Dear diary, guitar-wielding Matt Gravolin from Hellions here...
The Lab, Brisbane
We kicked off the Indian Summer tour in a sunny and humid Brisbane, Spending the day before the show at the home of our gracious host and former guitarist Lewis Usher, drinking as many of his beers as we could before meeting up with our younger brothers in Void Of Vision to load in at our venue for the evening, The Lab.We had been looking forward to this show as it features so many dear friends of ours that we haven’t seen in a while, the only band we weren’t previously familiar with were the precocious openers; Vitals. They opened up the show with vigour and we can’t wait to play with them again. Big Stiff-Dog DTD and the Daybreakers followed, with a set-list consisting predominantly of songs from their upcoming debut full-length. Big ups to Mitch for a stellar performance tonight, it was pure, unabridged catharsis on his behalf.
Deadlights were up next, similarly opting to fill their set with new songs. This band is a colourful breath of fresh air and my personal favourite Brisbane band, boasting a tight performance replete with acrobatic three-person vocal harmonies amidst crushing (pick your fearsome metallic adjective) grooves.
The kids (VOV) were awe-inspiring as per usual, surprising us with a clever cover of Limp Bizkit’s ‘Break Stuff’ that caused Dre to very nearly lose his mind side-stage. Their set was exceptionally well received by all attending, they’ve come a long way in the short three months since we had last toured with them as part of Hand Of Mercy’s Resolve tour. The boys are never an easy act to follow.
We have a playlist of very sunglasses-emoji songs to kick the set off with each night, we chose ‘Spirit In the Sky’ by Norman Greenbaum for this evening's set, setting the mood and enabling us all to have a laugh side-stage before beginning the set. What ensued was both unexpected and humbling, there was big surge forward toward the stage with the opening notes of ‘Hellions’ and each song that followed, old and new alike, were met with equal alacrity. Hearing people sing the words to ‘Nottingham’ hit home pretty hard for me in particular, I couldn’t wipe the smile off of my face.
We ended the set with the help of a dozen audience members choosing to join us on stage for ’23’ before being invited back for an encore! This was a truly inspiring way to kick off the tour and we couldn’t be any more grateful for that.
The Brightside, Brisbane
It’s safe to say we were able to assuage any early-show jitters with the result of The Lab show last night, and any residual nerves were further ameliorated by memories of our last performance at The Brightside on the aforementioned Hand Of Mercy tour, it stood out to us as an obvious highlight so it goes without saying that we were eager for this evening’s show!After a late afternoon load-in and soundcheck, we were pleasantly surprised with the early arrival of our rider and decided to wet our collective whistles for the ensuing hours with our favourite Brisbane natives. Stepson got the evening started with a bang, followed by our friends in Hand Of The Architect and She Cries Wolf, the latter were an exceptionally competent live band that each of us particularly enjoyed. The boys were up next and their performance was every bit as dynamic as it was last night, never ceasing to impress the touring party and audience alike.
For this evening we chose to play ‘Come And Get Your Love’ by Redbone for our introductory song, a song recently popularised as part of blockbuster film 'Guardians Of The Galaxy'. It’s an unequivocal banger and set the mood for a bit of a pre-set dance.
Once again our expectations were eclipsed by Brisbane’s smiling 18+ audience, galvanised by alcohol and permeating a mood of unity and sheer conviviality throughout the room. We were again joined by the audience on stage for ’23’ and invited back to perform an encore, with Lewis taking my place on the stage.
After loading out and packing the vans, the beaming faces that make up the touring party reconvened at the bar for gin and tequila, thus beginning a belated birthday celebration for Jack (VOV) who turned 21 last week.
Shouts out to our dear friends Andy, Lewis, Chi, Lurch, Fez, Steven, Lee, Brandon, Sophie, Alana and the Deadlights boys for making it out to this evening’s show, it’s always a wonderful thing to have friends taking the time out to watch us play and have a post-set drink with us. Thanks to everyone who attended this show for making it one to remember.
