A band who honour the legacy of '70s greats like Led Zep, Pat Benatar, AC/DC, The Who, The Stones, and Janis Joplin, Stitcher are a Sydney band intent on keeping classic rock & roll alive.
The band features guitarist Skyes, who like all great shredders has a deep love affair for his axe. On bass is the essential, driving and easy going, Miles, a groove-master, underpinning the deeper pulse of the drums from Big Harry, Stitcher's bold red engine, who drums with emotion, power, fury, and cleverness.Then there is vocalist Annabelle Piper. Holy moly, Belle has got it in spades. She so definitively delivers with the three Stitcher boys right there behind her. From a background in musical theatre, Belle's vocals are lilting, grungy, beautiful, rock, proudly Oz and unfettered.
With their new single 'Distant Mirage' freshly minted and a number of east-coast shows in July, we get to know Stitcher better.
Who is Stitcher... An amalgamation of sounds from all the greatest rock bands of the '70s. Stitcher love their covers, but are an original band on a mission to keep old-school rock & roll alive.
Music with a journey and a story to tell, hooking melodies, clean guitar solos, heavy drums and bass, as well as beautiful soft ballads at times. Bailey and Harry were founding members of the band when they were in Year 10 at Concord High School 2020.
After moving to Bradfield Senior College to finish high school in 2022, they found Annabelle, a fantastic singer with the background in theatre. Soon after came Miles, therefore completing Stitcher.
We sound like... People say we have shades of Janis Joplin, Led Zeppelin, Pat Benatar, The Who, Fleetwood Mac and so on. Honestly, all those great bands have had great influences on us individually, but when we come together, we create a new sound.
Our first gig was... Before we had Annabelle, we were involved in a battle of the bands but we were not sounding the best with our old singer, so Harry approached Belle at school one day and asked her to play the gig. She acted very nonchalant and responded with "yeah we will see, sounds cool".
She rocks up on the night. Comes through the crowd and jumps onstage and absolutely rates the room off. One of my favourite performances to date. From that moment on we knew she was to be our lead singer. Watch the clip from this first gig!
When did you settle on the group's name, and was it a unanimous decision... We love the story behind this one. We were pretty iffy about what we wanted to call ourselves at the start.
However, at one of our early gigs at The House Of Music And Booze we heard the crowd chant 'Stitcher' for a couple minutes as an encore and then we knew for sure, that was to be our name.
In the studio we usually... We love to muck around in the studio, messing with different, cool gear we wouldn't usually get to experiment with. Studio time is pretty rare these days, so we try and knuckle down hard and get serious to produce our best work.
If we could tour with anyone... Put us on tour with Led Zeppelin and Fleetwood Mac, we will be at the penthouse waiting.
Social media is... Check us out on Instagram for some cool content.
My favourite app at the moment is... Really liking CapCut at the moment. It's helping with promotion and cutting up videos to make awesome clips. Keep your eyes peeled. We have some awesome video content on the way.
To date, our most embarrassing moment was the time... I'm peeing thinking about it. HAHHAHA! One time we were playing a cover of 'Black Magic Woman' and Bailey's big moment was coming up with the solo and he absolutely flopped it. The guitar was out of tune or he may have just played it wrong, but it actually sounded like the beta version of the song. We crack up about it to this day.
Life on the road can be... Let's just say, bring a few drivers. We did a trip to outback Queensland and back last year and I was the only driver and holy moly doesn't it get tiring!
If you'll have us on your bill, all we ask is that our rider contains... Good beer for Bailey and Harry, white wine for Bell, and sour, fermented home-made piss moonshine for Miles (he loves it, just ask him what sorta beers he drinks) HAHA!
What celebrity/famous person would you love to be spokesperson of the band... Ozzy Osborne in his prime. Why? Cause he's Ozzy fkn Osborne Ahahhaha. Nah, but just imagine him commanding a stadium just to introduce us. Funniest vision.
If you had to live in a city abroad, where would you choose and why? I think ideally we would like to live on the go at different cities. Performing every weekend and keeping involved with the scene wherever it takes us.
Three people you'd like to invite around for a dinner party... BB King, Jack Black, and my Poppy, coz you know we eating well with that line-up.
If we were coming over to your place, what would you cook us? You are in for a ride with this one. I am making you a beef Wellington with gravy, potatoes, veggies, and Yorkshire puddings. I know, not very Sydney like but blimey does this fill your deepest desires.
When it comes to pets are you a lover or hater of our furry friends? We absolutely love the little fury friends. Well in our case not so little. The family dog, Ernie, is also band mascot, as he's always interrupting band practice. A 60kg Irish wolfhound cross Bull Arab.
No matter the expense, send me a case of... Pink gin bottles. You said no matter the expense. I might either sell them off or they can last the band parties for the rest of the year.
What's the one chore you dislike the most? Definitely loading out after a gig. We just wanna get outta there as quick a as possible and go join in with all the fun.
If you could prank any of your friends, who's your target, and how are you bringing them down? This one would be a laugh. We book a show for our mates Liquid Zoo (Sydney band) and buy all the tickets, so they have no one to play to that gig, ahahaha!
Best local takeaway joint for a midnight feed that will leave you with a food coma? Frango's seems to do the job around our ways. We all pretty much order the same thing; chicken burger combo with a coke. CHICKEN BURRRGA!
Stitcher 2024 Tour Dates
Sat 13 Jul - Tomcat (Brisbane)Sun 14 Jul - Mo's Desert Clubhouse (Gold Coast)
Fri 26 Jul - Yah Yah's (Melbourne)
Sat 27 Jul - Darling Nikki's (Sydney)
