The Bashing That Inspired The Smith Street Band

Don't Fuck With Our Dreams. That's a pretty forthright title for an EP. It's direct and it doesn't really care what you think. It should come as no surprise, then, that it's from one of the best bands in Australia at the moment: The Smith Street Band. For a group not too far out of the starting blocks – despite this being their third recording – that emotive phrase can probably be taken as a group mantra as well. The Smith Street Band, headed up by the indomitable Wil Wagner, are known for their hard-hitting yet simple punk aesthetic and their direct, immediate lyricism.

Wagner's currently in what he calls “freak-out mode”, getting gear and personnel ready for the impending tour for Don't Fuck With Our Dreams. “We're all getting quite itchy feet to just fucking start,” he says quickly. “But we have fun getting everything ready. Well, freaking out about everything, actually.” It's kind of a surprising thought: a band that have toured nationally almost constantly since the huge success of second album, Sunshine & Technology, last year, freaking out about touring. You'd think they'd be used to it. “Oh, we are. It's just the time in between. I was just talking to the drummer, Chris, who I live with, and yeah – it's the time in between that's the killer. Just sitting around waiting, it kinda gets to you.”

Despite Wagner's apparently always-on tour itch, you'd forgive him for maybe being a little apprehensive about touring this time around. The title of the new EP, which, as Wagner puts it, came about when the band had “a bit of time between tours where we wanted to record something, and we didn't want to do an album”, was the result of an altercation during their last tour. It's all a bit hush-hush, but it was obviously a pretty nerve-racking event for all involved.

“We were on tour with Bomb The Music Industry and The Bennies earlier in the year. There was an incident at a show that I can't talk about for legal reasons. But it ended with the guitarist from The Bennies, Jules, getting quite badly injured. He got hurt protecting people at the show. During the incident, while he was, like, bleeding on the footpath, he yelled out, 'Don't fuck with our dreams' to the guy that was... ah... hurting him. And that quickly became a mantra for the rest of the tour. It was a pretty inspiring and amazing thing to say in sort of intense adversity. He was thinking about everyone else... but yeah, that's where the title came from.”

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