The Yac Byron Bay
Waking abruptly to an incipient hangover, we piled into the van a little unprepared for the short drive to Byron Bay. A palpable sense of camaraderie filled the van, each of us still beaming from last night’s show, we listened to much of the Fireworks discography on the way down, (a band of which we are each enthusiastic aficionados) providing us with an fitting soundtrack for our morning drive.Post by Void Of Vision.
Upon our arrival at the YAC, we realised that there had been a bit of a miscommunication regarding the time of this afternoon's show, so our swarthily suave and ever-affable Tour Manager Oli, a Byron Bay resident, was kind enough to take us to a favourite swimming spot, the very serene Killen Falls (fun fact: this is the location of the video for ‘Divine’, by local bae's In Hearts Wake.) After a brief swim we journeyed back to the venue to meet the VOVs for load-in. A perfunctory effort was offered by all still feeling the effects of the night before.
Before this evening’s show. we were afforded an hour-long chat with our new friends Ben, Aiden, Sam, Courtney and Jack, who informed us that they had been to each show thus far, making an entire weekend of it. They had been front and centre for both of the previous shows and would be for this evening’s show, too. Big love for those wonderful people.
The show’s supports were Knuckle Children, As Chaos Falls and Seabound, most of which we were able to watch and have a chat with. After Void of Vision pummeled through their set, we played our chosen intro song for the evening, in the form of NWA’s ‘Express Yourself’.
This was our very first headline show in Byron Bay, we didn’t know what to expect but were relieved when we were welcomed with warmth, despite the morning’s confusion with the time of the doors opening. We played ‘Consigliere’ as an encore at the request of our aforementioned new friends and we were pleased we did upon seeing their faces whilst playing the song’s introductory chords.
Hombre Records, Newcastle
Today we took Anthony’s kid brother Blakey (drummer of now-defunct Sydney band Thesis and up-and-comers Rumours) and the one and only John Floreani of Trophy Eyes with us to the show, wasting no time we picked up a bottle of Jäger and some beers to celebrate a beautiful day in our waning summer sun. After load-in and soundcheck we walked to the local bar to be joined by a few of Anthony’s cousins and made some new friends by way of Josh’s semi-inebriated roars of salutation to the locals, making for an afternoon of all-round convivial carousal.Before we knew it the sun was down and we were heading back to the venue. Kicking off the show were Shorebreak followed by The Sign of Four, Of Divinity and our penultimate pioneers in Void Of Vision. For those unfamiliar with Hombre Records, it’s a quaint little shoebox of a venue. The kind that makes for the most intimate, and often the best shows of tour. Being amongst 90 people minding their own business in there is enough to make you perspire, and when they all begin to move, you’re sweating profusely. our audience were cool enough to sing the majority of the set for Dre, leaving him to dance and crowd-surf to his hearts content. Still getting used to hearing the audience sing the lyrics to the new songs, such a surreal feeling!
Shout out to our dear friends Dylan Try and Mitta Norath of Régresser for coming out to catch up with us and watch us play, it’s always a pleasure to see you both.
Magpies, Canberraw
During the drive to Canberra, we began our dalliance with iPhone application Word Brain, keeping the van as quiet as it has ever been for the better part of the trip’s two-and-a-half hour duration.Our bassist Potter drove down to Canberra separately, arriving a few hours after Void Of Vision and ourselves, unbeknown to us. True to his utterly tasteless sense of humour, he decided to tell us that he’d be arriving three minutes before our set began, if at all, leaving us each with a feeling analogous to what I’d imagine an incipient heart attack to feel like. While we were in the mid of speaking to the VOV boys about potentially filling in for the evening, he came strolling into the venue laughing his stupid ass off. Luckily for him, he was accompanied by our friend Walt who we hadn’t seen in far too long, and that mitigated the pending fury of Hellions’ residual members
Tonight we were joined by local bands Silver Lining, Punch Dagger (whom we played with on our record release show in Sydney harbour, excellent band) and Purity who were absolutely incredible, this was our first time watching them.
