PALS // Announce New Single & South-East Coast Tour

After the soaring reviews of their single Consumed released in April this year, punk-rock Novocastrians PALS have delivered yet again with the next instalment of their discography, Something New. But the goodies don’t stop there because what better way to celebrate a new single than with a tour down the South-East Coast!

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The four piece outfit hailing from Newcastle have set themselves apart from other emerging bands with their compositions of genres and influences that evidently make the whole thing just work. If the game was to keep us guessing, then PALS have got that part down pat. 

With one album under their belt, and now two single releases in 2018, the band of high-school friends are picking up momentum which has got us excited for what’s coming next—the tour! We chatted with PALS vocalist Connor Kelly ahead of this maiden voyage. 

“This tour is about playing to new people, putting on a good show for our fans, and hopefully along the way we impress a few people in the music industry so we can get some bigger shows going [laughs].

Kicking off tonight in their hometown of Newcastle, Connor gave us an insight as to what we can expect from the PALS live show. Although this will be their first tour, PALS are no strangers to playing to a live audience.

“We love playing live and we have a pretty energetic show so it’s always fun! [We all] get really into it and just try to make it fun for the audience too. Playing with big bands over the last year, we know that this is what we want to be doing more of; playing live shows and supporting bigger bands around Australia. And so far everyone has seemed to like our shows so we must be doing something right!”

Those bands mentioned before by Connor include fellow Newcastle punk legends The Gooch Palms and an impressive accolade of National and International bands liked WAAX, Skeggs and Cloud Nothings (USA). So why has it taken so long to put together a tour? 

“We’ve played shows for a lot of great bands, but we haven’t really toured yet. Whenever we look at booking tours we are always looking for other bands on our level that would kind of match our sound, but we struggle to find that. Obviously there’s a lot of great bands that are either real heavy, indie or melodic bands, but nothing that sounds exactly like us—but I guess that’s what sets us apart too [laughs]. In writing I take a lot of influence from those styles, and obviously bands like Violent Soho and Title Fight, but we try not to sound exactly like them. I think we really stick out on that front.”

I dare say he’s right. When racking my little noggin for bands in the scene who take the best parts of this range of genres and make it work in an Album, EP or even a single track, I come up blank (don’t @ me if I missed your favourite band). While it’s obviously near-impossible to create something that no one has ever heard or done before, PALS have hit the nail damn close to the head.

Amid talks of future tours, obviously we had to ask about any new tracks lined-up. Luckily Connor confirmed for us that, if not an album, there will definitely be an EP coming out next year. Thank Hades for that because we are hooked. 

With statements like “One of Newcastle’s best and most raucous emerging bands” hanging overhead, the heavy-melodic-punk sound concoction that PALS has created is quickly winning over fans from a range of genres. If 2018 is anything to go by, then 2019 might just be the year of the PALS. 

Catch PALS on their South-East Coast tour:

Nov 2 – The Cambridge Hotel, Newcastle
Nov 10 – Lennox Groove, Lennox Head
Nov 23 – Otto’s House Party, Sydney
Dec 14 – Rad, Wollongong
Dec 15 – Transit Bar, Canberra