Massive Wanna Be A Band For The Rest Of Their Lives

Massive's debut album Full Throttle was available as a covermount CD giveaway with purchase of Classic Rock magazine. "The actual CD was on it so, you know, we went from a band that had sold a few thousand records to a band that has 100,000 [copies circulated] around the world, overnight," frontman Brad Marr acknowledges. "So how many copies of the magazine did he buy? "I didn't wanna buy too many, 'cause I wanted other people to buy them," he laughs. "The crazy thing was, I kept going to newsagents and going, 'Can I get a copy of Classic Rock magazine?' And they'd go, 'I think your mum's been in here'... I think my mum was the obsessed fan who went out and bought every copy in every magazine store." The resulting "worldwide exposure" and "huge boost" to Massive's profile didn't go unnoticed by the band. "A couple of people tried to sell [the CD] on eBay, I saw!" Marr marvels.

'"'I think your mum's been in here'... I think my mum was the obsessed fan who went out and bought every copy in every magazine store."

Marr went to high school with one of his Massive bandmates, Jarrod Medwin (drums, BVs) - "We were the two guys who just sat in the music room and played while everyone else was kicking the footy around". Having been "in and out of bands for the last decade together", the pair decided they "wanted to do this for the rest of [their] lives. "But we also knew that the bands we were in probably wouldn't sustain that," Marr confesses. Although it was difficult to walk away from bands they'd "put so many years into", the dudes just had to "take a risk and start new". Sounds like a couple breaking up because only one of them wants to have a kid. "It's exactly like that," Marr agrees, "and 'the baby' would be to go overseas... or whatever the dispute is that you can't get over."

The search for like-minded musical souls brought in Aidan McGarrigle (bass/BVs) who they "knew from drinkin' at the pub". "We didn't know he was a bass player, but we knew he liked to party," Marr shares. "Turns out he's a great bass player". And "the new guy" Brendan Forward (lead guitar/BVs)? "He's dedicated as anything and he's everyone's best mate, so it was a very natural fit to get him in the band." Massive is "a very happy, four-piece rock band at the moment," Marr enthuses. "It doesn't feel like work, it just feels like four mates goin' to the pub and, you know, rockin' out at some songs."

When asked to single out one of Massive's shit gigs, Marr remembers the band's first Tasmanian tour, which inspired a song called Sinking Ship (from the new album). "[We] all went on the Spirit Of Tasmania, which was the dumbest idea ever because - for ten hours on a boat - we got absolutely wasted to the point where we couldn't function when we got off the boat. We were buying bottles of wine like they were beers; like, we'd buy a round of bottles of wine, yeah! We didn't even get out of the heads of Port Phillip Bay before we got cut off from the bar, so it was mental." When they eventually arrived at their first Tasmanian gig "feeling pretty worse for wear", "the support band didn't rock up" and "a Spinal Tap weekend" ensued. "But at least we wrote a song about it," Marr concludes.