Kicking off our set with ‘Hellions’, we were joined on stage by our friend Steve Faull, replicating RealBadDTD’s realist roars toward the end of the song. Having him on stage with us reminded me of our rudimentary shows in The Bride, touring with Sienna Skies every other weekend, a welcome bit of nostalgia!
Our encore for the evening was prefixed by a short cover of Rage Against the Machine’s ‘Bulls On Parade’, which is so much fun to play that it may very well become a permanent fixture of our set.
During load-out, we found our TM Oli speaking to VOV drummer George in German, they both speak the language fluently and it was a fucking spin-out to hear them conversing in it, to say the least!
Newtown Social Club, Sydney
After load-in, we took our boyfriends in Void Of Vision to our (everyone’s) favourite vegetarian spot in Newtown, Blossoming Lotus Thai, before heading back to the venue to catch up with the legends at Beers With The Band for a beer (obvi) and a short interview. We were fortunate enough to sample local beer Young Henrys, a strong and delicious ale.Tonight we were guests on the Loose Threads tour, headlined by our friends in Tasmania’s Luca Brasi. Supporting were U.K fellas Gnarwolves, Tired Lion, Perspectives and ourselves. Every band on the bill are unique and supremely talented, we were very fortunate to have been included on a bill as insane as this one. Whilst watching the bands, we swilled down one million beers with the Void boys and our lovely ladies who were cool enough to come and see us all while we were in town.
While the better part of the evening is a bit of a blur, I do recall a small assortment of pandemoniums: somebody had pilfered Oli’s windbreaker, somebody tried to run away with George’s snare drum, Potter and I were separated on a few occasions for engaging in horseplay that resembled serious physical confrontation (according to the fine security at the Newtown Social Club), Potter had skated into a wall, hurting himself (much to the delight of all surrounding) and a poor girl had broken her leg during the Gnarwolves set. What an evening.
Aspire Studios, Wollongong
Before heading to Wollongong this morning, Oli took the VOV boys and ourselves to Wattamolla beach where the bravest of us jumped off of high rocks into the water beneath. We encountered a foreign man that paid little heed to the concept of personal space, imploring a few of the boys to jump into the water with him via loud and overly-effusive shouts resembling a troglodyte mating call. With this having compromised our genteel sensibilities, we reluctantly left.Today saw us loading into a venue that we’d never played before, Aspire Studios. AS is usually a rehearsal space for local bands and is analogous to Newcastle’s Hombre Records in that it’s a stage-less, small capacity room.
After loading into the venue, we headed to the bottle shop and picked up some very cheap, very pink wine and caught up with our old friend and native Wollongongian Mitch King (or Kitch Ming, if you’re feeling impish).
While hanging out with Mitch, Potter remembered a remarkable old party trick and put on a bit of an exhibition to demonstrate it to us all, it’s called the Strawpedo, (pronounced: straw - pee - doe) and with a straw placed in a drink, he consumes the contents of a Cruiser bottle in about 2 - 3 seconds.
Tonight we were accompanied by Heartsick, Amodeus, At the Gallows and Oppressor. Each band was as good as the last and we were fortunate enough to befriend another band that weren’t on this evening’s bill called Mixtape For the Drive, a bunch of genuinely kind and solicitous people.
We decided to throw a bit of a van party on the way back home, like Potter, Anthony and myself used to do back in our Heroes For Hire days. So we swilled down a case of beer while screaming, dancing and singing our way back home. Shouts out to Potter for spending a fortune on iTunes to create the masterful playlist of corkers… and to Oli for staying sober and driving home a van full of incorrigible wastrels.
Masonic Hall, Blacktown
Today was a very special day. It was our first headline show at home since we had released 'Indian Summer', so needless to say, we have been looking forward to it a great deal. After load-in and an extensive sound check, we went to eat breakfast and have a beer at the RSL adjacent to the venue with Anthony’s dad Tony (a quintessential patriarchal figure Hellions, collectively) and our old friends Jarred and Sam.Opening up today we had locals Life’s Ill, followed by Our Past Days and our boys in Justice For The Damned, leaving me as awestruck as I had been the previous few times I had seen them, vocalist Bobak Rafiee is a future figurehead of heavy music in Sydney, mark my words.
