Stockades

With their brand of "mathy post-hardcore", noodly Melbourne punks Stockades have been steadily building a reputation for themselves since their inception in late 2011. Their debut 10" EP is out now, and with a national tour supporting British noisemakers Rolo Tomassi kicking off next month, we caught up with guitarist Allan Stacey.

There's a lot of different styles going on in your music – how would you describe Stockades' sound to the uninitiated? What's the songwriting process like?

Good question. I'd say “mathy post-hardcore” I guess... That sounds stupid, but it's probably what I'd say. Ned's a jazz dude, he knows all the right chords and stuff, so there's definitely a jazz element in there because of him. At the moment, me and Ned write the riffs and then bring it in and we'll finish it off as a band. Alex will write drums, Joe writes his lyrics... We all do our own thing.

You recently put out your debut, self-titled EP. You guys seem to really mesh together well sonically. How was that?

We recorded it with our friend Andre, who also did the demo. He's a good friend of ours. It was such a rushed thing, because Joe and Alex were about to go overseas three months and we kind of thought “Well, shit, let's release something before they leave and we can tour it when they get back”. So we tracked it in a couple days.

You're about to kick off a tour next month supporting Rolo Tomassi from the UK along with Totally Unicorn. Is this the first time you've been national support for a tour? What are you looking forward to about that tour?

That's right. I'm really just looking forward to hanging out and playing with a band that we've all known and listened to for quite a while. I'm hoping the crowds are decent every night – sometimes you don't get that when you're touring by yourself.

Definitely. I think it's an interesting billing because you're all acts that fall under the sort of general umbrella of punk/hardcore/metal – but in a kind of different, more off-kilter, weirder kind of way you know?

Yeah, for sure. A lot have people have said that – it makes sense that we're on it, but at the same time it's gonna be a weird one. I don't know how people will react to us to be honest, Rolo Tomassi are pretty full-on and Totally Unicorn are definitely full-on. We'll see how it goes; hopefully it works.

Speaking of touring, you recently finished a national tour with Seahorse Divorce from Queensland – how was that?

That was awesome – it's great getting shown up by Seahorse Divorce every night! [Laughs] No, those dudes are awesome. We've known a couple of them for quite a while, and it just made sense. They were a new band, and a similar style I guess. Touring with them definitely pushed us to... you know... be better. They're absolutely flawless. Altogether it was great. They're all really great people, and turnouts to the shows were pretty good across the board.

I get this very strong sense that you guys and bands like Seahorse Divorce, along with bands like The Smith Street Band, El Alamein – who unfortunately are breaking up next month – are kind of fostering this very strong independent, DIY culture in Australian punk/hardcore at the moment. How do you feel about the sort of independent musical landscape that's developing?

Yeah, totally. I think it's really cool, man. It definitely changes depending on what city you're in. I think Brisbane have a very good DIY ethic – because they have like, no actual “venues” now. There's places like Sun Distortion, then there was Valhalla House that did house shows, and The Waiting Room.. When you don't have any venues for whatever reason, people aren't going to stop playing. In Melbourne as well, we had the Moore Street house going for a while, doing house shows whenever we could. We've canned that now because of neighbours, but that's whatever. It's just good to play for free to people in small spaces where there's a mutual respect for everyone. In a venue, you're on a stage and there's this perception of being above people. When we toured with El Alamein, we played The Place in Melbourne. It's an old fruit shop that put on shows, Smith Street played with us. It was absolutely amazing, man. I think those are the kind shows you remember.

Totally. You guys have accomplished quite a bit in the past year or so, with putting out the EP and doing a fair bit of touring. What do you guys have planned for the next 12 months?

We're going to do Rolo Tomassi and then I'd like to take a break – just write some songs, not play as many shows, and maybe look to do an album. I think that'd be the next step. I'd like to take our time though, as well. We did rush the 10” quite a bit, and it'd be good to just sit back and say “are the songs good enough?” I don't want to write eight songs and say “That's the album”, I'd much rather write eleven or twelve and pick the best ones. I'm looking forward to doing that, we'll see how we go.

Just to wrap up - who should we be listening to at the moment?

Feverteeth are a rad band from Melbourne, we love playing with those guys whenever we can. Have/Hold are a cool punk band, they're from Melbourne as well. We just played this weekend with Oslow and Ted Danson with Wolves from Sydney – they're the two best bands in the country. Oslow blow my mind every time I see them. If people aren't listening to that band then they're doing it wrong, 'cause that band is on a whole other level. Oh, and Seahorse Divorce! Obviously!

Thanks for taking the time.

Cheers, take it easy.



Stockades tour with Rolo Tomassi and Totally Unicorn in September/October - head here for dates and details. Their self-titled 10" EP is available for streaming and purchase here.