HE DANCED IVY // Dancing And Moshing Their Way From Coffs Harbour To Brisbane

Nov 27, 2018 / WORDS Daniel Jaramillo / Laughing Cynically Whilst Embracing Optimism

Australia’s major cities have often been hotspots for exceptional homegrown rock bands but throughout rural regions and coastal towns, rock music is appearing in unlikely places and talent is seeping throughout this vast country. Coffs Harbour outfit He Danced Ivy is one of the latest, exciting rock acts in the Aussie live music circuit whilst releasing albums, singles and E.P’s as well as growing a fan base.

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They released their debut album The Verbal Kind in 2016 and then made a big change in all of their lives by moving to Brisbane that same year. This move inspired them to record the songs that ended up on their soon to be released new E.P titled Optimistic Cynic: a step further into the bands evolving sound, an eclectic sonic journey that is at times gut punching and takes unexpected turns and twists in its delivery.

Hysteria spoke to singer and guitarist David Cheney about the band’s musical evolution and why the recording process took unusually longer this time around. “We’ve always crossed over with genre’s, our sound is part metalcore, part progressive rock and we definitely have a punk attitude as well, all of these styles and influences make our sound evolve. The reason we took our time in recording Optimistic Cynic was to make sure we had access to the best recording, best sound mixing and really take the time to develop great hooks and hone our songwriting skills. We hired an Airbnb which we thought was haunted and which probably effected what we ended up writing and recording but we’re proud of the final result.”

We hired an Airbnb which we thought was haunted and which probably effected what we ended up writing and recording but we’re proud of the final result.
[ David Cheney ]

Not only is their music wildly eclectic but also the topics they write about, the titles they come up with and their overall philosophy is intriguing. David explains the name behind the latest E.P and the meaning behind their latest song New Stain. “Optimistic Cynic is about us laughing at our failures but also realising that despite all of our mistakes we believe in ourselves and that there is light at the end of the tunnel, you normally don’t see those two words right after each other but we thought that would make people want to engage in the music and think about what it might entail. New Stain was about the daunting feeling of moving to Brisbane from Coffs Harbour; it was daunting because it was a big life decision to make but I was the first to commit to the move in 2016 and then the rest of the band came up later, we all went to University in Brisbane and even though there was a music scene in Coffs Harbour there wasn’t really the infrastructure to really take the band to the next level.”

If you go onto the He Danced Ivy Facebook page and read their about section it states they are a party prog band, in other words technically accomplished with danceable grooves. The name He Danced Ivy also implies juxtapositions, so are they implying prog music can be party music? And deceiving people by using the words he and Ivy in the same title? “We don’t simply play dark, melancholic or technical music, we also write songs that are about having fun and that people can mosh and dance to. As far as our name is concerned, some bands put girls names in their band name like Asking Alexandria and we thought making that juxtaposition between being in an all male band and having a girls name in our name would be cool.”

The band played this year’s progfest in Brisbane but a national tour with Osaka Punch and Twelve Foot Ninja would be an ideal bill for He Danced Ivy and a dream tour for them, according to David. In today’s gig economy the cost of touring and the financial risk means that the chance of losing money prevents many up and coming bands from reaching a wider audience. He Danced Ivy are yet to play shows around the country and outside of Australia but they are adamant that they will eventually tour nationally and overseas. In the mean time they will be playing an E.P launch in Brisbane’s Crowbar and fans and new comers to the band can look forward to listening to heavy music with some out of place genres and sounds.