Magic America is the latest reshuffling of four Melbourne lads who have spent the past couple of years mucking around in an assortment of different rock bands together.
Their latest project moves away from the angsty, grunge rock of their youth towards the hazy, textured sounds of contemporary, psychedelic rock.
Guitarist Andrew Stapleton says it's a sound that came naturally for the band after many years of jamming and playing together. “Earlier on when we were in the other bands we used to play stuff that was a bit grungier. We've always been rock & roll, but I suppose the longer we've played together, the more we've been interested in textures and pedals and shit like that. We started experimenting a bit more and that sound just came out naturally.”
One of two brothers in the band, Andrew initially had nothing to do with Magic America in its first phase.But after getting sick of being disturbed by his brother and his mates jamming all night, he decided it made sense to join the band. “Matty [Stapleton] and Ben were actually the first two blokes and then I joined in because I was sick of listening to them play while I was trying to watch TV,” he chuckles.
The two brothers work well with each other, avoiding the quarrelling and bickering that often happens between brothers in bands. Instead, it's the other band members that end up copping it from Andrew. “Me and him are actually pretty good, we haven't come across any arguments in the band about the music or anything like that. It's more so me just telling everyone off in the band,” Andrew says.
You'd think being based in Melbourne would be a good thing for a band, but it can actually be quite a hard place to get noticed among all of the other bands trying to make it.
It was quite the opposite for Magic America, however, and Andrew says the Melbourne psych-rock scene was still very much in its infancy when the band was first conceived. “When we first sort of started out there was less bands in our genre – psych sort of bands,” he says.
But now that the scene has had the time to emerge, Magic America are starting to gain some momentum. “Recently in the last year or two there's actually been a lot of psych bands come out of the wood work and its been good for us. There's now a lot more bands that we like playing with. It makes the gigs a bit easier to play and for the last couple of years it's gotten a lot better for our scene.”
The band got their first taste of success when one of their earlier songs made it onto Triple J's Unearthed. “It was one of our earlier songs that we put up on Unearthed and it got a bit of a listen to and a few comments on the Unearthed page. That was the first song that ever got any real attention from radio or anything like that.”
The band is now at the stage of adding the finishing touches to their debut EP and they're about to release their first single, 'Comes And Goes'. “The EP is pretty much all recorded and ready to go. We're just adding the finishing touches to a couple of songs, so it'll probably be about four or five tracks. This single 'Comes And Goes' is the first one of them just to give you a taste of it.”
The recording of the EP went over smoothly but being perfectionists, Andrew says there are a few, minor things about the final product the band want to change. “As with anything, you never feel like it's finished. You always want to go back and change one thing. Sometimes little things that you notice can piss you off a bit, but this is the closest we've been to being happy with our songs and an EP since we started.”
Magic America were determined to create music that was authentic and lasting, and Andrew is confident they've pulled it off. “I think in five years we will still think this is a good track. We weren't trying to be gimmicky. We were just trying to write something that had a good feel, and something that actually meant something to us. You can't go wrong with a rock & roll song. It's not gonna age. It is what it is now, and it'll probably stay that way in five years time.”
To celebrate the release of 'Comes And Goes', the band will embark on a small, east-coast tour. “We've been to Sydney quite a few times but this will be the first time that we've been to Brisbane. We're looking forward to the Melbourne show as well – the tour will rap up there and that's where most of our fans are too,” Andrew says.
While a full-length album is on the cards, Andrew says the band is going to focus on touring for the time being. “We've just been steady at it. We've been in a band in one form or another for a while now, so steady as she goes and we'll just keep moving forward.”
Written by Matthew Sales
Magic America Tour Dates
Fri 24 Apr - The Beetle Bar (Brisbane)Sat 25 Apr - The Bearded Lady (Brisbane)
Sun 10 May - Frankies Pizza (Sydney)
Sat 23 May - Ding Dong Lounge (Melbourne)
