'We Don't Want To Do The Same Album Over & Over': The Next Era Of Violent Soho Is Here

Four years on from Waco, seven from Hungry Ghost and over a decade since their self-titled work and We Don’t Belong Here, Violent Soho are finally back with a new album. Dubbed Everything Is A-Ok, the band’s fifth album is their most self-assured yet – the lyrics mature and autobiographical, the playing confident. 

Sitting down at a cafe in Melbourne’s Fitzroy ahead of a gig at The Tote – the first of a three-show run around the country which saw hundreds of dedicated fans line up at record stores to score tickets – the band’s Luke Boerdam (vocals/guitar) and James Tidswell (guitar) are buoyant following the album’s official announcement. 

“I guess there was this – how to describe it – this more comfortable and confident feeling without having to scream over the top of everything, and this idea of a song where you don’t have to constantly bash into a wall and scream out,” ponders Boerdam, the group’s primary songwriter, when asked about the album. “That had kind of dissipated. There’s definitely songs that are all heavy but everything feels more laid back. I think that just naturally occurred over the four years. Just like any band, you’ll want to progress and try and find different sounds and keep moving so it doesn't become just the derivative of the last album. There's no point making the same album over and over, we’d hate to be that type of band. But we always try and find that approach naturally you know, that’s why it took so long.”

“We played it before hand as well; we played it in as a band a lot more than usual,” adds Tidswell. 

“This album is very much about Soho just being Soho,” explains I OH YOU label founder Johann Ponniah, who signed the Brisbane group back in 2012. 

“I would love to be able to sit in this interview and say that there was some marketing genius ideas behind the whole thing and you know, we designed this master plan based on the way the market is shifting and all this shit but we haven't really to be honest,” he laughs. “It's very much about just allowing the four members of Violent Soho to be themselves, and we found that's what people gravitate towards.”

As much as it was later dispelled, there was a time between albums where it was unclear whether the band would continue with rumours sparked about a “hiatus” following a misquoted interview with Tidswell in early 2017. 

For band manager Nick Yates, there was no doubt that Violent Soho would continue – even if it wasn’t in the band’s current form. “No, no way,” assures Yates when asked if he was concerned if the band just weren’t going to return. “The guys, they’ve been together for so long now; they're literally childhood friends. And I think they would continue to play music and write music together forever, even if people didn't give a shit, you know? And I think that's what this record is really about: them just being comfortable in their own skin. Even though they're as big as they've even been, I feel like there's less pressure and less expectation and the guys are just doing things on their own terms.”

“We took our time,” explains Boerdam. “It's so much more comfortable in the sound as a record because we just gave ourselves so much more breathing room. With Waco, there was pressure. There was literally [recording] dates before songs, and when you’ve got dates before songs, you’re making decisions to meet that. I think a great record came out of Waco, I’m really proud of that record but this time there was literally absolutely no pressure to even be a band anymore. We left that last record going, 'We don’t know what’s going to happen, we’ll actually only make a record if it’s worth making a record because we’re going to have to tour the crap out of it, leave all our jobs for it [so] it better be worth it.' I think with this record, allowing four years for it to develop, getting songs, the sounds and the shape of it, and then the band jamming it out before going into the studio, by the time we were actually in the studio making this record, everything was so comfortable and relaxed and we were really sure about how we wanted it to sound. It just comes with it and that’s the benefit of being in a band for 18 years.” 

It’s not always been smooth sailing for the group though, the time surrounding their 2009 self-titled work among the most challenging periods following their signing to Thurston Moore’s Ecstatic Peace! label and moving to the US. It resulted in recording the album in Wales with producer Gil Norton and touring heavily before eventually coming home.

“It’s a tough one for us,” considers Tidswell when asked how they feel looking back on that album now.   

“I'm a bit harsh on that record, personally. I'm just like, I see brilliance in it but I just wish…” adds Boerdam. “I think what frustrates me about that record is the situation. And I’d still do it the same way, funnily enough, because we were just thrown into the guy who produced Foo Fighters and Pixies at the point when you’re still figuring out who your band is… I find that part frustrating, like man, I’d kill to go make a record with Gil Norton again and go work at this studio in the middle of Wales and just imagine what we could do. So, when I look back at it, I’m just like, 'Ah, hindsight’s a bitch,' because I would have taken more time before jumping to that record and toured first, and all that stuff…” 

He continues, “It’s so weird though because it’s so important to our history as a band because that’s the one we toured America with, we got to meet Built To Spill who are like our heroes and taught us what it is to be a band."

“We still play all the songs from it,” says Tidswell. “I mean, pretty much all of them. Even at Christmas, at the Mansfield [Tavern], we did the record start to finish both nights. But how’s it feel now? I guess that’s what I mean when I listen back to Everything Is A-Ok, I was surprised it was us and that made me feel really proud, in a way that I’d never been of our band… 

“Because we got way better personally and we played literally exactly how we wanted in the structure and style and everything that we wanted. To me, it is the most relaxed… So any of those older records, I can hear the anxiety in all of us. But to some degree, that’s almost like our signature – like anxiety and aggression. Well, now we’re not anxious or aggressive, so even when like Vacation Forever gets heavy, it’s still more sitting back into itself and letting the actual music do it rather than us trying to push it on you. But to me, that’s exciting because I can’t believe there was growth left or that we could be something that we could play forever in that way.”