Off The Shelf

Dave's Pawn Shop have accomplished a lot in a short period of time. Formed in 2011 by friends studying the same university degree, they've released two EPs, performed countless shows, delivered multiple tours and strutted their stuff as part of the Big Day Out. For frontman Jake Williamson, who moved to the Gold Coast with hopes of some day forming a successful band, it's been a pleasantly surprising run.

“Yeah, I guess we are pretty surprised. I guess it's just being part of the Brisbane scene. My hometown is really small. When I moved up here, it was just really easy to get gigs. There were just lots of awesome musicians all around the place. I think all of that helped us to pick up speed really quickly,” he says. “We really didn't have any idea what we were going to do when we first got together. We were just experimenting.”

The interesting twist is that Dave's Pawn Shop aren't your typically accessible outfit. Their songs are strong and memorable but they're also coated in unsettling swathes of distortion and vitriol. Whereas many of Australia's successful younger outfits take their cues from the more immediately contemporary realms of indie pop, Dave's Pawn Shop's roots lie in the murkier worlds of punk, grunge and garage rock.

“Whatever we kind of listen to at the time, we take a bit out of. Obviously, we still have a lot of '90s music that we still love and listen to and it all gets mixed into that. I'd say we're trying to aim for this kind of alternative, kind of punk sound. Just a bit psych-y, a bit grungy and aggressive,” Williamson explains. “Tool are probably the band that made me want to be in a band. If you asked the others, they'd probably say Nirvana.”

It hasn't done anything to halt their ascent. Despite having already released an EP this year, Dave's Pawn Shop are currently finishing up recording a two-track vinyl release for later in the year. Following that, there are plans to record an EP or even an album in 2014. In the interim, they'll continue playing shows with acts like recent QMA winners The Trouble With Templeton and trying to find their niche in Brisbane's scene.

“We want to do a debut album pretty soon. We don't ever want to stop. We write so many songs and we'd just love to put a debut album together and really help make Brisbane a really great, healthy hub for grungy alternative music,” Williamson says. “You know, Brisbane's a real melting pot of styles. We don't play with a lot of bands that play like us. We play with really different bands that we really like and are really good.

“But bands like Violent Soho and DZ Deathrays, they're really great bands,” the frontman says. “I'd just like to help build that part of Brisbane's music scene. To be able to support either of those guys would be amazing.”