There are some days where I’m inundated with an overbearing sense of pride in our younger brothers Void Of Vision, and today was one of those days. We had played this venue together previously on the (now quite often-aforementioned) Hand Of Mercy tour, and to realise how far they’ve come since that show, with many more of the audience members having learned Jack’s lyrics and generally participating in their set with far-increased gusto, afforded me a chuckle of disbelief and a beaming smile.
I find hometown headliners nerve-wracking. We’re usually fortunate enough to be surrounded by the myriad smiling faces of our close friends and family when we play here, standing shoulder-to-shoulder on the sides of the stage - I’ve still yet to decide whether that exacerbates or ameliorates the nerves, but I am always relieved of that feeling as soon as we hit out first note.
This evening we were all forced backwards and pushed up onto the drum riser by the audience only seconds into our first song. It was like a delightfully abrasive adaptation of 'Cast Away'; wherein Josh, Chris, Anthony and I were the Wilson’s to Dre’s Tom Hanks on our little musical island surrounded by a small sea of loved ones.
Dre found himself having to implement a ‘reset’ rule before we began a new song, which meant our enthusiastic audience would have to take four steps back, allowing us to reclaim some floor space in order to perform a little better for them. The rule was quickly abolished once the next song began and reinstated after it’s completion.
Tonight was a truly validating show, all whom comprised the touring party left contented but relieved at the thought of taking the next two days off. Our warmest and most sincere thank yous to our families, girlfriends, Jarod, Sam, Lachlan, Diaz, Cameron, April, Miki, Chelsea, Judie, Cassidy, Maddie and any of our friends attending that I've omitted here, we’re couldn’t be more humbled by your constant support.
YMCA HQ, Perth
…and so begins a week of sleepless saturnalia. In vino veritas, onwards we sojourn.We arrived at Sydney airport at 4.30am after a few hours sleep, ready for our flight to Perth. Upon arrival, we hired our van for the next couple of days and headed towards the Make Them Suffer house to be greeted with alacrity by our dear friend and MTS guitarist Lachlan, who would be our TM, replacing Oli (who was driving from Sydney to Adelaide at this point, to meet us at the airport for Friday’s show, legend) for the Perth shows. After a complimentary breakfast courtesy of the remaining MTS guitarist Nick, we went back to our temporary home for pre-show drinks where we had the distinct pleasure of hearing Make Them Suffer’s sophomore record in it’s entirety. It is an envelope-pushing, fucking banger of an album and I look forward to it’s release more than any other set to come out this year.
After load-in, we met with the notorious papa Crafter for a catch-up dinner and headed back to the venue in time to catch openers Impaler and Surroundings. This was our first Perth show in about 16 months and we couldn’t have been happier to get our AA show underway, both VOV and ourselves had a fantastic show!
Back at the MTS house, half of us began a revelrous evening that would turn into an opaque memory of a morning, while the other half of us went back to our friends Lise and Sam’s house for a good nights rest.
Last Night, Perth
After a couple of hours sleep, the lesser half of us awoke to the arrival of the well-rested half of us, ready to go out and grab some lunch. After a rather hazy, humdrum start to the afternoon consisting of anatomical and domestic clean-up, Lachlan led us to his place of work, a beautifully contemporary little bar, where we’d kick-start the day with a healthy smorgasbord of cocktails.After beginning with a round of Bloody Marys, Lachlan lovingly prepared us each an expresso martini and subsequently a jug sangria, Amerretto and Cointreau sours, and a deliciously effeminate tropical concoction (the name of which eludes me). Insert sunglasses emoji.
It would be remiss of me not to mention our chance encountering of the lovely proprietor of this evenings venue, Linda, with whom we shared a short but pleasant conversation. We sauntered (some of us floated) slowly towards the venue, where we had the most efficient soundcheck of all-time, courtesy of in-house sound engineer Mark, who has worked at Amps for over a decade, needless to say, he was an absolute dream to work with and we felt more comfortable on stage this evening than we have during any other of the tours shows, thanks to the unprecedented expertise of his craft.
