Brisbane punk rockers Electric Suede specialise in 'ass kicking, pipe hitting, punk-infused rock & roll' according to a recent Facebook post by the group.
“There's this song by this band called The Mooney Suzuki called 'Electric Sweat', and I was going to name [the band] that. But then I thought: 'Electric Sweat is such a gross name.' And somehow 'Suede' came into play,” singer-guitarist Richard Butler says about the band's name.
“I knew Levi and Jimmy, they're really good friends of mine, and they'd recently left Guards Of May and I'd recently parted ways with my old line-up, so I was like: 'Hey, join my band,'” Richard shares about the group's formation.
Electric Suede are influenced by the rock stars of the '70s. “Ramones, MC5, Led Zeppelin, a lot of the stuff from the '70s [influences us]. It's a fusion I guess of the punk and hard rock of the '70s, that's how I like to describe the influences of Electric Suede. A lot of Johnny Ramone guitar solos... but with riffs.”
Richard says he’s a big fan of Brisbane's music scene and what it does for up and coming bands.
“You've got Ric's [Bar], like you can get a gig there any time of the year. Like good-old Chad will be like: 'Yeah we've got February available.' You've got The Zoo, which is one of the best platforms for local artists. In fact I think it's mostly local artists playing there now.
“We've got Bigsound and Mountain Goat Valley Crawl, which is that free festival where people can go see bands. Brisbane rules.”
Electric Suede's debut single, 'Futuristic Lady', was released last year. “That took a while,” Richard says.
“We did the drums late 2016. And then I had some stuff go down after then. So doing the guitar and vocals didn't happen until 2017. We did the drums and the guitars at our friend’s studio Aisle 6 in Salisbury. Drums took one day [to record], because Levi is amazing. Guitar and bass just took one day as well.”
The recording of guitar for 'Futuristic Lady' was a little different than usual. “For the guitar, normally what you'd do is sit in the control room playing guitar while the amp's in the recording room. But they didn't have these things called tie lines, so I actually had to be in the room with a cranked-up amp.
“We did the vocals in my friend’s room. I was skeptical at first but they sounded so good. It was so chill 'cause it was just in his room.
“I try to keep my song lyrics away from cliché topics, but they end up coming out anyway. And they’re fun and everyone likes them. Recently, I've been trying to write with more metaphor-y stuff, make things have two meanings rather than one. That is the beautiful thing about songwriting, people can have their own interpretations.”
2018 will see Richard attempt more songwriting. “I'm really focusing on trying to write a lot of new songs for the band. I'll probably be focusing more on that than performing live this year just to get some bangers out. I don't know if we'll record again this year, I'm trying to take more time with my songwriting and so I don't want to rush stuff and release sh#t for no reason.”
In March, Electric Suede will play The Bearded Lady. “We did our single launch there [last year] and we supported Go Van Go there a while back. I just love that bar, it's so nice and so cool.”
