Fremantle rockers The Love Junkies have had a busy period of touring, as well as both single and album releases this year. They've also made a name for themselves for their furiously energetic live shows. “We always seem to have a really good time and I think when people can see that – when you're up there with your best mates, you know, jamming – I think that's infectious, that joy and that excitement, people feed off of that.”
The Love Junkies' punchy debut album Maybelene was released earlier this month. McDonald seems simultaneously proud of it while also wanting to partly distance himself from the record. Spanning various genres throughout the album, from noise to grunge and blues, McDonald doesn't have a sole musical pin-up in mind. “To me that album still sounds quite young, like, even though we were all incredibly proud of it and all that – you know, we were stoked to call it our first record – we were still trying to find our own identity and find our own sound, and we were just kind of grabbing things. Radiohead, as well, was a huge influence on me, and I hear some Radiohead influences in there… I couldn't pin it down to one band in particular, the album moves around quite a lot.”
The band started their Maybelene launch tour this month and the forecast looks good, with initial performances in WA selling out within minutes of the doors opening. McDonald laughs, “We were all quite shocked with how it went. We had a feeling it was gonna sell out but didn't think it was going to be such a big deal.”
