Features / Music

"Fifteen years, that’s a load of changes! Honestly, my whole entry into the music industry was really naïve. I didn’t really use the word ‘industry’ too much back then; I had no reason to."

He is clever but he hasn’t tried to be overly clever. It’s not going to take you weeks of constant listening to figure out what the hell he’s on about while waiting for the tunes to grow on you.

Armed with tracks from their killer new album 'In Time to Voices', Brighton-based alternative rock duo Blood Red Shoes are heading to Australia for the first time ever later this year, playing two headline shows as well as at this year’s Pyramid Rock Festival at Phillip Island in Victoria and Peat’s Ridge Festival at Glenworth Valley in NSW. Ahead of their maiden visit, Killyourstereo caught up with vocalist and drummer Steven Ansell.

“I have been involved with them for a long time now, seeing almost every band I have been in has come out through [Chapter]. They are lovely, and are working with friends who understand and appreciate each other’s musical tastes."

“I think there’s something about writing songs with someone; you share this intimacy that you might not normally. You see each other in a very vulnerable state where you’re first coming up with ideas so you can’t look cool."

"In Sydney as well kids were getting drunk before the show so they kind of like – not that they should be, but they were. There were kids going nuts and heaps of pashes going down."

“It’s easy to make music. I mean it’s what we love to do. That’s really part of it too; it just comes out very easily for us. I just don’t know what I’d do if I wasn’t doing that, you know.”

“We were this weird surfing prog band from the northern beaches, and we were still doing covers by Jethro Tull and Yes and Genesis and Focus, who had fallen out of favour by the late-‘70s when the English punk thing hit – it was really uncool to like those bands.”

"It's just all natural. It’s all happening all the time. Inspiration is just life itself... Life is happening to me. There’s plenty to be upset about, and there’s plenty to celebrate, and there’s plenty to have questions about. That’s all that music is, really."

“Not that we’ve been trying to write differently, but we’re opening up a lot more doors with the new songs, with a few different sounds, but it’ll always just have that coastal feel anyway.”

"I will make music until I can’t make music anymore. I don’t have any goals like ‘I wanna be famous’ or ‘I wanna make a platinum record and be number one on the charts’. None of that matters to me."