Time seems to have slipped away from Simon 'Berkfinger' Berckelman, frontman for Philadelphia Grand Jury, considering his response when he's told 2019 is the ten-year anniversary of their debut album, 'Hope Is For The Hopers'.
“Shut up, I didn't even know that,” Simon says. “That's cool. In some ways it feels longer because of the hundreds and hundreds of shows and all the things we've done, but it's not actually that long ago.”
Released in 2009, 'Hope Is For The Hopers' marked Australian music with the bright, indie pop-rock of Philadelphia Grand Jury, notably their single 'Going To The Casino (Tomorrow Night)' that featured on the soundtrack for TV mini-series 'Underbelly: A Tale Of Two Cities'.
By 2011 though, the band had announced a hiatus and subsequent split. Simon remembers the intense pressure foisted upon the band in the wake of their unexpected success.
“We'd just made this record, we didn't think anyone would ever hear it and then all of a sudden it was on the radio and we threw together the band so we could play shows, and we had to grow into it,” he says.
“There are a lot of times as a band when the manager is saying 'you have to do this; we need to capitalise on that; this needs to occur like this', and it's at all costs to people's relationships, their lives and their health.
“Especially myself as a young man I was keen to go, I just wanted to play everywhere and record everything, and as a band unit that wasn't happening and instead of us dealing with it or taking a break we took a really big break and broke the band up.”
Simon relocated to Berlin in the meantime, where in 2015 the band came back together to record their second album 'Summer Of Doom', released that same year. Now in 2019, Simon reports Philadelphia Grand Jury are back in their original trio and making new music.
“We just recorded a bunch of things at our studio and now there's three versions of some of the songs, so we're all taking drives up into the mountains listening to everything, being very thoughtful and voting on which bits are going to be the first single and what may go on an EP and a record eventually later in the year,” he says.
“I think maybe it'll end up being twin EPs that later get squished together. Our first record was like that: it was an EP and then a string of singles and eventually we popped it all on one thing so people can have it all in place. That seems to work with us and the way people are consuming music now.”
With new music to show off, as well as their much-loved hits, Philadelphia Grand Jury get back to live performance with an April tour including an appearance at The Gum Ball held at Dashville in the Hunter Valley in April. “I like playing outdoors and I love playing on a big, open stage because of the sound,” he says.
“Most people hate it, but it's one of my favourite things for our band, so anytime anything like that comes up I'm like, 'booyah, we're going to do this'.”
Philadelphia Grand Jury 2019 Tour Dates
Thu 11 Apr - Rocket Bar (Adelaide)Fri 12 Apr - Geddes Lane Ballroom (Melbourne)
Sat 20 Apr - The Lansdowne Hotel (Sydney)
Wed 24 Apr - Black Bear Lodge (Brisbane)
Sat 27 Apr - The Gum Ball (Hunter Valley)
