The Drop Bears Have Been There & Back Again, 'Round The Block & Just About Everywhere In Between

Quick and upbeat, The Drop Bears frontman Pete Vanda describes the band's sound as, "The Easybeats and The Kinks slapping each other with fish in the back of an XB coupe being driven by Nirvana and navigated by David Bowie." We're not entirely sure we know what that means, but it certainly paints a picture, something The Drop Bears do extremely well on their upcoming EP Hi De Ho.

"We recently went on a small east coast tour," enthuses Vanda. "The punters' response and energy was awesome, and the songs on our forthcoming EP are definitely the ones that got the best responses live. We added more gang vocals, sped some songs up and shortened a few."

The band was formed by "a bunch of good mates from the western suburbs" in the middle of some "tough times", mostly at Vanda's insistence that jamming "over a few bourbons might be a better option than therapy". Since then, the two biggest problems faced by the outfit were the same looming hurdles that stumble most bands: finance and organisation - especially organisation. "One of the suggested names for the tour was 'Herding Cats'," jokes Vanda.

With "over 15,000 live gigs" between them though, The Drop Bears don't trip easy, and after boiling three album's worth of material down to the cuts on Hi De Ho, they've been left with a testament to their years of experience.

"The [record] is definitely one about loss, redemption and finding out who you are again and celebrating it," says Vanda. "A few of the boys went through relationship break-ups a couple of years back, and after being full-time musicians together years earlier, rediscovering our love of performing rock together was incredible."