Cliché American College Q & A: Suburban Haze

Newcastle post-punk rockers Suburban Haze are just weeks away from releasing their forthcoming EP ‘Let It Happen’. We caught up the lads and asked a few questions to see how they’d cope in a stereotypical American college scene as well as coughing up some info on what we can expect from the new EP.

Social status, who fits where?

I like to think Joe, Dylan and myself are all basically Ogre from Revenge of the Nerds. Alex is the crusty old dean though.

What would be your college sport chant?

“Ooh, Ah, Glen Mcgrath, Ooh, Ah, Glen Mcgrath (Bowling Shane!)”.

What would be your Frat House name?

Hard to beat our friend’s frat house name “Beta Shaka Phi”.

Have you or would you ever participate in a keg stand?

As long as we could still stand, yes.

Beverage of choice?

Warm shandys.

Who would be your ideal friend group?

Whoever is playing D&D.

Would any of you join an acapella group?

That’s basically how Suburban Haze started…

What is or would have been your perfect american college to attend?

Faber College with Trump University in a close second.

You are just weeks away from releasing EP ‘It Will Never Happen’ how’s the band feeling?

Pretty keen to get it out! We’ve had the songs finished for a while but it’s been a long process to get to this point. Going to be really nice to be able to listen to it on vinyl!

Are you proud of the finished product or is there something you would have changed?

I think after you record anything there would always be things you would change but if you kept constantly going back you would never finish. We are definitely proud of these songs though!

How long was the recording process and how was it?

I think the whole process was maybe about two months? But the vibe was great. We worked with our friend Mat Taylor (who has done our 2 previous releases) and so we were all pretty locked into each other’s work styles. We usually have a bunch of weird ideas and Mat is really willing to experiment with stuff so it all worked out real well.

What was it like working with Self Defense Family’s Pat Kindlon? 

Pretty rushed haha, we recorded him in our friends van after a show. Was an awesome experience though, we are all huge SDF fans so it was a bit surreal.

Is there a message behind the EP? Maybe a story behind your favourite track?

We have a subliminal message playing under everything basically saying “smoke crack and hail satan”. As for the superluminal messages though, each song is pretty different. I think our song Roam is probably the heaviest story though. It deals with watching friends struggle with drug use and being unable to help them. It’s kind of scary seeing how something can start so positive and transform into something so horrible so quickly.

The cover artwork for your vinyl release looks incredible! Who produced the artwork and  where did the idea come from? 

That was all handled by our bassist/jack of all trades, Joe. In his words: “I tried to create something that I thought encompassed the unpredictability that can come from darker thoughts and how our brain chemistry reacts. Due to the nature of how I was working with the medium it kind of reflected itself in a very different way to what I was originally trying to achieve…So I suppose it was successful because it took its own unpredictable form which I hope gives anyone who checks it out their own individual interpretations.”

The music video for Bed Keep Me is crazy. How did you come up with this super different and arty clip?

Just a deep seated love for public domain footage and a process that kicked off with our last album. I’m always just fiddling around with bits of public domain footage and trying to come up with ways to do different things with them.

When writing music do you consider how it will transpose between live to digital recording? 

Originally, definitely! On our old albums I basically thought “we shouldn’t put anything in recording we can’t pull off live” which now I think is robbing yourself of the possibilities of recording. But with this album we decided to throw that idea to the wind. In recording now, we just throw in whatever we reckon will sound cool and worry about live later. There’s a part in our song Every Frame A Scribble where Dyl is hitting an old heater with a brush, and I don’t think anyone can be bothered to drag the heater on stage for the sake of a couple of hits.

Who are you biggest influences as musicians? 

I think we take on a lot of influence from really varied acts. Though some of our favourites would have to be Jeff Buckley, John Frusciante, Chelsea Wolfe, Burzum, Nirvana, George Michael and Converge. We are however fuelled by good veggie burgers.

What can fans expect from ‘It Will Never Happen’?

A similar feeling to if you take the High School Musical soundtrack and slow it down 3000x.