Another Race: Jump To It.

Jumpin' is in stores now.

Hailing from Melbourne, Anther Race have themselves firmly placed as the new contenders for the Aussie Nu Metal crown. Having formerly trodden the boards under the moniker Biscuit, and released three EPs in the late nineties, Another Race solidified their new guise with the release of the acclaimed Processor EP, their fourth, in 2000. With the release of their debut long player imminent, Another Race have served up a tasty sampler in Jumpin’. If it’s any indication of what the album has in store, it’ll be a disc to watch out for.

“The name Biscuit had been around for a while, and the releases we’d had were all independent, so it was nothing really serious,” drummer Matt explains over the decision to change name. We were all really keen for it. At the point we were at we needed something fresh and something new to go with. A lot of people instantly assumed (with the old name) that we were a Limp Bizkit thing, and we wanted to secure a dot com and biscuit.com was already taken. There’s probably three other bands in America who were on the same independent level as us who were using the name as well. It was just old man, it had been used and abused.”

I remember hearing a story about Linkin Park changing the spelling of their name from Lincoln because it was easier to get a domain name with the different spelling.

“Really? I guess the way you’ve got to look at it because now it does play a big part with things like your fan base. It’s a good way to communicate with your fans. We’re just getting a new site now. The name change has been a good thing. I feel like we’ve got our own identity now.”

The single Jumpin’ features the mixing talents of Matt Wallace, responsible amongst other things for the monster sounds of bands like Faith No More and Pantera. Must have been a bit of a culture shock for a small indie band.

“It was just awesome. I remember when we had to come in to the record company and talk to him on the phone. It was so cool just to hear him talk about our songs, and he was really into it. To hear the disc when it came back was really special. You can really hear and American kind of edge to it. Here there’s only a couple of studios and engineers that have that experience. The US are just so much further down the track with the production of albums. It just sounds massive.”

“For what we’re doing, that’s the sound you want, and no one here could do it like that. It was definitely the sound we were looking for. Sometimes it’s better not to expect something, because when it comes back it can be so different, and you’re kind of shocked.”

The track, which also made a home for itself on the Rip Curl 10X video, has been getting some high rotation on Rage. Did the ABC let you know when the clip was going to be on?

“Yeah, you can check the playlist on the website, so we got all our mates together to sit up and watch it. Three and a half minutes of fame. We did as video last year with some friends, a low budget kind of thing, and that got played once or twice and it looked ok, but this is heaps better.”