VERTICOLI // So Fresh: The Hits Of Summer 2022

It’s basically science. When the sun comes out, so do the good times. And with inhibitions hiding away and hormones stepping out to say hello, there’s usually a whole lot of hilarity that follows. Tasmanian/Victorian trio Verticoli know this all too well.

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So when they needed inspiration for their latest single, Hits of the Summer, they turned straight to their young and dumb selves.

We caught up with frontman Sam Hunn (now a little older and wiser) for a chat about the track and a whole lot more.

Hysteria: Tell us about the band and how you came together.

Sam: I started writing music at the end of high school. I have a brother who’s a very talented bass player, but now he works as a lawyer and lives in the UK. He doesn’t have time to make music anymore, but we started writing together back then.

Our mate Will Colvin, our current drummer, came in, and we started working on some songs. That was nearly ten years ago. There was also a time when Will wasn’t our drummer. And another when we took a break from the band. That was for about a year when I moved to Perth for work. I lost a bit of interest in the band at that time. It wasn’t doing what I wanted it to do for me.

Then in 2018, we came back with Will and picked up where we left off. That’s where we are now, and we have a lot of vigour at the moment.

Hits of the Summer is such a feel-good tune. Tell us about the experiences that inspired it.

When I was 19 or 20, I had this experience with this girl I was into. This other bloke was too. It was a bit of a love triangle/miscommunication situation. The song doesn’t seek to put the blame on anyone. I have a tendency to go for drives in my car; I don’t like to sit and think too much about melodies. At least initially. I just like to sit and jam on the track for a bit. Driving’s a good way to do that and see what comes to mind.

It was a bright sunny day, and for whatever reason, I went back to that experience. And I looked at it through the lens of me not being a particularly good fighter or not being someone built to fight. The lyrics just look back on the situation comically, and they came out in the car ride. They look at how when you’re young and dumb, when there’s lots of emotions and drinking, things can get out of hand. That’s what happened at that time. I don’t lose sleep over it now. But at the time, I never would’ve had the courage to write a song about it. It’s nice to be able to look back at it now and see it through a comical, lighthearted lens.

We’re just trying to show the full range of what we love doing and what we love about music. Our motto is to be our own favourite band.
[Sam Hunn]

Looking back now, what’s one bit of advice you’d give younger you.

Don’t sweat anything half as much as you do. I feel like as you get on in years, everything that seemed like a distinct negative actually proves itself to be another opportunity. I’m happy with where my life is gone, and all these things that have happened in my life that seemed negative at the time just helped me get here.

There are obviously some things that can’t be looked at so comically. But it is nice to look back at things, look back at the troubles you had when you were younger, and laugh.

You’re actually split between Tasmania and Victoria. How do you manage that?

We were actually all in Victoria, and then I had to move to Tasmania for work. It’s totally fine, though. I quite like my songwriting process of working to form ideas quite well before taking them to the other guys. It gives me the opportunity to approach the creative process the way I like.

In many ways, it’s just encouraged us to be better organised. And because of what’s been happening the last few years, particularly around playing gigs, it hasn’t been that much of a problem for us. Yeah, it’s just encouraged us to manage our time together better.

So exciting that you have some shows coming up! How do you feel about them?

Really good! We’re hoping people are more comfortable going to gigs now. We have a launch show in Hobart, and then we’re playing in Melbourne the night after. We’re tying in some pre-production for the album there too. We’re hoping to finish recording it in April, so we’ll be spending a lot of time together over the next month or so.

Build your dream tour. Who are you sharing the stage with?

When we’ve been asked this in the past, we’ve said Parliament-Funkadelic. A party band like them would be amazing. Or an act like Earth, Wind & Fire. We wouldn’t necessarily pick the same style of music, but we’d pick a big band that you could watch and learn a lot from. In Australia, we’d go with Karnivool. I’m also a big Pearl Jam fan, so I’d say them. I saw Kings of Leon support them once, and it was such a great time.

We’d love to tour with big stadium rock bands. If we could jump on that Foo Fighters tour, we would!

What else can you tell us about your upcoming album?

The album is fully written and demoed. We worked with the producer Jon Grace, who recently worked with Dear Seattle. He was great and brought so much to the table. He had ideas and was happy for us to reject them, but we were happy to take them. We struck up a really good dynamic. It’s been fun to see how he reacts to our demos and what he thinks can be done differently. It’s a fun learning process and creative process.

There’ll be a mixture of different influences and sounds on the album. There are a couple of ballads and some more ambient songs. Really, we’re just trying to show the full range of what we love doing and what we love about music. Our motto is to be our own favourite band. We’re pretty strong-headed in our ideas of what we want out of music. We think there’s no point in us doing something another band can do better. We try and do our heavy enthusiastic rock the best we can, and we hope to pick up some fans along the way.