorothy, it's not.
Rather, we have a matured sound – heavy rock bolstered by electronic experimentation and married with a new appreciation for rhythms that are a little rough around the edges.
Never did Shaun and Andy anticipate the reactions of surprise and positivity for the new direction. "It's probably my favourite song we've ever done," admits Shaun.
"We're in a position now where we've created something we really, really like – we said to ourselves, we break up, like, every three years, this could be our last album, so let's do something we're really, really proud of.
"After that song, everything clicked and came together, this is what Short Stack feels like now."
'Maybe's There's No Heaven' will be released 8 April, 2022. Pre-order it.
Short Stack 2022 Tour Dates
Thu 16 Jun - The Cambridge (Newcastle)Fri 17 Jun - Basement (Canberra)
Sat 25 Jun - The Fortitude Music Hall (Brisbane)
Thu 30 Jun - 170 Russell (Melbourne)
Fri 1 Jul - 170 Russell (Melbourne)
Fri 8 Jul - The Croxton (Melbourne)
Sat 9 Jul - The Croxton (Melbourne)
Fri 15 Jul - Max Watts (Sydney)
Sat 16 Jul - Max Watts (Sydney)
Sun 17 Jul - Max Watts (Sydney)
Wed 20 Jul - The Gov (Adelaide)
Thu 21 Jul - The Gov (Adelaide)
Sat 23 Jul - Astor Theatre (Perth)
