Second Life

"It's a statement from us,” says The Demon Parade's Michael Badger about the quartet's three-month cross-country run. “That we're doing this thing, we're going to make it happen. We just want to get out to Australia and show the country what we can do. And we're doing it the old fashioned way, getting out on the road and flogging ourselves.”

The statement The Demon Parade are hoping to make with the tour is simple: they're back. After making a splash with their 2010 EP God Said It's Legal the band all but dropped off the Australian rock radar. Now they're looking to get out in front of anyone who'll have them.

“We had quite a bit of luck, I wouldn't call it success, just luck, early on when we managed to pick up The Brian Jonestown Massacre tour and we released the EP off the back of that and then we thought that things would just come to us because they already had,” Badger admits. “We weren't really prepared to work hard enough or play in front of the right people, so we were relying on the same gigs and that got a bit stale.”

While they were in their doldrums, Badger and his comrades kept on writing material, amassing about 30 or 40 tracks and reinvigorating themselves in the process. They also experienced a powerful revelation; if they wanted more good things to come the band's way, they'd better get out there and work for them.

“Mid-last year we realised that we'd just been sitting in the same spot; all the bands that had been supporting us early in their careers had been doing all these good things, and when we looked at them we saw that that stuff was happening for them it was because they were really writing a lot, and playing a lot and recording a lot. It was just about committing to doing something and sticking it out. It's very rare for somebody to find you and take you to the next level, you've really got to do it yourself.”

Those 30 or 40 songs would be whittled down into the Chameleon EP. A six-track offering that captures the band's penchant for '60s boogie and wonderfully vintage guitar tones. “When we're all together now it feels like it's a fresh new band,” Badger enthuses. “Now that we've put out this new EP there's been so much more life and energy within the band, in the recording studio, offstage, onstage.”

Now they're rejuvenated The Demon Parade aren't going to be making the same mistake of resting on their laurels.

“We've just recorded two songs and we've spent the first few weeks of the year demoing, writing and working on a lot of new stuff,” Badger tells. “We don't bother rehearsing the old songs now before the shows, we just work on the new songs and then we throw them straight into the set. At the moment it's a really creative and productive time for us and because this is a long tour we're trying to get as much out as we can so we've got the most stuff to promote, give away, sell and everything. While everything's rolling we want to keep everything rolling.

“It's the most excited I've felt about the band since we've started. I just feel like it's fresh... The whole thing's a long journey, it's just fun to live it out.”

The Demon Parade will be playing the following dates:

Friday 8 February - Beach Hotel, Byron Bay NSW

Saturday 9 February -Trainspotters Grand Central, Brisbane QLD
Sunday 10 February - Live Spark Powerhouse, Brisbane QLD
Friday 15 February - Rocket Bar, Adelaide SA
Saturday 16 February - The Grace Emily, Adelaide SA
Saturday 2 March -The Workers Club, Melbourne VIC