Staying Alive

Last year was a pretty big one for the boys of Hey Geronimo, who, when they weren't headlining their own shows, had the privilege of sharing stages with the likes of Pluto Jonze, Deep Sea Arcade and Presidents Of The USA throughout the year. Amidst such a busy schedule, the group were also working hard on a forthcoming album, which bass player Bill Bingley predicts will be released at the end of this year.

“[The songs on this album are] all getting a bit more cynical than our previous stuff I think,” Bingley explains. “There's a song our lead singer [Pete Kilroy] finished off while we were flying around the world, and it's kind of this really paranoid song about being overseas and hoping your plane doesn't crash! There's a song that Ross [Pearson, guitarist] just wrote which is about being really hopelessly bored. So we're working towards a bit more of a balance this time around, and the songs are a bit more introspective – we're trying to broaden the emotional palette a bit.”

With the group's second EP of last year, Erring On The Side Of Awesome, earning such great success, Bingley explains they're also about to release an exciting film clip for the track The Girl Who Likes Me. “It was mostly filmed while we were over in India last year. I haven't actually seen the finished version, but I have a feeling it's going to be pretty upbeat.”
The main event which drew Hey Geronimo over to India late last year was their inclusion in the NH7 Weekender Festival, which also saw fellow Aussies Kate Miller-Heidke, Sampology and Spoonbill on the line-up. “I think it's kind of a new thing having big rock music festivals in India, but the audiences were really cool.” Considering the overwhelming population of India, Bingley says the environment of the festival was a bit of a surprise. “It's not nearly as crowded over there, there were far fewer people when compared to Australian festivals, and it was deliberate, so that was really cool.”

Looking forward, Hey Geronimo are set to play the opening night of the Gold Coast's Bleach* festival, which will be their first gig of the year. “We're really excited for Bleach*! We'll be most likely going full rock band, electric guitar mode for this one, which we haven't done for a while, so it will be great. We're also going to play a whole bunch of new songs – we'll be trying stuff out from the album that we think is going well, and hope that it will come across well.”

With the festival taking place over the course of three weeks, Bingley says there will be heaps of great stuff to check out over the festival's duration. “I'm actually really keen to check out Dubmarine, I keep seeing them at festivals and they're awesome. Also, we're playing with The Trouble With Templeton on the opening night and I'm really keen to check them out as well; I haven't seen them before so it will be fun.”