Indie rock band Last Dinosaurs have no plans to disappear.
The lads just released a brand-spanking new album, 'Yumeno Garden', in October, booked a 2019 national tour, and have designs on cracking America.
Last Dinosaurs have three shows left for 2018, one of which is Gold Coast event Shakafest, where they’ll be one of the headline acts. “We haven't played on the Gold Coast for ages. It's been years. So it should be pretty fun,” frontman Sean Caskey says. “It's almost like playing to a home-town crowd, which is always nice.
“Lately we've been playing new songs and that has been extremely fun for us. We've gotten a bit sick of playing the old ones. We're gonna be having so much fun playing all these new tracks.
“I'm pretty pumped because we did a tour with Seaside [who are also on the Shakafest line-up] recently, and when you do a tour with a band you sort of end up becoming family. So that’ll feel like a bit of a reunion.”
The event is influenced by the surfer-skater-street style. “We all tried surfing when we were in Bali, but didn't really succeed,” Sean jokes. “My brother skates but all I could ever do was ollie. I could ollie up pretty high, you know, but I couldn't ollie down anything.”
As for their 2019 ‘Yumeno Garden' album tour, the boys are excited, especially considering they have added extra shows in Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney (after selling out the original shows in those cities).
The tour starts in March, but Sean says they may hit America beforehand. “We're extremely keen to [tour] America, but have never really had a chance to consider doing it because of visas and flights and all that. It's actually insane how expensive it is. We've gone to all these other places [Asia] and the visa thing hasn't really been an issue. It was always flights and accommodation we had to worry about.
“A lot of Lach's [Sean’s brother and co-writer] inspiration actually came from his trips to America. He's done a lot of holidays over there and Mexico because he made friends with skaters over Instagram.”
Sean laughs and adds, “I know. It sounds ridiculous, doesn't it? It sounds like a catfish situation. But it worked and actually looked pretty awesome.
“He formed a pretty strong attachment to America and came back telling us we have to tour over there. There are so many more opportunities to play over there in the cities – whereas Australia is a lot more limited.”
America has been a big inspiration for the band, not just in the hopes of touring there, but also for their third album ‘Yumeno Garden’.
Sean explains the album artwork is split between America and Asia. “I had the concept behind the visuals to explain the actual album itself,” Sean says.
“So there’s three of us chilling out on a traditional Japanese balcony. And when you look at the way we're dressed and poised, you can tell we don't belong there.
“And that represents when we went to Japan to hone in on our own Dino sound. But the landscape of that Japanese garden is all American cacti. So that represents America and our future prospects, looking out to the horizon.”
The boys commissioned a fan, Em Niwa, to do it. “She's a really talented artist we found through Instagram when she drew a picture of us years ago. And it was fitting because she's a half-Japanese Brisbane girl.”
Something which harkens back to Sean’s own Japanese heritage.
As for the actual title ‘Yumeno Garden’, Sean says he chose it for the word’s meaning 'dream'.
“Japanese gardens are a symbol of the perfect balance between engineering and nature – of man binding and controlling nature to his will. The aestheticism of making something perfect.
“Also,” he adds, “they are generally places of contemplation, aren’t they? And this album has fairly contemplative stuff in it even though it's bright and colourful and pop on the top. There's an underlying deep contemplation to the songs – especially Lach's – that seemed to fit the ethos of a Japanese garden.”
Last Dinosaurs Tour Dates
Sat 17 Nov - Kangaroobie (Princetown)Sat 24 Nov - Broadwater Parklands (Gold Coast)
Fri 28 Dec - Glenelg Beach (Adelaide)
Fri 15 Mar - Jack Rabbit Slims (Perth)
Sat 16 Mar - Jive (Adelaide)
22-23 Mar - The Zoo (Brisbane)
28-29 Mar - Howler (Melbourne)
30-31 Mar - Oxford Arts Factory (Sydney)
Sat 6 Apr - Howler (Melbourne)
