Royale With Keys

The self-titled debut album by Royal Headache left the band surrounded by the kind of hype most groups spend their entire career trying to create. Hype recently cemented with their Best Independent Album win at the Jagermeister Independent Music Awards. In a thriving Sydney garage rock scene, the four piece of Law [guitar], Joe [bass], Shortty [drums] and singer Shogun have felt the international music spotlight shine down on them recently, with everyone from The Black Keys to Pitchfork jumping on the bandwagon. Fast, stinging punk rock headed by Shogun's strikingly soulful vocals, Royal Headache are quickly becoming one of the most exciting acts in Australia.

Keeping the balance between maintaining their happily lo-fi origins and entertaining the temptations their burgeoning success brings them has been a difficult act to get right so far. “As soon as people start offering you large amounts of money to play a certain show somewhere or do certain tours and stuff like that it becomes like 'Well, I guess I could take two or three weeks off work and do that',” admits Law. “We had a couple of labels come at us recently and yeah, it kinda made your head scratch a little bit like 'Wow, we could really go into this, do this as a full-time job if we wanted to'. We've got the opportunity to but we're just not sure if we wanna do that at the moment.”

The band are about to embark on their biggest tour yet – supporting US blues rock heroes The Black Keys on a stadium tour across Australia. For a band renowned for their sweaty, smaller venue punk shows, the tour represents the biggest change yet for the band. “This is pretty much our first really big tour,” ponders the laid back guitarist. “We haven't really thought about it too much actually, just going about it the same way we usually prepare for a tour… It's gonna be pretty surreal playing all those entertainment centres and stuff like that. Just wait and see what happens I guess!”

Following the tour, plans are already in place for recording to begin on the second album. After the difficult gestation of their debut, the Sydneysiders are hoping for an easier outing second-time round. “Hopefully it'll be out by the end of our summer, about February/March,” offers Law. “[The new songs are] sounding really good. They're sounding a little bit more matured. There's a couple of slower songs coming in, not as fast and not as rushed as our first album. We've still got the fast punk songs, but we've got a more laid back kick now as well. Which is really nice.”

The evolution in the new material comes as no surprise. The hectic punk-rock of their debut only barely scratched the surface of the group's wide range of influences, with each member's distinct tastes creating a smorgasbord of music to draw from. “Personally, I've just been listening to a lot of disco,” enthuses Law. “A lot of '70s, a lot of that. I'm not sure it's gonna translate into Royal Headache or anything like that. Everyone's really got their own thing going on; Shogun loves his metal and his punk, and Joe loves all his cock-rock and glam and his power-pop. There's a whole fuse of things going on. We don't all listen to the same style of records really; it's kind of all over the map, which is really good.”

One of the key drawcards for Royal Headache is the voice of lead singer Shogun. With Law's frantic guitar playing and the subtly pummelling rhythm section behind him, Shogun croons out front with a set of vocals unlike anything else in punk rock. Critics latched onto his Motown-esque singing from the outset, and it's something Law himself is clearly in awe of. “Shogun really comes in a lot with his vocal delivery that comes through in a lot of the songs. Like that Motown sound is mainly Shogun's. His vocals are in some ways like a really strong, powerful African-American lady, like it's incredible! I mean there's not really many other bands that have that sort of voice, you know? That really powerful voice that's got such a good range. It's just a really powerful asset for a band.”

It's something that has helped bring the band to the attention of the infamously picky Pitchfork. The US indie music website stamped the group as one to watch from early on, and later gave the album a high score. Pitchfork has been known to make and break bands in the US, and the significance of the good review wasn't lost on the band themselves. “It was pretty flooring,” suggests Law. “I guess it's one of those websites where it's like a badge of honour if you get a high score or something. But to be honest we don't really pay attention to that stuff, those reviews and stuff like that. As long as we're happy with the record, I'm more than happy.”

Not everyone in the group were as thrilled when the news came through though. As befitting their laid-back outlook, drummer Shortty initially had never heard of the site and couldn't understand the fuss. “Yeah, Shortty our drummer, he's not big on the Internet I guess,” laughs Law. “He's a little bit older than us as well, so he's just a little bit confused about why there was all this hype about Pitchfork and stuff like that. He was like, 'Well, what is Pitchfork? What's it meant to be?'”

The US in general is a place that continues to warm to Royal Headache. The band toured there for the second time this year, and noticed a marked change in the response. “It was a big contrast, 'cause the first time we went there no one knew who we were and we were playing to maybe five or ten people. I remember one night we played to pretty much no one, we started playing and there was no one in the crowd. But this time we went there maybe six months or five months after that first tour and it was the complete opposite – everyone knew who we were, we were getting really good responses everywhere and it was fantastic.”

The band are refreshingly down to earth, and unlikely to change. According to Law, each member still works nine-to-five jobs, and are quite comfortable where they are. All four go by their one-word nicknames and are almost proudly unfashionable. “There's no pose at all”, he explains.

“I can't see us changing. I can't see Shogun changing, I can't see Shortty changing. We are who we are. We're never gonna wear the same outfit or go get sponsored by Puma – It's never gonna happen. The way I see it we're still four punk kids playing punk music, and it's always gonna be like that. If it ever stops being like that, we'll probably break up.”

Royal Headache will be playing the following shows:

Friday 26 October - Brisbane Entertainment Centre, Brisbane QLD
Sunday 28 October - Rockit Festival, Arena Joondalup WA
Tuesday 30 October - Adelaide Entertainment Centre, Adelaide SA
Friday 7 December - Meredith Music Festival, Meredith VIC