No I In Army

The feverish mixture of sweaty, earnest energy, working-class punk roots and anthemic roars has Army Of Champions standing apart from their brethren, showcasing their desire to passionately tear the place apart. Their latest release then is the aptly titled 10” Burning Alive (“the songs were too big for a 7-inch”), five new songs that unleash the raw power the four-piece have in spades. Their straight ahead live presence continues to win fans over, and Tavis Fletcher (bass/vocals) concedes that transferring that immediate energy into the recordings was the main imperative for the band.

“We've always found it hard to capture the intensity of when we play live when recording, but this time we worked on being truer to that, making it more immediate,” Fletcher says. “When we recorded Animal Vs Man it was our first album, so we got a mate in to play saxophone, and we played with parts of songs to bring something extra that we thought sounded cool, whereas Burning Alive is just the four of us, nothing more; just some dudes having a yell.”

Immediate references that come to mind when taking Army Of Champions at face value are Flogging Molly and Dropkick Murphys, yet it's clear that while a singular driven band of that ilk doesn't truly exist on the local music scene, the band weren't hurrying to pigeonhole themselves so soon either, with a blue-collar Americana vibe a la Titus Andronicus or The Boss himself coming to the fore. “We have all been playing in bands for some years, all from faster punk-rock backgrounds, and as we've gotten older we've just become more willing to taking on a wider range of bands and sounds,” Fletcher states. “Matt (Haora – vocals) is a massive fan of Tom Waits and Bruce Springsteen, and we've all got similar tastes but are into very different things at any given time. We would never shed our punk rock roots, but we definitely try to bring things in a different direction, with build-ups and anthemic choruses. We all work too – the band is very much a spare time thing for us – but that just helps drive that working-class side of things for us. But that never seems to change, and it never stops everything from gelling together the way it does.”

Army Of Champions have found themselves a steadily growing, ardent fanbase, which Fletcher attributes in part to the ongoing productive foundations for punk rock that venue Crowbar has brought to Brisbane.

“Crowbar has become a sort-of residency for us to play, and those guys have really gone above and beyond in order to get bands like us as many shows as they can,” Fletcher enthuses. “And because of that enthusiasm we find ourselves playing with all different sorts of bands, which is kinda cool. We've found ourselves on mixed bills where we are playing alongside a dude on acoustic guitar, or an interstate band passing through who is much heavier and faster, and yet it all seems to fit. I think that is the punk mentality right now though, that everyone wants to help out and work with each other, which only helps you as a band too. And with venues closing all the time, it's one of the best things to happen to the punk and metal community in a long, long time.”

Army Of Champions haven't slowed down though, travelling the nation with likeminded souls like Grenadiers and Firearms, and the experience just has them burning for more. “We hadn't been to Adelaide before this tour, and Paper Arms are from there that we're big fans of,” Fletcher states. “It's gone down really well. We can't wait to bring it all back to Brisbane, though.”