Upon the arrival of our rider, we drank it. This evening’s show was opened only by Perth natives To Hell With Honour, who were great dudes. Void absolutely slayed this evening, making a plethora of new fans. We took the stage and played what would become our favourite show we’ve ever played in Perth, in this band or any other. We had Lachlan doing Real Bad’s part in ‘Hellions’ this evening, too, which was a blast!
We were reunited with Nick (who had come from work after only an hours rest the evening before) and celebrated an ideal trip to Perth with VOV, our local family and cordial hosts Make Them Suffer and Lise Phillips and an assortment of newly-made friends. After showers, we headed straight to the airport to board our flight to Adelaide, wheeling Potter around in a wheelchair as he had managed to fuck his already compromised kneecap right up.
A very big thank you goes out to our solicitous and compassionate friend James Kilian and his band Finders for lending us their gear and bringing it from show to show. Without James, our shows in Perth would not have been possible. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts, James.
Fowlers Live, Adelaide
After a couple of hours sleep on the plane, Oli brought the van around to meet Hellions in the form of five walking cadavers, we exchanged effusive (or as effusive as possible at the time) salutations and drove to meet our DTD brothers Srem, Kevin and Sean at the latter’s place of residence.After catch-up beers, we were implored by the ever-beguiling Sean to consume a bucket of 20 assorted shots that he deemed non-consumable. Once we had proved him wrong, we went out for lunch and margaritas.
Now just about ready to die, we loaded into Fowlers and completed soundcheck.
Upon reaching our green room, we were astounded to find that our extensive and unrealistic rider request had been entirely fulfilled. We were presented with a case of beers, waters, red wine, gin and all the ingredients needed to create a large jug of sangria, including assorted soft drinks, citric fruits, a chopping board and knife. We’re always so well catered to by Michelle and the wonderful people at Fowlers, we find it difficult to properly articulate our undying gratitude, but their kindness and hospitality are reasons we are always looking forward to our next show at Fowlers and emphatically singing their praises long after we’ve left Adelaide.
Having reached a fork in the road where we either push through, or fall asleep at risk of waking to feel much worse, we were galvanised into choosing the former by Kevin and our merry team of gentlemen degenerates. We were promptly escorted to this hole-in-the-wall club, which I’d consider one of Adelaide’s best-kept secrets. It feels like something straight out of a scene from 'Goodfellas'. Kevin, true to his accommodating and brotherly nature, bought us a round of sangrias, expresso martinis and Hennessy shots, and as undesirable as that may sound to many, at this juncture it was contrarily invigorating.
After fantastic performances by local bands Sleep Talk, To Kill Or Capture, Ambleside and the baes in Void Of Vision, we took to the stage for another thoroughly enjoyable performance, easily our favourite Adelaide show in Hellions history!
During the pack-down, Dre informed me that Srem had fallen asleep with his head resting on Joshes amplifier for a portion of our set, sweating as profusely as any of us that had performed. Rare. But absolutely fucking preposterous. HOW, could anyone do that, you ask? I’ve no answer for you. I’m astounded.
After the vans were packed and we exchanged valedictions with the VOV boys, we went to this insane rooftop bar where coincidentally, we would find Luca Brasi performing! We also encountered all-Australian internet sensation Shooter Williamson, with a two to ten pupil to retina ratio. God bless him. We spent a few hours of quality time with our friends and decided we’d better head off, as Oli had been more than patient for the duration of our deathless day of bacchanalian carousal and the small hours of the morning were growing larger. We ran into old friend Riz, formerly of House Vs. Hurricane on our way out, which was a welcome surprise.
With Srem now joining the tour party, we piled into our motile humble abode and started towards Melbourne. Josh and I did our best to stay awake and keep Oli company during the long drive, lasting until a few moments before aurora’s rise.
