Suburban Kids

Illinois garage-rock adolescents The Orwells left 2013's SXSW with major industry buzz thanks to performances so manic that many wondered if they were the next next-big-thing-to-be-an-industry-casualty-thing. But they live on and returned to SXSW in 2014 – with a major label deal in hand and a much talked about Late Show appearance behind them.

The band's singer Mario Cuomo and guitarist Dominic Corso express surprise that there is interest from Australian media when they arrive apologetically hungover for this year's round of interviews in Austin. But that Late Show With Letterman spot was seen globally. That night saw Cuomo not only crawl across the floor but also jump up and sit with Letterman at his desk mid-song. And, despite YouTube commenters accusing them of being everything from “high” to “a gimmick” on the show, Letterman invited them back just five months later.

Letterman Musical Director Paul Shaffer even reprised his own version of their Who Needs You to play that first night's show out. Corso recounts, “[Letterman] was excited; it was like a breath of fresh air for him. I think because you have all these bands that go on and they realise they're on late night television and all these people are going to see them, they try to just hit every note and play the song as perfect as they can. I think it was a breath of fresh air when he saw a kid band go on, well… a young band go on, and just like, fuck up.”

Cuomo explains that the performance was part-homage to an Aussie band they admire, “The Vines on Letterman – that was one of the coolest things I've ever seen. So I wanted to do something like that”. Corso adds, “Even The Vines on [UK music show Later With…] Jools Holland. Those videos… when I saw those I was like, 'You can mess around.' Just because it's on TV doesn't mean you gotta treat it differently than a show.”

It's a long way from being shunned by their hometown Chicago scene. Hailing from outer western suburb Elmhurst, The Orwells found themselves outsiders. “We were never part of any scene,” says Corso. “There wasn't really any other bands in our town. It was really just us versus the world – that was the way we looked at it 'cause we didn't have buddy bands at all. Once we got a little bigger and were able to drive and we started being able to go downtown to a gig, eventually we were meeting these bands down there, [but] there was some hostility to their scene where they didn't really want some suburban kids being a part of it.”

However, despite eventually finding an in with similarly ill-fitting Chicago acts Twin Peaks, Smith Westerns and White Mystery, Cuomo maintains outsider status from the Chicago scene, “I don't know if they ever really let us join it.”