STEPSON // Support the Scene

Stepson are more than just your local sadboiz. In between dropping tunes with a near lethal dose of feels in them, they have been holding down the fort in the Brisbane hardcore/punk scene, and are now set to support Polaris on their Dusk to Day tour.

With the shows just around the corner, and their own headliner on the way Hysteria caught up with bassist/vocalist Jayden Ridley to talk about the importance of supporting the local scene.

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Hysteria: Your support slot with Polaris is just around the corner, how’s prep going for it?

Jayden: It’s kind of all over the shop to be honest as we’ve got so much going on right now. We’re looking towards the future because we just finished our record so we’re trying to get all that organised. The Polaris shows have creeped up pretty quickly on us but we’re working on a cool new setlist and maybe playing a new song off the album at those shows, so that’s pretty exciting!

You’ve said you’ll be retiring some old songs from your set list going forward, will your upcoming sets just focus on the new record?

Leading into the album cycle we’re going to want to play a lot more of our newer songs, personally we just think they’re better. We’ve been playing all our back catalogue for the past two or three years now, so it’ll be nice to have something fresh. We’ll still throw some old ones in there but for the most part, it’ll be the new stuff.

If you don’t nurture that small local AA scene then you don’t get these kids coming out who really care about it and when they get older, they’re not going to care and they won’t want to start their own bands.
[ Jayden Ridley ]

Other than the Polaris support, do you have any other shows on the horizon?

We’re working on a show at the moment that’ll be our own little headliner. We’ll be playing the new music and we’re going to try do a few things a little differently. We’re going to bring along a live track and just up the production value of our shows in every single way. If you’ve never seen Stepson before, it’ll blow you away. If you have seen us before, hopefully how much better we’ve gotten will blow you away.

Any ideas on who’ll be jumping on as support for that one?

We’re still locking in some supports.

Will it focus on having local talent as supports?

For sure, that’s what our band was built on and I’m very big on locals having a crack at it and trying to build themselves up. That’s how our band got there, we did these local shows and in turn that grew the demand outside of our local scene and that was how we started touring. I think it’s pretty important to have good, solid locals. They don’t necessarily have to be the biggest name in their city to be the best band for the bill. I do all our bookings, so I’m all about giving younger bands a shot, they appreciate it a bit more and they work hard to make the show the best possible thing for everyone involved. I’d rather get a solid, local band than a larger band that doesn’t really care as much or thinks they’re too cool to pull their weight.

Is it really important to the band to just nurture that scene from the beginning, and get people involved when they’re a little younger?

Yeah, 100%. I first wanted to play in a band and do music when I was 14, and all I remember was doing anything and everything I could get to all these shows, it was those shows that made me want to do it. If you don’t nurture that small local AA scene then you don’t get these kids coming out who really care about it and when they get older, they’re not going to care and they won’t want to start their own bands, they won’t be inspired to do it and then suddenly, we’ll have no good bands and that would be awful!

I know there are kids out there who really like our band but can’t come to shows so I always try to get an AA going and then hopefully they start their own band and we can do shows together!
[ Jayden Ridley ]

I think AA’s shows are especially really important, I remember being a 15-16-year-old kid and seeing these bands come through and they would be playing 18+ shows … I know there are kids out there who really like our band but can’t come to shows so I always try to get an AA going and then hopefully they start their own band and we can do shows together! (laughs)

How did work on the debut album go?

It was awesome. We’ve done EP’s and singles before and we’ve usually worked with Callan Orr as a producer so we were pretty comfortable and we knew what we were expecting in a sense. I thought it would be like all the other stuff we’ve done in the past but doing an album for some reason was so much harder, I don’t know if it was because we had this expectation of ourselves to make it the best thing we’ve ever done or that there was double the amount of songs we’ve ever done in one session before.

It was pretty stressful and there were a few times where I almost cracked when things didn’t turn out as good as I had hoped, but now that it’s all done I’m pretty happy. Looking back, I’m quietly confident that it’s going to do really well. It’s a bit different as well, I’m doing a bit more singing and we’re trying things out we haven’t done before which is cool.

Lyrically, Stepson’s always been really open and emotional, will the new record maintain the same emotional standards?

Yeah, of course. There may be a different subtext we’re talking about this time though. Brock (Conry, vocalist) is a very good lyricist in the sense that he just writes from his own personal experience and words it in a way that everyone can relate. When the band first started he sent me the lyrics to the first song we ever created, Leak and it was just like “holy shit dude, this is exactly what I felt like two years ago and you put pen to paper and explained it and we haven’t even had a conversation about it.” I think that’s a very big part of the band and that’s definitely carried through onto the new album.

Do we have any new singles on the way?

I hope so! There will definitely be singles, I’m just not sure when they’ll be out as we have a whole lot of behind the scenes stuff to do. We did this album by ourselves, without any external labels or management or anything like that, so its 100% a Stepson record. We’re just going to take our time with it and make sure we make it the best we possibly can, but unfortunately that means it might take a little while to come out.  

Catch Stepson at the following dates:

Fri 27 July // Solbar // Sunshine Coast with Polaris, Justice For The Damned & APATE (18+) Tickets
Sat 28 July // Miami Shark Bar // Gold Coast with Polaris, Justice For The Damned & She Cries Wolf (18+) Sold Out
Sat 25 August // Backbone // Brisbane with Vitals, Tired Eyes & Days Like These (All Ages) Tickets
Sat 27 October // Halloween Hysteria 2018 // Brisbane with The Bennies, King Parrot, Void Of Vision, Alpha Wolf, Bare Bones, Bad Juju, After Touch and more (18+) Tickets