The Reverence Hotel, Melbourne
After getting a couple more hours sleep than we had become accustomed to, we arrived at our second home in East Brunswick, ecstatic to be reunited with our friends Casey and Maria (whom you might remember from the Royal Family videos we bang on about) and a case of Coopers Green. For any coffee aficionados in Melbourne, Casey and Maria are the proud proprietors of a quaint new coffee shop by the name Marble Fox on Little Lonsdale St, check it out!We got some Lord Of The Fries for lunch (a traditional venture) and proceeded towards today's venue. We were greeted upon arrival by our lovingly loquacious manager Cam Chambers and our very own, very naughty party liaison, the one and only Joshua Collard. We were fortunate enough to encounter many other of Melbourne’s finest this evening, including but not limited to artistic wizards Warwick Hughes, Pat Galvin and Pat Fox, the latter of which is the mastermind behind 'Indian Summer's artwork and many of your favourite Australian records. A special mention goes out to Fiona Stafford an adept representative of Hellions, she has played a big part in our newly routed trajectory and we owe many of our recent successes solely to her tireless efforts.
Joining Void Of Vision and ourselves this evening were Earth Ender, the supremely talented Strickland (who’ve just released an incredible new album) and our long-time Sydney butt buddies in Bare Bones, who we are so pleased to have accompanying us for both of our Melbourne shows on this tour.
We took an hour out to speak with the gentlemen at Red Sky Music, a video of which is available on our Facebook page (excuse our frazzled appearance and the occasional poorly articulated answers, it’s been a big week, which Im sure you’re aware of if you’ve stuck with me thus far) and to speak with a suave and sharply dressed Nicholas Simonsen of Hysteria Magazine, whose naturally warm disposition afforded us one of the most candid and comfortable interviews of our career.
Come showtime we introduced the set once again with Redbone’s ‘Come And Get Your Love’, creating a relaxed atmosphere for us to build on once the set commenced. We had a wonderful time at the Reverence Hotel and after a long set of goodbyes, we were on our way back to our second home.
Upon arrival we were inconvenienced by the realisation that no one had a house key on their person, leaving us with no recourse but to go the back way. I was the only one drunk enough to volunteer endeavouring this perilous course, and after gracelessly scaling a large metallic fence and wrestling for a moment with the barbed wire at it’s peak, I was on the other side of the fence scaling the tenuously held roof of a tin shed and finally reached the back balcony of what Srem had assured me was the correct home (they all look the same, in his defence). I realised that it wasn’t the right house after opening the back door and entering a foreign living room. When it set in that I had just accomplished a B&E, I made as quiet an exit as possible while nursing a fucking heart attack. I jumped over the balcony to the CORRECT house, tried to quell the rib-breaking beat of my heart and let everyone inside.
Many a glass of wine and bottle of beer were consumed on what eventuated to be an unpredictably excessive evening for a few of us, and with the incipient sunrise, we stole to bed for a few hours rest.
Bluestone Church, Footscray
And so began the last day of our first headline tour, after showering and collecting our scattered belongings we headed off to the load-in, after which we ducked off to the bottle shop around the corner to purchase something to celebrate and reflect on the three wonderful weeks that had elapsed since we had first left Sydney.Today we were accompanied by Advocates, Hands Of Hope, aforementioned Sydney juggernaut Bare Bones and our old friends in Jack The Stripper. Today was a very special show, we were each as relaxed and unencumbered as can be before beginning the set and were met with an overwhelming response, nothing could wipe the smile off our faces. We were joined onstage by Tommy of Bare Bones, Josh of Earth Caller and Jack of Void Of Vision during ‘The Penultimate Year’, ‘The Great Fabricator' and ‘Infamita’, respectively.
After a rather poignant round of final valedictions, we parted ways with the boys in Void Of Vision and Bare Bones and began the long trip home to Sydney.
Thanks to anyone reading this unnecessarily lengthy and verbose diary and thank you to everybody who made this tour the fulfilling and validating experience all that it was, especially Oliver Rudloff, the newest member of the Hellions family, it was a pleasure to spend the month with you.
Until next time Australia,
XOXO Hellions
