They might be playing rock'n'roll from a bygone era, but Brisbane quartet Shandy have quickly accrued admirers from all over the globe. They only started the band a couple of years ago (first as a trio before adding a second six-string to their armoury), and their debut album Tough Pucker only drops next month, but they're already embarking on their second extensive European tour. To celebrate they're throwing themselves a party, which will let local fans say bon voyage as well as help them rack up some much-needed beer kitty in the process.
"It's just moved really quickly. We started in late-2013 totally as a 'men's group' — a men's health group — and it just took off," laughs Shandy founding member and Brisbane scene stalwart JJ Speedball. "All we've been doing is following bones people have thrown to us — sometimes you get an opportunity and if you can take it you grab it, and that's basically what we're doing. People overseas are giving us a bit of love, so we're just going to get back over there and take the love."
"We just play and dance until we fall down and we have a whole lot of fun."
Shandy's music is melodic, fun and accessible from the get-go, but even so Speedball struggles to put a finger on why it's resonated so rapidly.
"I think it's one of those things where it's 'right place, right time'," he shrugs. "People play all kinds of great music but sometimes it's just not the right period for them or something, but this style of music that we're playing is something that me and Vik [Guard — bass] have been fans of for a while and we decided to do it just for total kicks for ourselves, but we put it out there and it's almost like we've uncovered this boutique market. We're tipping our hat to a lot of styles that are quite underground — even though it's essentially rock'n'roll it's almost like terrace glam and bovver boogie, styles that didn't quite make it commercially but had great songs.
"And we're also tipping our hat at one of the original Australian sub-cultures that we can claim for ourselves and that's the Sharpies! That was a great time for Australian rock in the '70s, and we've been definitely influenced by parts of that which we love. We're just doing it for ourselves, but at the same time there seems to be a market over there."
And Shandy's no-holds-barred live show is also part of the reason that the Europeans have become so quickly enamoured.
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"When we play there's this weird style — we play tough and hard because we're an Australian band but there's obviously also a lot of fun to our show," Speedball offers. "I think with the scene over there that we're playing to some bands can be quite serious, and I think they really enjoy that fun aspect of our live show. Our label Contra Records deals with a lot of hard punk and Oi!, and I think we're like a breath of fresh air for those guys. We just play and dance until we fall down and we have a whole lot of fun, there's not really a lot to complain about."
