BLIND MAN DEATH STARE // Confidence Maketh The Blind Man

Melbourne punk rockers Blind Man Death Stare might be relative new kids on the block with just a debut album under their belt.

Even so, it hasn’t stopped them from attracting an international audience in a very short space of time. This March, the band will be touring with Germany’s Straightline before heading over to Europe for a run of headline shows.

The dust has yet to settle on their first record, It’ll Grow On Ya, but already Blind Man Death Stare are back at it, focusing on the follow up. Before they hit the road with their European buddies, we spoke to drummer and vocalist Parker.

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Hysteria: You must be feeling excited round about now.

Parker: Yeah, it definitely is an exciting time. Super busy and you know, we’re getting the job done, it’s like fucking takes a lot of work to get it done. But yeah, slowly but surely, everything’s coming together. We got a few more exciting things happening this year, that has been announced, just recently. We’re in the midst of demoing tracks for our second album. We released our first one last year. We’re going up to record with Jay Whalley from Frenzal Rhomb and record at his studio.

Is everything ready to go?

I’m confident in the songs that I’m writing, the songs are progressing. We’re back to a three piece now. One of our guitars has left. Bit of a story, but not one that I’ll go into now, but yeah, we’re just getting’ used to that. It’s sort of made us become even more sort of original in what we are. I think we’ve sort of found our sound even more now that we’ve stripped back away. So yeah, we’ve started demoing the tracks now for that. And then we do that in June, and then in August we go out for our first Summer European tour.

Holy shit. That’s a big moment, a big debut and a few months after the fact. Now that the thing is settled and people have had time to spend time with it, how did it all go down?

It went down really well. So, we released our first album and putting sort of your heart and soul on the line, I guess. It’s a little bit daunting. You can get a bit anxious. I’m like, I’m a worrier and I get pretty anxious with stuff but I do want everything to go well and put a lot of effort into that tour. It was a massive tour. It’s like, I think around 40 shows, around from here to Asia and back.

That’s insane.

The response that we got, yeah, it was massive. It went for like three months, I think we toured for, and that was like at least every weekend, three or four days a week and then sold led to three weeks in Asia. Touring went really well, like the crowds were really responsive. We sold a lot of records. Since the release of the album we’ve actually sold out of the first pressing of the limited edition and we’ve nearly sold out of the second pressing of the limited smoke one. So anyone, just make sure you get to a show and come and grab one of the smoke ones ’cause yeah, like I said, limited and there’s only maybe like 30 left. We’re nearly up to the third pressing of the record already, so that in itself speaks volumes.

How about the shows itself?

The shows are really good. Everyone really dug the sound, and the line-up and what we’ve been working hard on, like our large shows and stuff, so it all came together really well. Like I want to be a punk band that does have a lot of releases and keeps working hard and backing up, you know, a decent album with another decent album. And that’s what we’re doing now.

That must’ve been a total rush to have done all those things, like selling out of printing and all that kind of stuff. What were you looking for, for a success? What would you have been happy with to go back and go, “Yep, that album went really well.?”

Well, shit, I was just looking for a good crowd response to the songs we played live and to our live show. And then, just to sell a handful of records would’ve been good to start with ’cause I was afraid we wouldn’t sell one.

So if you wanna see us play, the only opportunity you’re gonna get is on this Straightline tour, which is this coming March.
[PARKER]

Fair.

We ended up selling quite a fair few. So, we’re really stoked and we haven’t had the opportunity to take it over to Europe yet, so I’m not sure if the second album will be pressed and ready for Europe, so we’re pretty much gonna use this first European tour to take the first album, and then in Summer, we’ll look at releasing the second album and then looking to get back to Europe and Asia next year as well, so we aren’t stopping around.

Awesome. So what plans do you have beyond Europe?

We’ve got another exciting tour. I’m bringing a band over at the end of October, right when we get back from Europe so I’m not gonna announce that yet. There’s gonna be another Australian tour. If you wanna see us play, the only opportunity you’re gonna get is on this Straightline tour, which is this coming March. So yeah, check your local guides or our website with more details, ’cause you ain’t gonna see us pretty much until, towards the end of the year, ’til like Spring.

Are you nervous about this follow up? Are you worried? Is that manifesting itself into pressure at all, knowing that you’ve got kids in Australia, but also kids in goddamn Germany and Italy and France waiting on this thing as well. Is that screwing with you or do you have a good handle on it?

No. I reckon I’ve got a good handle on it. I’m confident in the show that we have and the songs that we’ve already got and the ones we’ve written, the new ones. I’m confident in the next album is going to be better than the first one. And I’m confident that we’ll go over there and do exactly what we’ve done so far, like throughout Australia and Asia and you know. We really take it seriously when we go to a show, like try and be as professional as possible and put on a good show and then obviously party, ’cause we love to party, we like people to have fun. But, you know, we want to put on a good show for everyone that comes to see us play.

I’m only like, nervous [really about] the booking part, just getting that out of the way and getting that first tour out of the way so I know how everything works. But as a band, we’re all super excited and we just, we’re looking forward to just doing the show. As well as looking forward to get back on the road again this March as well. We’re pretty confident.

Blind Man Death Stare will be touring Australia with Straightline this March, tickets available here.