Back On Track

Just a couple of years ago Melbourne chain-wielding horror merchants Graveyard Train seemed to have the world at their feet, with their warmly received third album Hollow ushering in a bout of touring that saw them playing relentlessly both home and abroad – a workload which nearly tore the band completely asunder.

“It was weird, we managed to keep it together whenever we were onstage – whenever we're playing we always put 100 per cent in – but in all that time offstage we were just drinking too much and bickering,” reflects frontman Nick Finch. “When we started the band none of us really expected to be working hard – it was always just a weird side-project – so it took us all by surprise when it became a heavy touring schedule, and I guess we just lost our shit a bit. But it's okay now – we had a year off and everyone seems a bit more chilled and a bit happier.

“The music was always fine. We were always a bunch of drunks anyway, but there was some really heavy drinking with guys going on benders and missing gigs. People were paying good money to come and see us, and a band member wouldn't be onstage because we didn't know where the fuck he was – just stuff like that. It's sort of like a weird, awful Contiki tour being on tour – there's too much booze and too much free time, and none of us have the skill set to deal with it and stay sober.”

Fortunately after a year apart all was forgiven by the time they regrouped to record new collection Takes One To Know One. “This one was really fun – we were all really sober, and we got along really well,” Finch recalls. “It was a really positive experience. Hollow was done in a proper studio and was a bit slicker than I was used to – with this one we wanted to make it more organic, so we recorded in this old warehouse in Melbourne with vintage gear and it's all a bit more lo-fi. We'd all been writing in the year off so it's basically just a bunch of songs – just some stuff we recorded. I think we might have possibly even matured a little bit.”

There's certainly less lyrical reliance on things that go bump in the night. “There's only so many fucking monsters you can write about,” Finch laughs. “Hollow went on this real 'death bent' – my songs were all pretty death-related – but for this one we're a bit looser. It's all still pretty dark lyrically, but there's definitely less overt horror. You have to develop as a band or you'd go insane – and we were going insane anyway. I don't think we're ever going to sing nice songs about love and things like that, but maybe less with the vampires and oogedy-boogedy.”