Waiting For Tom: The Residents.

Waiting For Tom launch The Highway Song at The Zoo on Saturday.

Since coming together back in 2000, Waiting For Tom have built themselves quite a formidable reputation. Numerous local and national support slots and a six month residency at the Orient Hotel found them bringing their mature and unique take on pop rock to an ever increasing audience, and the band are set to release their second disc, The Highway Song, this weekend.

“We’re always writing and evolving – still aiming to build up a number of quality sing-along rock tunes,” explained frontman Andrew Webb. “Our writing always takes time. The Highway Song was bandied around for a long time. We wanted to make sure that what we released was both moving on from and remaining faithful to the sound we developed in our first EP. After a lot of reworking and some help from Morgan Wilson on keyboards the final mix was realised.”

After your first release did you want to get in and try different things, or do you see this as a logical progression?

“With our first release we were still finding our style, very eclectic. This time, while still containing variety, the music is closer to the direction in which we want to move. We needed to change it up during the recording because there were things we thought we could do better after learning so much the first time… like how much time it takes to record a song that isn’t written!”

Not many original acts seem to land residency gigs any more; how did your stint at the Orient come about, and has it changed the band?

“After the last CD launch at the Healer sold out, they approached us to play a month or two went well, and stayed on for six months. It was great because it allowed us to really improve our live show, get tighter etc, and took our music to a new and growing audience.”

Do you think there’s still a pub rock tradition for bands in Australia?

“Absolutely. Unfortunately, not many pubs are willing to book an originals band because it can be difficult to pull a crowd, but I think this is improving. But let’s face it; you can never hear Khe Sanh or Brown Eyed Girl too many times…”

Who is Tom? Is he late?

“Drummer. Yes. Always.”