The Power Of Fun

When Melbourne act Boomgates arrived on the scene a couple of years back, the fact that their line-up included members from other well-known outfits of the day – Eddy Current Suppression Ring's frontman Brendan Huntley out front, Dick Diver's Steph Hughes on guitar and vocals, Rick Milovanovic from Twerps on bass, plus Gus Lord on guitar and Shaun Gionis on drums – was almost overshadowed by their own instant mythology, a sumptuous tale involving jam sessions and friends bonding over an intoxicating amalgam of beer and good times. Few bands are blessed with one such instant calling card, let alone two.

Yet recently, as is so often the way, such matters became instantly peripheral with the arrival of their excellent debut album Double Natural. While there are most definitely some moments of familiarity contained therein, the record announces Boomgates as their own unique concern, a distinctly Australian concoction brimming with laidback charm and effortless accessibility.

“It was a pretty natural thing really,” the affable Lord recalls of Boomgates' genesis. “I didn't actually know any of the other guys – they're a fair bit older than me – but Steph grew up in the same area as [I did] and she invited me to this jam, which we did a couple of times. It had a long gestation period before it started to feel like it was anything more than jamming – the feeling was always good, but it took a little bit of time before we started considering playing a show or anything like that. I guess the nature of everyone who's in the band, especially at that period of time, meant that they were all quite busy. There were friends who came and went, but this guise just stuck really and we rolled with that.”

Once the line-up coalesced they let the band's aesthetic develop naturally, never deigning to discuss what they wanted it to sound like.

“Funnily enough, it's probably the one band I've been in that's almost had no discussion at all about our sound – it was a pretty natural process,” Lord continues. “It's a very democratic band as well, in that no one specifically tells anyone what to do and everyone just does their job. The creative energies are very evenly distributed, which is part of the reason that jamming was so much fun.

“It's always collaborative – it's one of those rare things that I haven't experienced before. There's maybe been one or two occasions where Steph's had an idea or something, but usually it all flows straight from us being in a room together. There's never too preconceived a notion or idea about where we want something to go. Brendan's usually got his lyrics – that's about as prepared as we get. I think it's just that intangible thing of 'band chemistry', and it's a good chemistry – a happy chemistry.”

Even once it had mutated into a band proper, Boomgates retained its 'fun first' aura and never got too concerned about filling up its dance card.

“For where we've gotten to it seems faintly ridiculous how little we've played,” Lord smiles. “The whole kind of idea of the band has always been that it's a pleasurable thing first and foremost, so we've never really put our necks out in terms of battening down the hatches and going full steam ahead with gigging and stuff – I think collectively everyone in the band's already spent time doing that with other projects, so we just kind of pick and mix things that have felt good to us. There's never been an intense brutal work ethic, we're a bit more laidback than that and I think our sound – especially on the record – reflects that approach.

“I definitely see it as an ongoing band, but it's a band that sets its own schedule, so to speak, and that schedule is set by the combined availability of five busy people. The role that it plays in my life at least is an important one – I think we all take it really seriously – but at the end of the day it's about fun, so if something isn't fun or something's a stress to someone we'd never push it. It's definitely a band in its own right, but it's a band that's kind of like the tide or something – it ebbs and flows.”

When it came time to record their debut long-player, Boomgates' laissez-faire approach came to the fore once more, the band not getting too concerned about the album's eventual feel.

“I think it was more a matter of letting the songs dictate the direction,” Lord reflects. “There's so many little titbits and ideas that are just lost in the ether now. The songs that made it onto the record are really just the ones that spent enough time in the incubator and got cooked just right. Then it was just a matter of recording everything we had, and then fine-tuning and picking and trying to find patterns and cohesion from within the chaos.”

Even from his vantage point in the middle of the maelstrom, Lord is excited about the strength of Australia's underground guitar scene at the minute, and the abundance of great bands springing up all over the country and kicking goals on their own terms.

“I was talking to my friend the other week, and I couldn't really figure out if there was something genuinely exciting going on or whether this stuff happens all the time and I'd just come of age and that it's just growing up that you start to notice it,” he laughs. “But on a really basic level I feel like in Melbourne I can go out and see a lot of really good bands of good artistic merit, very diverse in nature as well but with a joint aesthetic. There's an accessibility of information which almost verges on postmodernism, and what you get are these really great original appropriations of things which sound familiar but which are also instilled with their own energy – it's like a unified energy, and I think that 's what makes a healthy community. It's not about adhering to one sound as such, it's more about a shared idea and a shared energy which is what makes the current scene exciting.

“It feels like the gap has gotten pretty big in the role that music plays in people's lives. There are people who genuinely really care about music who are the record buyers – the rabid dudes who want to own tangible copies and take pride in the collection aspect – and then there's the people who have the radio on in the background at work, and to me that divide is fostering a creative attitude where people aren't aspiring to any major label gratification, it's more about 'doing it for yourself'. It's really inspiring, and I think it's cool how it's really incestuous and a lot of the bands from the scenes share members – it's a really healthy community out there.”

Boomgates will be playing the following shows:

Saturday 1 December - The Legions Club, Brisbane
Saturday 8 December - Meredith Music Festival, Meredith VIC
Friday 14 December - The Metro, Adelaide SA