One of our favourite bands, Frightened Rabbit from Scotland, is touring Australia very soon with shows in Melbourne, Sydney and an appearance at Splendour in the Grass.

We’ve just been announced as the support for the Melbourne show on Monday August 2 at The Hi-Fi.  Words don’t really describe how good this is.

Tickets available here: http://www.thehifi.com.au/events/frightened-rabbit-7762/

In June last year we were fortunate enough to have the opportunity to fly over to the USA to make a record with a producer named Kevin Augunas who has made records with Cold War Kids, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes and Yves Klein Blue to name a few.  Don’t ask us why he wanted to work with a small, independent band from Brisbane, but we are incredibly grateful that he did.

Kevin worked out of an amazing studio called Fairfax Recordings in North Hollywood, Los Angeles, which was more like a museum of awesome vintage gear than any traditional studio we’d ever seen before.  We were over there for about 2 weeks and it was one of the best experiences a new band could possibly hope to have had when starting out I think.

Here’s a bit of a video of our time in the studio with Kevin making our debut self-titled EP.

While we were in Los Angeles last year recording our EP with Kevin Augunas, one day before going into the studio, Kevin decided to take us on a climb up to the Hollywood sign.  At the time we didn’t realise that it was ludicrously illegal to climb up to the sign and that it was freaking difficult to get to. 

After hiking for a couple of hours we finally reached the sign, bruised and bleeding, only to set off motion detectors and an alarm. We stayed up there long enough to get some footage of us sitting on the first “L” before a park ranger came out and chased us away.

If Kevin wasn’t seven feet tall and didn’t pioneer the way through the scrub we probably wouldnt’ have made it. It was ridiculously good fun though and no one in LA would actually believe we went up there.

While we were on tour in Sydney we played an acoustic gig at this little bookstore cafe. Greg and Dave went to find a place to do vocal warmups and stumbled upon an awesome room in the downstairs part of the shop. We felt inspired to record a song down there. So here’s Start a War in a Bookstore.

After touring our EP down the East Coast of Australia for the last two weeks we got home yesterday.  We’ll post about the tour a little later but this one’s all about the Brisbane launch.

To each one of the more than 450 people who made it along to The Zoo on March 5 we’d like to thank you for making our EP launch an amazing night for us.  Thanks to Timothy Carroll and Tin Can Radio for playing some incredible music on the night as well.

Here are some photos and a few videos from the show.  Andrew Tallon and Elleni Toumpas were great behind the lens as always.  Check out their work!

On Friday night we launched our first record, our self-titled EP.  We also premiered our first ever music video for the song “The Rafters”.

It was directed by Brodie Rocca, produced by Bec Blomberg, and stars Chris Beavon and Katrina Lilwall.  Thanks guys for doing such a wonderful job and for working so hard.  We owe you immensely.

So here it is, our first video.

What a way to finish the year!  We had such an amazing time on this tour.  Thank you to everyone who made it special: the bands, the crowds, owners of the couches we slept on, Michael the best taxi driver ever.  Here’s three minutes worth.  See you on the road again next year!

Valley Fiesta was freaking amazing.  We’re so grateful to have been a part of it. There’s something very cool about playing on a stage that’s at the end of a small, closed-off street.  CityCare did a great job organising the event.  If you’ve got 10 seconds then please visit citycare.org.au and check out what they do and what they’re about.  They do some great work and we were honoured to be involved in one of their events.

To everyone in the crowd, you really made our night.  You battled the on/off rain with stoic disregard for your comfort.  Thanks for being awesome.

Here are a few videos taken by some good friends of ours.  Props to Claire and Denis.

The Rafters Live at Valley Fiesta from Montpelier on Vimeo.

Uncomfortable Live at Valley Fiesta from Montpelier on Vimeo.

Last Boat Live at Valley Fiesta from Montpelier on Vimeo.

Putting this video together took me straight back to LA.  It was such a fantastic experience working on the record.  We learned so much and became a way better band because of it I think.

We’re incredibly excited about releasing this single and then the full record over the coming months.  Hope you like it.