Driving In The Fast Lane

Ambition is something written all over the faces of the four individuals who make up Kingswood. Forming in 2009, the Melbourne rockers have had nothing short of a sharp incline since taking out a triple j Unearthed competition that saw them snare a coveted slot at Splendour in the Grass only last year. Since then they've traversed this country many times over with the likes of Aerosmith, Owl Eyes, Boy In A Box, The Living End, British India, Stonefield and The Saints, and also managed to revisit the festival stage at Queescliff and Pyramid Rock, quickly securing their place as one of the hottest young tickets in town.

Their first three singles – Yeah Go Die, Medusa and She's My Baby – all quickly made their way to the ears of the listeners of triple j and eventually contributed to their Change Of Heart EP deluxe, an eight-track package that also includes the latest single Ohio and brings new fans right up to date. At almost 30 minutes long, the band could've easily called it an album.

“We could've called it that yeah,” frontman Fergus Linacre explains. “But we do have our debut album which we're about to record and we didn't want anyone to get confused. We're wrapped and feel very privileged that things have gone our way quite often so far and things are working well for us. We've had a lot of little wins on our journey and they're great but the idea of going to Nashville and recording with Vance Powell is the most exciting [thing] that has happened to any of us. It happens in August, we can't wait to get over there – we'll see what happens.”

The impressively-bearded Vance Powell is the man behind the desk for albums such as The Raconteurs' Consoler Of The Lonely, Jars Of Clay's Good Monsters, Buddy Guy's Skin Deep and songs from the likes of Keb' Mo and Jack White and Alicia Keys. Again, ambition has served Kingswood well, but how exactly do four guys from Melbourne prepare for such an opportunity?

“As best we can, we'll go over there prepared,” Linacre explains, undaunted. “We spend pretty much every moment we have when we're not asleep in our little house working on the songs. We have a big white board with twenty or so tunes up there and we're still writing more – the album will be completely new, we won't have any of the older songs on there. Even the ones we used to play, we're leaving off and treating like a completely new thing. Everything we're writing is in this moment. We're going to demo them and do some pre-production here; we've been sending them to Vance and we've been Skyping and talking so when we get over there we don't waste any time and can just focus on making it as good as we can.

“I was talking to Alex [Laska, guitar] – who writes most of the stuff – about how the sound's changed and we looked at all the songs – it seems that the EP feels a bit juvenile to us,” he continues, revealing the direction their forthcoming debut album might take. “The songs are great but what we're writing now is more serious, not sure how that translates into a sound but everything has come from within, it's a bit darker and it's far more meaningful and honest. We're not out there trying to write hits, we never have been, I mean our first single didn't have a chorus. We're just excited about writing just really good songs, I don't really know how to say it. I don't think it's too hard to write a trashy pop song that people get excited about before it quickly dies. If we do that, which we do, we try and make it a bit more interesting for ourselves, musicians and music lovers – we want musicians to like it as well. I'm talking more for the other three in the band who are really great at what they do and I, well, just yell over the top, but we love bands like Mutemath and Queens of the Stone Age – you know, people who are really talented. We'd like to follow in their footsteps a bit.”

But Linacre's reality is well intact when realising that all good things come to those who wait, especially when it comes to developing his band's stage prowess. “I think with any kind of growth in music, you can't make any decision, like you want to be a more charismatic frontman or you want the show to be more organic or things like that. Those things just happen over time and, if you try to make big jumps, I think you won't pull it off. I think you just need to keep playing and simply better yourself over time – it's a slow growth. You can't sit there and go, 'We saw Steven Tyler last night, I'm going to go out there and do that'. We didn't learn, like, moves from Steven Tyler but his confidence on and off stage was especially amazing.”

Kingswood are a mixed bag. You might feel you know who they are when you hear the songs on the radio, but Linacre reveals some surprisingly varied influences the four tend to gravitate towards. “You'd definitely be surprised,” he laughs. “Alt-J – that might be surprising. The percussion is the key there and how it all builds, it's different from any style of writing and the way that album was produced is something else.”

Ambition has taken Kingswood a long way already, this is a band that recently released a short film for their latest single Ohio and held a premiere for it in Melbourne. So what ambitions do the band so firmly put esteem into?

“We do feel there's a resurgence in rock music in Australia definitely,” Linacre says, “and we are glad that we're a small part of that and hope that more bands keep coming through and people keep liking rock music more. Our goal sounds silly but we want to be the biggest band in the world – we got to do it and we just have to aim that high. Regardless, we want to play lots of shows and play to as many people around the world as we can. We'll be playing while overseas recording which is tough – we're one-hundred per cent independent so it's challenging but it's all good. We were talking to Vance Powell and he's worked a lot with Jack White and even he is the first to advise not doing a label deal unless it's under the terms you want. It's harder to do it on your own, but we're prepared to go it alone.”