HELLIONS // Cast Into Oblivia. This is Hellions Magnum Opus.

Aug 10, 2016 / WORDS Tom Valcanis / PHOTOS Sandra Markovic / Raising the curtain on Opera Oblivia ...

Excerpt from Hysteria #45 August 2016 cover feature with Hellions.

The rock opera is dead. Deader than Elvis. Yet Sydney’s Hellions decided they’d make one. They’d make a rock opera this country—perhaps the world—won’t ever forget.

Opera Oblivia, Latin for ‘work of art’ and ‘state of forgetfulness’ in that order, is this young band’s third album. Early last year, second album Indian Summer arrived. Scribes spilled many lauding adjectives describing it. Exciting, said one site. Very interesting, said another. Astounding, said one more.

The accolades avalanched in, and Hellions were sticking to the lips of everyone in the rock ‘n’ roll scene. That’s what we all are, at the end of the day. Rock ‘n’ rollers. Pete Townsend is a rock ‘n’ roller, just like Joey Ramone was a rock ‘n’ roller. Rob Halford is a rock ‘n’ roller—so is Oli Sykes.

The Hellions boys are rock ‘n’ rollers. Rock ‘n’ roll is in everything they touch. Opera Oblivia embodies the finer qualities of rock ‘n’ roll, of outsider art and music itself. National broadcaster Triple J chose Opera Oblivia as their feature album during the last week of July. It’s not hard to hear why. Because Opera Oblivia is their Nevermind, the record that changes it all for them, and for us.

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The Overture—Genesis Oblivia

“It started off really like a normal record,” says Matt Gravolin, one of the guitar maestros behind the Opera. “Every song was its own entity without any of the other songs in mind. It was actually during the recording that we thought it up. We had the title Opera Oblivia in mind for a little while. It was Anthony’s call to keep going to the table saying, ‘We should structure this like an opera. We should have it in a few acts.’ It gives it an operatic structure: the orientation, complication, and resolution.”

Drummer Anthony Caruso, heading home from work on a sunny Sydney day, remembers it well.

“I was kind of sitting there listening through the songs, and it obviously has that very grand and operatic vibe to it, to the songs in general. Kind of piecing together a general sort of storyline, you know and introduction, jam, combination, that just kind of …” he trails off. “That was the main thing was about piecing together the songs. The way that the songs would go, splitting them into acts.

“It kind of just happened. I can’t exactly explain. I mean I’ve always been a fan of theatre and all that, so it’s the way that the record sounded. It made so much sense to me. When I started to voice that, I remember I lit up and was like, ‘Yeah, that’s spot on. Let’s do that.’”

* * *

Recitativo—Collaborative Oblivia

Opera Oblivia doesn’t sound like the product of five guys playing instruments in a studio. It’s an order of magnitude greater than it is. Songs like Quality of Life with its layers upon layers of voices and sound feels like a cast of hundreds took part.

“We were best prepared for this record than any record before in this band or any other,” Matt says. “Hundreds and hundreds of hours went into this. A lot of the songs went through as many as seven incarnations. They were changed over and over and over again.

“We restructured songs with new choruses … a big focal point was on big choruses. At the end of the day, that’s what people want to hear and that’s what we wanted to put out there. We did a lot more work before we went to the studio. We had our basic skeleton, so only ten percent of the writing was done in the studio.”

We were best prepared for this record than any record before in this band or any other. Hundreds and hundreds of hours went into this. A lot of the songs went through as many as seven incarnations. They were changed over and over and over again.
[ Matt Gravolin ]