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Hockey Dad – Q&A

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In the past week I caught up Wollongong surf rockers Hockey Dad on the back end of their national tour with party punk gods DZ Deathrays. We discussed the tour, working with Tom from the Big Scary, what it was like playing Falls Festival as small timers and everything that happened in between. With their unique mixture of Beach Boys, Dune Rats and the Drums they have been taking off across the nation.
Photo credit Ian Laidlaw.
How did you guys get on the tour?
ZS: How did we get on the tour? I was just friends with the DZ boys and Shane.
BF: Shane just messaged me one day and asked “you keen?” and then we were like “yeah I guess”. I didn’t even know Bass Drum of Death were playing as well until crunch time.
When did you guys start and what was the reason? I heard you guys have been friends for ages has that played a part in it?
BF: We didn’t really have a reason we were just experimenting with different styles. Like we were in this one band and the songs that we wanted to play weren’t really suitable. Then Zach started writing this other stuff that ended up being this. So then we just mucked around and here we are.
What bands have been inspiration for your sound? It’s quite unique.
BF: Thank you that’s good. We were discussing that just before, that like the calibre of what we listen to on a daily basis spans over 60 years.
Can you pinpoint any band in particular that influenced Hockey Dad?
BF: The very few songs that I have tried to write Bass Drum have been a very big influence. Their debut was really good I listened to that every day.
ZS: I think that’s why we sound different it’s not like we’re drawing it from one band. One song can have inspiration from a song last year and another could be from 60 years ago. Some a mixture.
BF: We seem to just take the highlights of a few songs and put them together.
You were saying that your music taste spans over such a large period of time, what sort of music did your parents listen to and did that have an effect on what you listen to?
ZS: TISM
BF: Yeah my parents never really got me into music it was more my siblings. I grew up on like 90s punk like Pennywise, NoFX, Millencolin, Lagwagon, all that shit. The shit you would see at Soundwave everywhere. But like, from then I think I just got exposed to a lot shit. Youtube played a big role from just suggesting bands I might like. My parents have a really good record collection which I listen to all the time now. It’s been very much from our own influence for the music part.
Yeah that’s cool. It’s like how on this tour with DZ each band brings their style of the genre.
BF: It’s a funny transition. We’re like soft-core, and then we got like Bass Drum that are just like norm-core and DZ that are like hard-core [punk].
Last year was a big year for you guys. So you guys worked with Tom Big Scary on your EP Dreamin’, how did that come about?
BF: Our manager’s band just recorded their second album with Tom and we got the contact from him. Tom was still free after that and keen to record so we jumped on and flew down the next month.
You guys also got picked up pretty quickly by Farmer and the Owl. Did you take it guys long to get picked up?
ZS: It took a while. People don’t realise that it took about a year to get anywhere.
BF: The first year of playing shows was still fun but the ball definitely didn’t start rolling till 2014. It’s been a really good year and I hope this year will be a pretty big one.                        Photo credit Ian Laidlaw.
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So when Dreamin’ came out did you expect to get as much coverage as it did? Like a lot of airplay on Triple J and in Canberra a few cafes play it. Was that a main intention?
ZS: Not quite at cafes *laughs*.

BF: I don’t know it’s kind of we didn’t expect much to come from it we were just really excited to get the EP out there. We’ve been writing for a long time and we have heaps of stuff ready to go. But I think releasing things is just the most excited thing to do. In regards to how it went last year we definitely didn’t expect that. A lot of helping hands like Triple J that was fantastic. We got the feature artist right before we went up for Falls after winning Unearth.

As you were just saying you guys did Fall Festival up in Byron Bay which is pretty sick to have done and a good way to end the year. Did you guys get up to much at Falls? Any good stories?
BF: We crashed Alison Wonderland at New Year’s Eve with Bad Bad Not Good which was the weirdest way to start the year. Side of stage for Salt and Pepper that was interesting, that was weir. A lot of shit happened at Falls it was just four days of mayhem.
ZS: Steph Gilmore hated us. She camped next to us and she was just off it, it was hilarious.
BF: We were surfing Snapper Rocks prior to Falls and Stephanie Gilmore dropped in on me and I told Zach so he decided to spray her when she was paddling into the wave. Then she saw us at Falls and just hated us.
*Laughs* that’s a good one.
BF: See ya round Steph, we’ll get ya.
Last thing, with 2014 being such a big year for you guys what can we expect in 2015?
BF: Plan A, [play] Mardi Grass. Plan B, I don’t know. We’re going to be putting out a single next week.
ZS: Same as last year really just tour.
Maybe a full length coming our way?
ZS: Yeah we have some things in the works.
BF: We’ve thought about what we’re doing this year but mainly do what we did last year and try get our name out there. We haven’t released anything since this time last year so it’s been a long time of just sitting around. Keen to get some more stuff out there and get on it. We’ll see how we go ayy.
You can catch Hockey Dad on their June tour at these places:
June 5 – Shebeen (18+), Melbourne
June 6 – Brighten Up (18+), Sydney
June 12 – Elsewhere (18+), Gold Coast
June 13 – Trainspotters (18+), Brisbane
June 14 – RAD (AA/Licensed), Wollongong
Listen to their new single ‘Can’t Have Them here.
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Written by Donovan McComb-Gray

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