A family that plays together stays together.
That’s the motto Gold Coast brothers Saia, Ruka and Omar Hanlon live by in their band Hanlon Brothers.
What's the most important thing for newcomers to your music to know about the band?
[Saia] We’re brothers from Burleigh [Gold Coast] and we love to improvise on stage and in the studio. It keeps it fun and fresh for us and our fans.
Omar, Ruka and I are actually the brothers who make up the rhythm section, so we feature a whole bunch of epic horns players, MCs and singers on each track, like Roman who rapped a 42-bar verse on our latest single, 'Diamonds'.
How are you guys feeling ahead of Australian Music Week (AMW) in November?
Excited. We haven’t been to an event like Australian Music Week before. We've dedicated years to honing our craft, mastering our instruments and developing a live show that will stand up on the world stage. And now, we feel ready for it.
AMW is the perfect place for us to show the music industry how Hanlon Brothers have put in the hard yards and have something great to offer the world with our music.
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What do you hope to get out of the conference?
We are really keen to open up opportunities for the band to play more festival shows interstate and internationally. Publishing interest would be awesome too. We hope to showcase not just great Australian music, but fly the flag for our home city, Gold Coast, too.
As Australian musicians, what experiences and knowledge will you be sharing with international AMW delegates?
We'll happily share our experiences of the Australian music scene.
We've had quite a broad range of involvement in the music industry, from playing and touring with a bunch of Sony artists, to running a family music school (our Dad started it 20-odd years ago), playing big events and music award ceremonies and building our own recording studio.
What can audiences expect from your performance at AMW?
You can expect seven or eight dudes bouncing 'round having a blast. We love music, we love our instruments and we love creating vibes with the crowd.
It'll be fun, high energy showing off the cool, melting pot of our musical influences from R&B, hip hop, jazz, and after the touring with Katchafire maybe some reggae in there too. Anything is possible! It sounds like a lot, but over the years we've honed it to a signature sound really. It makes sense. To us anyway haha.
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Are there any bands attending AMW that you want to see perform live?
We're pretty keen to see Mama Kin, I M U R sound like a great vibe and all of the Gold Coast acts of course.
You recently toured with Katchafire. How was it touring with the band? And how did you find the audiences responded to your music?
The tour with Katchafire was amazing. They are reggae royalty in this part of the world, so it really was an honour to hit the road with them.
We aren't a reggae band, so we wrote a new song with that kind of vibe to ease their fans into our set, which worked a treat. We were able to bring a different energy to the night warming the crowd up for the nostalgic shot they received from Katchafire.
Apparently the band is working on your next album. What can you tell us about it at this point?
We're pumped about the new music we're writing. It's definitely heading down a different path to our last album. We feel we have found a modern sound that's truly our own.
Building our own studio in Miami [Gold Coast] has been a turning point for Hanlon Brothers too. When we have an idea, we can lay it straight down. And when the right person comes along who we think can add something amazing, we just jump in the studio right then and there. Which is such a bonus when touring acts are blowing through town.
When can we expect a Hanlon Brothers' headline tour?
We're aiming for next year with the release of our new album. But maybe you'll see us before then if we score another support opportunity like Katchafire.
