Thinking Big

Since forming in the latter half of the last decade, UK-via-New Zealand rockers I Am Giant have been putting in the hard yards. In Australia alone the band have done a headlining run up the east coast, helped their good mates in Dead Letter Circus on the No Fracking Way tour and earned a coveted slot opening things up for top-hatted cock-rock legend Slash on his most recent run of Australian dates. Now the four-piece are coming back for another run up the Pacific and according to drummer Shelton Woolright, the band's Australian touring is now starting to yield dividends.

“I think we're more established in people's eyes that we've done those Australian tours,” he says. “We didn't just put an album out and disappear, we've gone back to a lot of the places that we originally toured and the fanbase is growing and the shows are getting bigger and what we're actually able to do is getting better. We're really locked in our own sound, we really know what we're about as a band now.

“And you guys really like your rock and alternative rock, so we're really trying to get down there and gain that exposure to all those Australian alternative rock fans. Things like touring with Dead Letter Circus and Slash have helped, it's always get on good supports for like-minded artists, so we're building things there. We're a bit gutted that we can't yet do a full Australian tour, but we're building to that. Each time when you play a show and an extra 50 people come along, it's really great, and our Facebook got hammered after we toured with Slash, so it will be interesting to see the numbers that come out to this tour.”

The tour will be one of the last the band head out on before returning to the studio to work again with Australia's premier rock producer Forrester Savell. “We're ready to hit the studio with five songs and we've picked the ten tracks that we're going to take into the studio and those other five are sitting somewhere from fifty-to-eighty per cent finished.”

Written around their hectic touring schedule whenever they could grab a free moment, Woolright says the record was conceived during sound checks and in the back of vans and waiting in hotel lobbies. I Am Giant are hoping that their second full-length might see the light of day later this year or early next. So, after touring their debut long player The Horrifying Truth so extensively, what have I Am Giant learnt about their music, and where will album number two see the band head?

“I think my musicianship has grown, and so has the other members of the band,” Woolright continues. “Our ability to craft songs together has grown as well. We've learnt a bit of stuff along the way about what is going to work on an album and what's not going to work on an album for whatever reasons… But then it's still going to be a very much alternative rock record. We've been listening to a lot of '90s rock and more alternative stuff so I'm sure that somewhere along the line that stuff would have influenced us. I'm not sure how, but I reckon that it would have.”

Though I Am Giant have no plans to let up on their frenetic pace or slacken the work ethic that has brought them so far into their career in a relatively short time, Woolright assures Aussie fans that no matter what the band have got going on they'll always make time to keep coming back down under. “You can't beat that feeling of playing to a full room,” he says. “If you can get that, then you'll want to come back to that place. And in Australia we're starting to fill these rooms, so you'll definitely see more of us.”

I Am Giant will be playing the following dates:

Thursday 14 February - Ding Dong Lounge, Melbourne VIC
Friday 15 February - GoodGod Small Club, Sydney NSW
Saturday 16 February - X & Y Bar, Fortitude Valley QLD