Brisbane’s pop-punk upstarts Two Times Shy are soaring lofty heights as they let loose their …
Following the release of their latest single Headcase and part way through their tour promoting the double single release Two More Reasons To Hate Us, Hysteria caught up with 23/19’s vocalist Nathan Stuckey
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Hysteria: Starting with the obvious, how’s the tour been so far?
Nathan: Yeah, it’s going really well. So far we’re two shows in, both shows have been really good and it’s nice to be away again, chilling out every day, seeing new things and stuff, it’s going really well. We were on tour with Wraith, I think it was in July and August so it’s nice to be back on the road.
How’s the reaction been to your new single Headcase?
The reaction to Headcase has been really good so far. Everyone’s loving that Jack Bergin (Void Of Vision) part in it!
And fans are getting to hear the new song on tour?
Yeah definitely, it’s the one we open up with. It’s quite a fast song, that’s why we put it first, kind of open it up a bit and play our others later. Both shows so far have been super high energy, Melbourne I think got described as “using people as meat shields” [laughs] so it’s been pretty crazy like, we’re a pretty heavy band, so it usual gets pretty hectic in the pits.
How does it feel onstage when you see that reaction to your music?
It’s good. It’s hard, you know, being such an angry band that stuff obviously makes you happy when people are going crazy, it’s hard sometimes not to just smile, you remember to put the “Mr Tough Guy” face back on. We definitely get nervous but a couple of beers before our show always calms our nerves. I feel like I get more nervous in our hometown than I do on tour, just because we know so many people, but yeah, we definitely still get nervous.
I was saying to someone the other day, we all started this band to play breakdowns and play heavy music and we’re definitely going to change up, we’re not going to stay boring, but we definitely want to stick around that heavy hardcore mosh sound …
[ Nathan Stuckey ]
Is there a particular show on this tour you’re looking forward to most?
Yeah definitely. Definitely really looking forward to our first all-ages show in Sydney, we’ve only played there twice, both times has been 18+ and I’m really looking forward to see how it turns out, talk to some of the younger generation. We don’t usually get to play to many kids but both our shows before have sold out and if we don’t have fans that age I’m sure we will after they watch us.
Do you guys have a particular way of winding down afterwards?
I usually run straight to the merch tent and the other boys pack up but I think winding down is about the same as curing the nerves. Just have a couple of beers, chill out, try not to mosh too hard to the other bands.
What do you guys get up to during the day before shows?
We’ve got a couple of days off at the moment. Yesterday we just had a couple of cartons at the house so we just had a bit of a sesh, drank and talked shit and hung out. We don’t actually get to hang out that much in Adelaide so it’s just nice to sit down and recharge and just watch stupid videos and talk to your mates. Today we’re in Melbourne and we don’t get to spend a lot of time here so we’re just going to catch up with some friends. If we’re not driving, we just try to hang out and relax as much as possible.
Do you listen to many other bands on the road or are you focused on your own?
We definitely listen to a lot of bands on the road. Usually our guitarist Matt’s in the front DJ’ing, it could be anything from heavy music to something completely ridiculous.
Matt: I’m such a good DJ as well.
Nathan: [Laughs] Every Morning by Sugar Ray is probably like our song that we go to. I think on our first tour whenever we were feeling down or anything, we’d just chuck that song on, have a singalong and just feel better and shit, so yeah.
How has the double single drop been different to other releases?
It’s been good. I mean people have definitely taken it a little differently like “is there more to this release or is it just two tracks?” but no, it’s supposed to be two tracks and it’s worked out really well. We just wanted to put out a little bit more music cause we did put out an EP earlier this year as well and, we were happy with it, but we thought we could do better so we put out these two tracks and I think the reaction of these two tracks has been way bigger than what we expected. I think with these two tracks we found our sound and that’s what we want to push now as far as we can. We just want to thank all the bands and everyone who’s supporting us on tour and all the fans, we owe it all to them.
So what are 23/19’s future plans once this tours wrapped up?
So next year what we want to do is tour now that we’ve released something we’re really happy with. We want to get as many other interstate shows, we want to stop playing in Adelaide as much because we want to focus on the rest of Australia. We still want to play Adelaide shows of course but we want to do it as part of other tours so future plans are just to tour. We are in the process of also writing an album so we’ll be focusing on that as well. Internationally, we’d love to play Download Festival at some point too, that’ll be the biggest dream of all time. Here, we’d like to play UNIFY, I feel like that’s every heavy bands dream to play UNIFY. Halloween Hysteria looks good as well, we were talking about hopefully we get an offer for that if they do that again.
With this seemingly increasing change for bands switching to a more radio-friendly sound, do fans of 23/19 need to worry about that?
I was saying to someone the other day, we all started this band to play breakdowns and play heavy music and we’re definitely going to change up, we’re not going to stay boring, but we definitely want to stick around that heavy hardcore mosh sound so we probably won’t go more rock, we really just want to play heavy music cause we all enjoy it, we all listen to heavy bands in our spare time.
23/19 Two More Reasons To Hate Tour with special guests Mauvais dates:
Thu 22 November // Kavova Lounge // Ballerat (18+)
Fri 23 November // Chatswood Youth // Sydney (AA)
Sat 24 November // ECP Studios // Central Coast (AA)
Sun 25 November // Crowbar // Brisbane (18+)
