Endless Boogie And Strand Of Oaks Really Enjoy Each Other's Company

The only real tangible connection between New York City groove monsters Endless Boogie and Philadelphian rockers Strand Of Oaks - apart from the fact that Tom Showalter, frontman for Strand Of Oaks, has an image from the cover of Endless Boogie's last album Long Island tattooed on his sternum - is that they're both veterans of Boogie festival, the weekend shindig held each Easter in the rural Victorian enclave of Tallarook.

And not just veterans of the bash, but bands who by all accounts covered themselves with hedonistic glory. The brand new Strand Of Oaks album Hard Love features a track called On The Hill about a drug-fuelled epiphany at Boogie back in 2014, while Endless Boogie - who even have the perfect name for the shindig - distinguished themselves onstage so much on their last Boogie sojourn that they were asked to play the same set again the following afternoon (which they did, backing up like champions).

Now both bands are coming back Down Under to do Boogie all over again, and have been corralled into doing some co-headlining east coast shows while they're here - the prospect of which clearly thrills Showalter to no end and seems to make Endless Boogie frontman Paul "Top Dollar" Major pretty happy as well.

"I'm so jacked to be making it again to the Boogie festival, to be watching you guys and hanging and stuff," Major drawls. "I was listening to some of Hard Love and you mention what an experience it was last time, so man I'm excited."

Endless Boogie

"I think it's going to be amped up a bit this year, because it's you guys and Cosmic Psychos - we're going to have to get jacked, and I'm ready to go for it," Showalter gushes. "I'm ready. I hope you guys find that jam and just choose to never stop it, maybe to the point that we can have Bloody Marys the next morning and that's just when the jam's ending. Maybe you can start Occult Banker and just run that for about eight hours and I'd be totally fine with that."

"I'm like this beer-drinking, overweight dude - and people are all very handsome and amazing looking down there."

Both Major and Showalter profess to having loved their previous visits to Australia in general, not just the Tallarook region. "Oh yeah, big time," Major smiles. "This will be the fourth time, and every time's just been fantastic. It's like the feeling of meeting people you already knew all your life, even though you're talking to them for the first time - there's this camaraderie of rockin' for real that I always got in my head out of the '70s Australian bands - while the rest of the world was getting progressive or whatever, it was like, 'Woah' - and that initial spark from people like Lobby Loyde is still riding through the music today."

"I totally agree. That's exactly the way I felt the first time I went down there," Showalter continues. "I was, like, 'Oh, I just feel like this is who I've been looking for.' There's a lack of cynicism and it's just like fun. There are people there who are genuine but who also like to rage full on if there's a chance for it. And also, I'm like this beer-drinking, overweight dude - and people are all very handsome and amazing looking down there - but I just felt like I could have grown up in one of those small towns, I woulda fit right in."

"I remember saying a few times that when we're playing down there everybody's in like such a good head, and so genuine and real," Major reflects. "I was saying, 'Does anyone ever get depressed here, man? Everyone seems so fucking happy! What's going on?' People were, like, 'Oh yeah, we get depressed, but not tonight! We're rocking!'"

But really when it all boils down to it, the two musos are really just excited about getting back to Boogie again. "I can't wait for the jams and for the all night out under the stars action just hanging out together," Major smiles. "It's going to be so good."

"I'm hoping that we just become seamless, like it literally does become an endless boogie," Showalter laughs. "No one will be able to tell where we start or you begin - there's just a jam that just continues in and never stops, I can't wait."

"It's going to be the real deal," Major agrees. "It will be life-affirming. There will be no cooler place on earth to be than at the Boogie festival."