Their bio reads like a wish list for young band’s entering the tumultuous waters of the indie-rock ocean. In only few short year’s Brisbane’s Hungry Kids Of Hungary have amassed more runs than Bradman and their ascension toward the glittering lights of success seems set to continue.
Already they’ve covered the essentials and some of the not so essentials when it comes to getting a band’s name out there. Triple J rotation – done it; tour with some of Australia’s hottest acts – done it; play overseas – done it; have your music smashed on international television hits like Grey’s Anatomy and Cougar Town… yeah they’ve done that too.
So why aren’t they the biggest band in the country we hear you say, well, as is the case with more and more Aussie band’s that are wising up to the modern age of 360 degree media, the Hungry Kids have spent the last couple of years building a platform from which to launch. With their new album Escapades hitting shelves now, the stratosphere seems achievable.
We sat down and spoke with vocalist and keysman Kane Mazlin about the band, the new record and the state of the biz.
Mate you’ve been flat our over the last couple years, where did you find time to write a well crafted record like Escapades?
Well the record is comprised of some old songs and maybe four or five from the last few months. We initially jammed as a band before playing shows, about 8 months actually, so we’re a bit more of a song band I guess, we work hard at finding the right arrangements and choruses so yeah.
And you’re touring a lot, do you get much time to actually get in a room and dig your fingers into the material as it’s being conceived?
Yeah we practice at our manager’s house once a week, quite softly actually which I think helps when you’re working out arrangements and harmonies and things like that.
Yeah well when you look at contemporary music at the moment it’s all electronic blips and beeps and harmonized synth concertos, but you guys seem to be looking further back for inspiration, what is at about the band’s collective background that draws you all to the classic sounds of old soul and pop?
We all share a big love for the classic pop bands like The Zombies and The Beachboys and that kind of stuff so we’ve all really bonded over that kind of music. And we all love the contemporaries like Bens Folds Five and The Shins so yeah I think there’s a bit of taste variation in the band but collectively we all really love 60s pop and I guess we’ll always be a work in progress and try not to be too derivative, we’re trying to put our own stamp on it.
And has being a bit harder to classify, or a bit more obscure when it comes to influence ever been a problem when it’s come to finding a market for the band?
We haven’t really sat down and analysed it too much, we just kind of go about it, just writing songs and I mean a couple of them have stuck as singles which is really great when it comes to getting numbers to shows, but we’ve never sat down and thought about it too much.
Well I guess being a little more unique is only a small hindrance until you achieve some profile which is when it quickly becomes and asset
Yeah at some point in time I think people will recognise the song writing, but it is hard you know because to get onto tours you’ve got to fit into a sound or fit into a scene at times and it’s not easy for a band starting out unless they can easily slot into electro pop or something. I think this is our fourth headline tour now and we’ve toured with quite a few Australia bands and they’ve been eclectic line-ups as well you know which is really great that people are coming along an accepting the different sorts of music.
And speaking of eclectic acts, who are the Aussie bands that are floating your boat at the moment?
We did a tour with Boy And Bear, they are great song writers, chorale vocal kind of stuff, great harmonies. There’s a band called The Chemist, they’re fantastic; I love The Bank Holidays, I’d love to tour with those guys. A guy called Andy Bull in Sydney; he’s just a brilliant soul singer. Yeah we love a lot of different music. We did a tour with Little Birdy last year, they’re a band I’ve always looked up to, great song writers.
Now in the notes for the new album, Escapades you mention several times that you were going for a particular vibe on different tracks, what’s your definition of a vibe and how do you know when you’ve caught one?
Yeah well I guess we had a bit more time in the studio this time, we did some pre production on the songs, we spent a little bit more time re-arranging some of the songs, changing the speed, and colouring the songs, we got some strings in etc. I think we were just trying to get more colour into the record this time so yeah.
And how much time did you actually spend in the studio for this record?
Well we recorded everything to 24 track tape for this one and we didn’t really over think things too much, drum and bass and guitar we put down together for a lot of the songs. We did experiment a little bit in post with different sounds, and there’s a few songs on the record where we removed a lot of the instruments and just left the effects which kind of created this a-capella type scenario which we wanted to experiment with a bit more than we had done on our EPs.
Well Escapades is really layered but not clustered at all so what’s the secret to great song structuring?
We put down a bunch of stuff and then we took stuff away, I think a lot of bands do that; we wanted dynamics, that was really important to us. We definitely took stuff away like I recorded a bunch of keyboards and if stuff didn’t need to be there we were ruthless, I just love sparseness in songs.
So how’s the reaction been to you guys been overseas thus far?
Yeah well we’ve spent a bit of time in the UK and the US and we’re looking at getting back next year sometime, we’re going to try to release the album overseas, that would be a big goal of ours next year, so yeah its huge, especially the US, it’s a huge market. We’ve still got a lot of work to do in Australia though, we’re really stepping things up here, on this tour we’ll be playing a as a five piece so yeah it’s going to be a lot of fun.
Hungry Kids Of Hungary’s new album, “Escapades” is out now through EMI.