Out Of Sight

Scattered across Japan are several amusement parks that have closed down, been abandoned and left to disintegrate. Vines grow over rollercoasters, castles have been left to rust and these enormous venues, once designed for people to enjoy themselves in, are now creepily fascinating places left vacant, rusting, falling apart and overrun by nature.

Melbourne band Black Fox were in Japan for guitarist Daniel Mullens' wedding to his Japanese wife, and part of the band's debut album, Line Of Sight, was recorded over there. When they're not playing music, one of the band's other common interests is exploring abandoned places; in fact, the inner sleeve of Line Of Sight is a photo of the band lurking in one of Melbourne's underground tunnels. So when the Melbourne five-piece – brothers Daniel and Leigh Mullens, both on guitar, vocalist Dane Robertson, drummer Mitch Freeman and bassist Andrei Seleznev – were in Japan, they took the opportunity to explore some abandoned theme parks.

“It seems that when they go out of business they just walk away from them and leave them sitting there while the trees slowly grow over the rollercoasters; it's really quite beautiful,” says Robertson. “The arcades are still filled with all the games, there's a monorail, there's rollercoasters, there's themed streets and a castle, and nature is starting to reclaim it all. So the rollercoasters are like intertwined with vines that are growing up all over it, and all of the grass is overgrown and the pavements are cracked. It's amazing how quickly they just all fall apart when they're not maintained. There's something so amazing about it.”

By the time they reached Japan, the band had been working on the songs for their debut album for more than a year. Far from being newbies at this whole rock business though, the brothers Mullens and Robertson had all been in a band called The Smoke together, releasing two albums before one of the members moved to Sydney and the group transmogrified into Black Fox. This new incarnation, deeply influenced by classic rock such as The Rolling Stones and Pink Floyd, played for about a year as a four-piece before Freeman and Seleznev joined the band and they hit their stride.

“Without a doubt,” says Robertson of their influences. “Bands that have stood the test of time, like The Cure and The Smiths. It tends to be mainly British stuff to be honest. I think in any given era there's a whole lot of trends which are so easy to fall into, like the dubstep stuff that's going on at the moment, whereas I hope that if someone listens to our stuff in ten years' time it'll still sound alright.”

Maintaining momentum with the songs over that period wasn't difficult, Robertson admits, even though they had to tuck it into evenings and weekends. “It takes time and you've got to keep going with it, but we always have such a great time when we're doing it. We'll go out and have breakfast of a weekend and head down to a rehearsal studio or someone's living room and record bits and we make it pretty fun so that makes it pretty easy.”

Their live shows are known for being rambunctious, and at the album launch at the Espy, Robertson promises “plenty of partying and fun, and we definitely like to get people up and dancing so there'll be plenty of that.” And while he says the band actively encourages drunken pashes in the crowds at their gigs, for the band themselves, “It's a fine line between being drunk to the point where you're having a great time, and then not getting too drunk to the point where you can no longer play. And we've teetered on that line a few times.”

Black Fox will be playing the following shows:

Saturday 24 November - The Espy, St Kilda VIC