Driven By Life's Experiences

Joining Nugara in what was initially Happy Accidents were singer and guitarist Zac Connelly, bass player Ben Tyler and drummer Kieran Rafferty, and they won that particular battle of the bands and decided to keep going, gigging around playing covers, until, in 2008, the original tunes started emerging. As it happens, though, Nugara felt obliged to drop out in order to concentrate on uni, but his buddies never lost faith in him.

“They asked me from the start, ‘Do you wanna be in the band?’ and I’d tell them at the moment university wasn’t going too well for me so I was going to have to keep out of it for now. So I kept out of it and I went to one of their gigs and regretted it instantly, so when a couple of months later they said, ‘Look man, we need a guitarist – we want you to come back,’ I said yes as soon as I could, pretty much.”

That was October 2013, and with his return, they opted to change their name to The Controllers and released a debut EP, 1221, in July last year, the single, Regression, reaching #13 on the triple j Unearthed Radio chart.

“The title came from when we do mic checks, it’s ‘Check 1, 2, 2, 1, check,’” he chuckles. “With the new EP, we thought let’s do something aggressive, something that make us sort of stand out – ‘What about Animals? It’s unrelated to the songs, so that’ll be a bit of a standout.’ So we did Animals.”

While all four members had a shot at writing in the beginning, both EPs have been written by Connelly who, as this interview was being conducted, was somewhere in India courtesy a 21st birthday present from his parents – he returns the day before the first gig!

“Zac’s very influenced by bands he loves like Against Me!, Violent Soho – he’s into those kinds of bands and those influences come through into his music. Kieran does his own drum work obviously, and Ben puts his stuff in when he needs to, but the two EPs are pretty much all Zac. I reckon it’s literally his life experiences that drive him to write more, do more.”

As for touring the new EP, “I can’t wait,” Nugara admits. “It’s something I’ve never done before and I haven’t even visited half the places we’re going to. And doing it with my mates is even better.”