Design For Life

Christmas Eve 2006 young Melbourne four-piece Trial Kennedy took to the stage of Brunswick's Evelyn Hotel. Earlier in the year the band had released a split EP The Birds And The Bees with fellow Melburnians Horsell Common and with two popular EPs already behind them, Present For A Day and Picture Frame, the band was on the rise.

But Trial Kennedy didn't just nail this headlining gig, they blew the crowd away. This was the moment the band went from being a first choice support band for top-notch local acts to owning a stage themselves. Their sound was bigger, their performances more assured and their confidence just rolled off the stage. Trial Kennedy had grown up.

There have been a lot of miles covered in tour vans and on airplanes since then. In 2008 the band finally, after almost ten years of being together, released their debut album New Manic Art.

After that album cycle bassist Aaron Malcolmson left the band and long-time friends and remaining band members Tim Morrison (vocals), Stacey Gray (guitar) and Shaun Gionis (drums) enlisted Richie Buxton and got ready to do it all again.

In 2011 Living Undesigned hit the shelves and after touring the album on and off over the last 12 months the band have decided to hang up their boots. To make sure they're going out in style Trial Kennedy have kicked off one last tour. While Gray says the time is definitely right to be bowing out, it feels like the band are doing it on their own terms. “It's going to be a good little final tour,” Gray says. “It's good to do it like that with all your friends and be surrounded by great people and not just go, 'We're breaking up' and not play again. We're stoked with what we've had and the people we've met and all we've achieved. There's no unfinished business.”

The band have sacrificed a lot in their ten years on the road. Gray remembers an early gig, one of the first times they'd ventured out of Melbourne; the band played an opening slot on a bill, got paid $100 and spent $600 on getting to the show.

“For everyone in our life it's been number one,” Gray explains. “You put it ahead of everything you do for ten years. It's like you're giving away the thing that's been most important in your life, but we're all still best mates which is the most important thing. And it's exciting as well. That door closes and a thousand more open.”

For Gray it's the people that he's met along the way that have made being in Trial Kennedy such an important experience; the bands they've played with and the people they run into time and time again all around the country when they're out on tour. “There's no one thing that I think, 'That was the pinnacle of our career' but I think there's heaps of things. It's enriched my life tenfold. To be able to travel Australia and see everything and see a little bit of America and still be great friends with everyone in my band. Too many bands fall apart and then don't talk. I think to be friends after everything we've been through – severe downs and severe ups. I think that's a real testament.”

But don't be fooled by Gray's insistence that the band are breaking up as friends. In ten years it hasn't always been happy sing-alongs on the tour bus.

“We've had some great barnies over the years,” Gray admits with a chuckle. “We've had some absolute crackers. Some alcohol-induced. Some just because we're very passionate people. It's healthy. If you kept everything inside, there's no fire. You wouldn't get to kiss and make up.

“You get frustrated with people. It doesn't matter who they are but you spend six weeks in a van with someone and the smallest little thing... I remember reading a thing on the Edge and he goes, 'U2 will never break up over money or songwriting disputes or whatever, I definitely feel we'll break up over who used my toothpaste tube on tour'. It's the little things.”

Though Gray has always been Trial Kennedy's most laidback member, he's more than happy to dish the dirt now. “I remember having an argument with Aaron [Malcolmson] over Caesar salad and he said it's the fattiest thing you can eat and we said, 'No, it's not'. He didn't speak to us for a week. It's intensified. It's like any environment - creative people especially. Creative people are very passionate because they're very opinionated. You can't expect everyone to think the same thing. If everyone agreed it would be boring.

“Trial Kennedy, without trying to sound cliché, we're like brothers. We all tried to serve certain roles in our band. Shaun's like the ideal child. If you had a child you'd want him to be Shaun Gionis. And then you've got Slick [Tim] and Richie who are obviously off in their own little world. They're like your younger brothers who do stuff and you think, “Oh god.” And I play more like a mother and father role. I shepherd them.”

Having had some experience as a tour manager, Gray says he can't imagine looking after a band with ten or 15 members and says making sure everyone is where they need to be at the right time is the hardest about being the band organiser. But it hasn't all been early morning wake-up calls and endless stretches of highways. Trial Kennedy have had their rock star moments too, not that the humble Gray would ever own up to being a rock star.

“We've had some crazy experiences. There's heaps of really weird moments, stuff that you look back and go, 'What the hell?' We once played a gig at Parliament House on Australia Day. We are just four regular guys from Melbourne and you're standing next to Kevin Rudd and Glenn McGrath and Natalie Bassingthwaighte. They're the A-Listers. We're just four bogans that are going, 'Wa-hey, how ya goin'?'”