Leaving The Nest

Last year was big for Brisbane rock trio Greenthief. Tours aplenty, including one as support for The Butterfly Effect on their last ever tour with vocalist Clint Boge. It was a year in which vocalist/guitarist Julian Schweitzer, bassist Tom Abbott and drummer Steve Tyssen made their mark on the Australian scene, eschewing the indie cool and looking to bring back the grunge, lashings of psych, thumping riffage.

This year then, it's time for a grand gesture, time to solidify what they achieved over the past 12 months and make it stick. The obvious choice? Head off to Europe for a monster tour. “Yeah, it should be nearly 30 shows,” tells Schweitzer on this tour, set to begin in April, after a short run of local shows.

“I'm wondering how it's gonna happen, but it has to happen, so it'll be cool,” he adds sagely.

Definitely cool, and more than a little impressive… it's not many bands who, only a couple of years after forming (with this line-up), head off to Europe for such a lengthy run. “We've had a guy over there doing our press since the end of last year, which has really paid off,” Schweitzer says on how it's been able to come together.

“[A friend of a friend] was booking bands that I knew, so I got in touch with them,” he goes on, offering another insight into how Greenthief have been able to get a foot in the door of the much larger European touring market. “A lot of it will be Eastern Europe actually; we'll be doing a lot of the Eastern Bloc which will be really exciting: Serbia, Croatia, Czech Republic, Romania, stuff like that. And we're also doing Germany and the UK… should be a really wild trip.”

After they're back, sometime in May, Greenthief will then look to tour at home, with yet another solidifier under their belt – their debut long-player, which they've been working on for quite some time, and which is being mixed as this interview takes place. “Yeah, that should be done by the time we get back,” he confirms, with no small amount of excitement.

“So when we do get back, we'll [go out] for a run of shows, and try and push the album.” There's no name for said album yet, the band still tossing up between self-titling and a unique name, but that's the only thing still up in the air, particularly since the release was pushed back sometime last year due to financial constraints.

“Yeah, well the whole thing about pushing it back was, you can either finish the album, or take another opportunity… so there was always the case of, 'Yeah, we could release the album, but then we wouldn't be able to do this'. So there was the conversation of, do we hold back until we've got a bigger foundation to release the album to, or do we do it now? That was always at play as far as timeframe went. We're at a point now, though, where we're really keen to get it out.

“Something that we're really, obviously, proud of,” Schweitzer muses on what the band's MO was with this record, what they wanted to come out with at the end of the process. “Definitely something that had an album quality to it, rather than just 12 songs. That was a big thing, having it sound like an album, as opposed to just 'putting some tracks together'.”

It's been a long process, a process which began early last year, and one which is finally nearing the end of the proverbial tunnel. Schweitzer is in two minds, stoked to have it so close, but at the same time, wanting it to be out and about. It's pretty close though, and after they've conquered Europe, prepare yourselves for their explosive return.

Greenthief will be playing the following dates:

Saturday 16 March - The Zoo, Brisbane QLD
Friday 22 March - Oxford Art Factory, Sydney NSW
Saturday 23 March - The Espy, Melbourne VIC