EP Focus: Tired Lion

Tired Lion

Following on form a successful national tour for their Figurine EP, plus an opening slot at Splendour In The Grass, Tired Lion play Amplifier this Saturday, August 8, with support from Pat Chow, Silver Hills and Ah Trees. It feels like the band have just about made it to the next level in their career - an point vocalist Sophie hopes agrees with.

This last few weeks definitely feel like a turning point for you guys...

Yeah, I think so, definitely, yeah. It's been a bit of an adventure for us all. we're not used to being so under the pump. The tour was like, every day a different city, and then we had Splendour, which was the biggest crowd we'd ever played to date, and probably the best stage we've played on. We're getting a bit of momentum, which is pretty cool.

Tell us about splendour.

It's pretty hard to sum up. We got there at 8am in the morning, and we'd woken up at 4am. We had a long drive and we got there and were like, 'Man, this is really sick.'         

There was a whole artists' village dedicated to all the bands and industry people, and the stage alone was really fucking huge. We went on there to soundcheck and looked out and there was this huge valley - it had that sort of amphitheatre vibe.

We thought nobody would see us play. We were opening. We were on at 12, so we planned that sort of set - we thought no one would watch us at all. But as soon as Veronica and Lewis went on stage and opened up the festival and someone cut the red ribbon, so many people came down and we were blown away by how many people knew the lyrics to our songs! It was fucking weird! I know there's a couple people in Perth when we play who can shout out all the lyrics, but to be in Byron Bay and have a solid crowd shouting along was really sick.

So you didn't know how big your audience outside of Perth was?

Yeah, definitely. We had no idea.

And then you got really excited and dived into the crowd!

I sort of zone out when I'm playing and our biggest hit, our biggest banger on triple j at the moment, I Don't Think You Like Me, we were singing along and then I was like, 'Fuck it!' I don't think any Unearthed winner has ever crowd surfed, nor someone who opened the festival, so I looked down from the stage and it was a two and a half metre drop and I was like, 'Fuck, I don't know how I'm gonna do this.' And then the security guard put his hands up to me and I dropped down onto his shoulders. So he took me over to the crowd, and the crowd has going mental. So I jumped in and everyone was really cool.

 The crowd sort of has that thing that they do to you - it's like a magic spell. I sort of zoned out and, the next thing I knew, I was trying to get back up on stage. It was cool!

What was the most surprising thing about this tour?

Well, basically how many people showed up to see us live. We'd done a national tour before - obviously it wasn't a headline tour - where we were just playing for 20 people. But we managed to sell out our Melbourne show, our Adelaide show, and it was just amazing how many people actually wanted to see us. It still freaks me out now.

You also just got announced for BIGSOUND.

A lot of our friends are playing. We played a show in Brisbane with Waaks and that means that when we go over there we can chill on their couch. There's so many of our friends going over: Methyl Ethel, Koi Child, Katy Steele, which is one of my idols back in the day, when she was in Little Birdy. Hopefully we can all hang out with the WA crowd. It's pretty cool!

So even with all this success, you still need to find places to crash on tour?

Well, obviously everyone thinks as soon as get a tune on the radio you're raking in the money, but to cover our flight costs and things like that, we always try to find places to crash. So, the last tour, the only place we got accommodation for was Adelaide, and we just crashed on people's couches the rest of the time - which is a little bit uncomfortable, but we saved a hell of a lot of money. I guess this is one of those things where we need to think about out future. Accommodation, even when it's in a hostel or something, it's still quite expensive. We really want to make this the thing we do with our lives and at the moment, crashing on people's couches really does help the cause.

So, Figurine - how does it differ from your previous releases?

Our first EP, we were pretty young at the time - I think it was 2013 we released it. We were highly influenced by Siamese Dream. Before we recorded we'd had a little bit of time in studio to record two singles, but I guess we didn't know what the studio vibe was all about. We were pretty intimidated. As a vocalist, I was very nervous and maybe underprepared. I was scared, in a away - I really care about this band, I really want to make it sick, and it got the better of me, it made me more nervous than confident. So, we released that EP and it came out fine, it got a good reception.

Dave Parkin, as a producer he's really great - he really got the best out of us and he knows how to handle each individual in their own way. He knew how to talk to me without getting me down, to get the best product out of me. He has this certain charm about him which means he could get that little bit extra out of us, which is really cool, and I think that's why this EP out of anything we've released to date, has been reci3eved in such a great way. I'm putting it to Parko, because he's a legend - I'm gonna say it's because of him.

Originally published in X-Press Magazine