All Happening

Over the past few years there has been something of a garage rock movement sweeping the east coast of Australia. It's hard to go out on any given night without stumbling over a band thrashing their instruments in their own fuzzed out style, their influences dripping from the speakers, foregoing cerebral themes for a hedonistic twinkle in the eye. One of the bands at the head of this zeitgeist is Straight Arrows, and their 2010 album It's Happening still stands as one of the greatest releases of its kind.

The Sydney band – Owen Penglis, Alex Grigg, Angela Bermuda, and Adam Williams– pride themselves on having a good time, and their live show reputation precedes them. Since the release of the album the quartet have found themselves gracing global stages, making impressions and garnering a slot on the Goner Fest bill. The ever amiable Pengalis intimates that whilst it is all about having fun, they don't want to rest on their laurels.

“We've been trying to focus on new stuff because it feels like the album came out ages ago,” Penglis concedes. “We feel extremely lucky to have found ourselves on some great bills; we have been playing overseas which was mad. The Goner folks asked us to play, so we booked a tour around that. It was to the point where people saw us on that bill and thought, 'Oh, you must be all right!' so the shows fell into place because of that. We drove all around America, through more than thirty states, and it was pretty hectic but so much fun. Plus we got to play the Opera House. That was great because I got to tell my mum, 'See? We played the Opera House!' She was excited and almost came, but found out we weren't on until 1am so she bailed.”

Straight Arrows' performance at Goner Fest remains one of Penglis' highlights.

“It was amazing, it was actually one of the best shows we have ever played as well which was rad,” he mervels. “We sold the most T-shirt and records we have ever sold too, which is crazy! As a fan of that kind of music, and to be recognised and placed on a bill that has the big guys on it, it was killer. Everyone was loose and wanted to party, and party with you. There was no standoff moments, everyone was enjoying it and getting amongst it. It was what you always want playing music to be like.”

The consistent playing and affable nature of the band continually opens in-roads, something Penglis doesn't take lightly.

“We enjoy every show we play, it's what we love to do, so when people dig it and want to do something with us, we will try to make it work,” he states. “As soon as we record new stuff we send it off to those people and see if they dig it. We have a couple of singles, maybe three. We have one coming out on an Italian label and then there's another coming out on American label Hozac as part of their Singles Club. We also are having our first two 7”s re-issued through a Melbourne label called Anti-Fade. We're writing for another album, but don't want to short change anyone – we want every release to be killer, so we're being selective about what we put on those releases. We have a bunch of great songs together now, so whilst the last album we smashed out in a couple of days, we intend to record it ourselves, be really casual about it but get things exactly as we think it should be.”

The idea of new Straight Arrows material on the horizon is tantalising news, but pales in comparison to their live shows, which now border on the legendary. Regardless of the size, the band gives it everything, whether it's on a festival stage or playing to six people at The Gladstone Hotel in Toowoomba.

“Most of them were in The Sips!” Penglis laughs. “I fucking loved that show, it was so much fun! I would do a show like that again at the drop of a hat. Some of the best shows are often the small and weird ones. Since we started this band, we couldn't really play well together, so we figured the best way to make that work was to throw absolutely everything into it. But even as we got better at writing songs and playing together, those elements remained. The way we see it is that if the band is giving off nothing but noise, then the very least you can do is give them something to look at. Maybe it takes away the focus on how shit we are, then people think we are good and get suckered into buying a record.”