Brisbane Festival: Violent Soho, Ball Park Music & WAAX Share Some Love For The Sunshine State

"A festival looks outwards to the world. It brings the world and its arts to us, and it showcases our city and its arts to the world."

So decrees (in part) the Brisbane Festival mission statement, and our city's annual cultural celebration has definitely lived up to these lofty ambitions with its 2018 contemporary music program.

Bringing together an eclectic array of top-notch acts from all over Australia and the wider planet, this year's Brisbane Festival is being bookended by two massive musical events at Brisbane Riverstage, both fittingly headlined by two distinctly homegrown acts: the opening night's epic bill topped by local indie-pop party-starters Ball Park Music, and the closing night extravaganza brought home by Brisbane rock'n'roll enfants terrible, Violent Soho.

By placing these powerful local outfits in such important and prominent roles, Brisbane Festival is reinforcing how — despite the obvious need for any city to import culture to broaden its horizons — sometimes what we already have under our noses more than matches the best we can draw in from afar.

"We're absolutely stoked to play it, we're totally honoured," beams Violent Soho frontman Luke Boerdam. "As you know we love Brisbane and we're really proud of where we come from, so we're completely stoked to play Brisbane Festival, especially at the Riverstage with Riverfire playing at the same time.

"I remember when I was a kid my dad took us to Kangaroo Point — just opposite the Riverstage — to see one of the first Riverfires and it had Triple M playing music in time with the fireworks, and as a kid it was absolutely brilliant. It's so cool that it's still going, it's something unique to our city."

It's no secret that Violent Soho rose through the Brisbane ranks soaking as much inspiration from their local peers as any interstate or overseas noise.

"Once we were tapped into the Brisbane scene it became an addiction, all we wanted to do was play locally and get somewhere locally," Boerdam continues. "It was all about making friends, and we were pretty bad at first, but that's how I got my musical education. Like back in the day the guys from Eat Laser Scumbag! introduced me to Pavement, who are a huge influence on me, and I remember thinking how much Pavement sounded like Custard — everything was through a Brisbane lens.

"There's variances, but Brisbane has this lighter pop in its music and my theory is its something to do with the weather: there's a more light-hearted and often carefree sound in there somewhere."

Ball Park Music frontman Sam Cromack — who was actually born in northern-NSW, but for over a decade has proudly called Brisbane home — also feels that Brisbane's climate may impact its musical output.  

"I think Brisbane is a really cool city, and its music scene in particular is a huge strength," he smiles. "I really think it's its own place — I see it as being distinctive and unique compared to the scenes of the other cities — and a huge part of that for me is the sound.

"I was in denial about it for a long time, but the more I've been here, the more I've accepted The Go-Betweens' idea of That Striped Sunlight Sound. I really think this fucking sunny city really goes hand-in-hand with a pair of shorts and strumming an electric guitar, it just really does.

"I guess if I had to summarise at least the 'indie sound' of Brisbane, I would say that music is always performed predominantly by people in their early 20s, they've usually got a lot of feelings and are very sensitive to the world — so we're exploring all of the same kind of emotional ups and downs as everyone is all around the globe — but the nature of the city means that you just can't keep the mood down for as long as you might be able to in somewhere like Melbourne, because it's really the fucking Sunshine State!

"It doesn't feel right to get too gloomy, so I feel often people are having big feelings — they might be sad feelings, melancholy feelings or heartbreak — and that's still getting paired with this uptempo, strummed, bright, sunny sound, and I feel that's unique too."

At the recent Splendour In The Grass shindig, rising local rockers WAAX were joined by Bernard Fanning to cover a Powderfinger song, so being tapped by Violent Soho to help close Brisbane Festival with them doesn't seem much of a stretch.

"It's awesome, they've been super-duper supportive of us and we've become good mates with them," gushes vocalist Maz DeVita. "Soho are just supportive guys, they really do take care of the rock scene in Australia as a whole, but there's definitely a special place in everyone's hearts for fellow Brisbane-ites.

"For us, as much as there's a thriving scene, it's a lot smaller than say, Melbourne, so we all look out for each other and we've all become really good pals, so it's super-exciting to do the Brisbane Festival with them because it's the most Brisbane thing that can be done."

Violent Soho guitarist James Tidswell couldn't agree more about the importance of being involved in the Brisbane Festival in this capacity.

"It's so special," he offers reverently. "We've had a lot of surreal moments along our journey — and they seem almost constant these days — but things like this are really special to us. A lot of people wouldn't realise how special it is to us, but this Brisbane music community literally is the most important thing to us, so to get to be such a big part of the city's celebration is incredible.

"I think the local scene is much a focus for us now as it ever has been, and I don't think we ever felt detached from it at all. It's just who we are, so we could never turn our backs on it because we'd be turning our backs on ourselves. We could never outgrow it because it's just that important to us."