Meet Brisbane's Children Of Rock'N'Roll

Age has so far proved no barrier for young Brisbane trio The Goon Sax. Two-thirds of the band struggle to watch the great bands they play with because they're still underage (although thankfully not for much longer) and have tended to be removed from the venues after their own set, but that hasn't stopped them from crafting the beautiful, world-weary collection of sparse indie-rock songs which constitute their debut album, Up To Anything.

The core writing team of Louis Forster (vocals/guitar/bass) and James Harrison (bass/guitar/vocals) met when they both joined the same band via different connections, but quickly formed a strong bond and set out on their own to focus on that creative partnership. They were soon joined by Riley Jones (drums/vocals) and thus The Goon Sax were born. Their jangly guitar sound — so reminiscent of many fine Brisbane forebears — came naturally, although it wasn't necessarily the direction of their choosing.

"Originally I wanted The Goon Sax to be more of a punk band really," Forster admits, "But all of our practices at James' house — the first ones when it was just me and him — we always had nylon string guitars because they were always the ones that we had around, plus we didn't have a drummer and we didn't plug in, so all of the songs came off very, very soft. Although hopefully you could play them as punk songs, maybe.

"And then when Riley joined on drums our sound changed again, but I don't think it was very calculated — if anything it wasn't quite what I originally intended, but then I ended up kind of liking where it went."

"You can appreciate someone like Paul Kelly's songs without knowing where he's singing about so I don't think it's a problem."

Their bio cites seminal overseas bands such as The Pastels, Talking Heads and Galaxie 500 as influences, but The Goon Sax also take cues from closer to home.

"Yeah definitely, we listen to a lot of Australian bands," Forster tells. "I love Lower Plenty and Blank Realm and Scott & Charlene's Wedding. The current scene's great, and one of the things that drew us to [indie label] Chapter Music was [their roster] - that was one of the reasons I wanted to be on that label because I loved all of the bands on it, like Twerps and Dick Diver and The Stevens, even overseas acts like Kath Bloom and Smokie."

The lyrics on Up To Anything may be rife with coming-of-age insecurities, but it avoids being mired in self-reflection (let alone self-pity) and are framed in a straightforward way that's both assured and accessible.

"I think we had an aim when we were recording it, in that we wanted it just to sound the way that we'd sounded in the practice room when we first started playing those songs, because some of them were songs we wrote when we were 14 and I didn't want that to get lost in overproduction," Forster reflects. "I wanted to keep it pretty much guitar-based and drums with very minimal overdubs. But in terms of the songs that went on the album I think they were just the ones we liked playing live the most, the ones that maybe came across the best on stage."

Despite manifesting separately the songwriting aesthetics of Forster and Harrison complement each other perfectly, and although slightly divergent their styles have definitely influenced each other.

"When we first started playing together I think James had written a bit before then, but he really started writing at that point, whereas I'd been trying to do it for a long time before then," Forster remembers. "But I think writing together we kind of influenced each other, because I had a very clear idea of what I wanted to do which James kind of followed, but he didn't overthink it as much as I did — he just had a natural knack of saying exactly what he wanted to say and not being self-conscious and wondering about it. He just kind of spat it out, which influenced me, so I think we shaped our songwriting due to each other very much."

"We're hoping to move to Berlin next year, because it would be really great for the music and it would be good to be able to tour in Europe a bit more."

Brisbane and its landmarks such as New Farm Park crop up in the lyrics throughout Up To Anything, but Forster is still looking forward to heading out into the wider world to broaden the band's collective horizons.

"I am proud to be part of [the Brisbane scene]," he admits. "It's nice to be a part of it and it's very communal, although we're looking forward very much to going overseas as well though. I love Brisbane but I'm looking forward to getting out of it at the same time — it's that sort of relationship — but I do have a very deep love for Brisbane, I think.

"It's funny I never thought about [those lyrics] until recently because for the first year or two when we were playing that song that mentions New Farm Park [Anyone Else] everyone was, like, 'Oh yeah, New Farm Park,' because we only played it in Brisbane. Then we played it in Melbourne and New Farm Park doesn't mean anything down there — it's just words — and it's probably the same for everybody outside Brisbane. That didn't occur to me until a few months ago, but you can appreciate someone like Paul Kelly's songs without knowing where he's singing about so I don't think it's a problem.

"We're hoping to move to Berlin next year, because it would be really great for the music and it would be good to be able to tour in Europe a bit more. Riley's going to go to uni over there, but I think the band is definitely going to be the focus. It's such a great city, I'm looking forward to moving there a lot."

But before that departure they'll hopefully leave us with some new music.

"I'm looking forward to recording again already," Forster enthuses. "I think we've got about ten new songs — I think I've got four, James has got five and Riley's got one. On the current record it was eight of mine and four of James', because at the start of the band I wrote songs a lot more quickly and James was slower, but now he's just a machine and he's pumping them out. There's a certain point with James and you can hear it when he's suddenly found his very specific thing, and I think he's kind of hit his stride a little bit."

And Forster doesn't expect the band to stay so enthralled to capturing their songs' early essence.

"I think next time we really do want to do more overdubs," he tells. "We really want to work on the songs a bit more. I think some of the songs that James and I have written we've really got quite a vision for, which isn't just us playing the song through on guitar, bass and drums. I think we've got maybe a few more ideas for the songs, which might give the next album a bit more variation hopefully."