Living The Dream

"Tt feels like it was last week, but it's actually been six months since we released Don't Fuck With Our Dreams,” Wil Wagner says, offering the same endearing incredulity that hangs on his voice when he's addressing a packed club, thanking everybody for coming out to spend the night with The Smith Street Band.

And in the past six months since the EP dropped, Wagner has had plenty of those crowds to thank. After the record, the band traversed across Australia, then jetted off to Europe and ran across the US in support of Frank Turner. Now, the lads are gearing up to do another domestic run before returning to Europe, but even before that, when he sits down with The Music, Wagner's gearing up to play a run of solo shows.

“The reason that we started a band,” Wagner offers, “and the reason that I started playing solo shows, was to play music. So any opportunity we get we play, and especially now with going overseas, that's something that none of us ever expected, so it's very much a dream come true. It feels like we've got this great opportunity at the moment where a few people are listening to us, so it would be dumb for us not to be trying to capitalise on that. And also, it's fun… Touring's really fun.”

But surely Wil's anxious of the dreaded tour burn-out? Isn't he fearful that such a heightened level of activity will see The Smith Street Band reach their breaking point, where the stress and frustrations of being on the road become too much for the band to bear and they start to implode?

“That is a possibility. But what's the thing? It's better to burn-out than to fade away. Not to be a wanker, but we've been granted this incredible opportunity and we just want to do everything we possibly can to sustain it. And that's the only way you can be a full-time band at the moment, just be touring. When we toured in the States with Frank Turner that toured ended on December 4, and then they were going home for Christmas and that would have been the first chance they would have had to see their families since January, they would have played over 300 shows last year. And that's something that we should really look up to.

“And that's what we're working towards, [the band] being a completely full-time thing where we can go away for six months at a time. But if we burn-out doing that, then so be it. And the other thing is – I can be here in my shitty house with no windows that's falling apart, or I can be in Paris playing a show. So it's like, 'Yeah, let's fucking do that.' I could be on the dole, or I could be touring.”

The way Wagner sees it, the band's tour in America really solidified what they want to keep doing. Wagner says Turner and his band were an inspiration for The Smith Street Band, and they were able to learn so much about the life of travelling musicians. Namely, it's not always glamorous and whatever time off a band is afforded should be utilised wisely. That's why the band has been diligently working away on full-length number three before heading out on the road again.

The frontman breaks down what's been going on with the record. “For the last month and a bit we've pretty much been writing full-time. Working up songs that I've written with the band. We've got about 12 songs down now and we're going to try and have 20 before I go on my solo tour. And then on the Europe tour after the Australian tour, we'll just play those new songs every night. Probably the most important step in writing a song is playing it in front of people, so we're going to try and do that as much as we can with the new songs and then it'll be November-ish when our next album's out. Of course, you say that and then there's a delay at the pressing plant and there's this and there's that and it comes out in May 2015. But right now we're aiming for the middle of November, and for it to be a double LP.”

And that's not all Wagner's currently got in the works. “I was going to try and put out a solo album as well, but three full records of me coming out at the same time is fucking way too much of me for people to deal with.”