Poised to release their seventh studio album, The Go Set will tour the country in October and November with a self-made documentary under their belts.
Last month, scenestr caught up with frontman Justin Keenan, as he was en route to the airport for a two-week American tour. “We're doing a show every day – some days we're actually doing two, so we've got a pretty heavy schedule. We come back and have eight days off, then we start our Australian tour.”
The Melbourne punk-folk band have been solidly touring, at home and abroad, for the last decade. They’ve been keeping the camera rolling since 2004, and this album release marked their decision to transform hours of footage into a full-length documentary. “I don't think any band, when they start, think that they're going to be 12 years down the track, making a film. We certainly just wanted to document what we were doing.”
Aussie fans will be the lucky first; witnessing the premiere of ‘These Are The Days’ during the national tour. “We're thinking that at a lot of the shows on this tour, we're going to have the film screening, before the show. The doors will open a little earlier, and instead of having a first-on band, we'll have the film screening.”
The doco will be simultaneously released, in mid October, with the band’s first, entirely independently produced record; ‘Rolling Sound’. “Instead of getting a studio, and a producer and an engineer, we basically just went into an old surf club on the Victorian west coast. We set up camp there for a couple of days, and we just played everything live… it’s got very few overdubs on it. It was recorded like bands should be recorded; everything in one take and if you can't play it live, it doesn't go on the album.”
Known for their eclectic use of folk instruments – such as bagpipes and mandolin – in their punk arrangements, Justin says punters can expect “an array of instrumentation” on this release. “The tones on the album are really industrial and gritty… it's a bit of a mixture; we've got some accordion and some fiddle and we’ve put a lot of slide guitar on different things.”
The band tested the fan-waters in the USA six months ago, and are doing a bit of a preview tour of their new material, before its official release. “We're sort of doing a pre-emptive tour to get in front of people… we've definitely got an audience there, we know that people own the albums, but it's sort of new territory for us. For the last ten years, we've been spending a lot of our time in Europe.”
Justin says they always witness a little slice of home while on tour, with the number of Aussie expats coming to their shows. “You can't escape the expats, they're literally everywhere. Being an Australian band is great, because Aussies seek you out and catch up with you. After years of touring of course, we have a lot of friends, and it's good to run into them on their travels.”
Written by Leisa Howlett
The Go Set Tour Dates
Fri 16 Oct - Coolangatta Hotel (Gold Coast)Sat 17 Oct - Beetle Bar (Brisbane)
Thu 22 Oct - Hamilton Station (Newcastle)
Fri 23 Oct - Factory Theatre (Sydney)
Sat 24 Oct - Transit Bar (Canberra)
Sun 25 Oct - Dicey Rileys (Wollongong)
Wed 28 Oct - Ararat Hotel Red Room
Thu 29 Oct - Grace Emily Hotel (Adelaide)
Fri 30 Oct - The Loft (Warrnambool)
Sat 31 Oct - Barwon Club (Geelong)
Tue 3 Nov - Northcote Social Club (Melbourne)
Fri 6 Nov - Brisbane Hotel (Hobart)
