Pinheads in Byron
Hotel Great Northern Byron | Saturday 31 August | 9pm | Free
Born out of friendship, bowling, sci-fi movie marathons, and literal brotherhood, The Pinheads reside within a stylistic purgatory – too weird for punk shows, too freeform for garage rock, too genre-defiant for rock’n’roll, persevering on their own path, which may make pit stops at any given corner of the musical spectrum should it suit their collective mood. They’re a band with vision – and they’re excited about bringing it to fruition with a gig at the Hotel Great Northern. The Echo spoke with Luke Player ahead of their gig!
You guys are from the Wollongong region. What was it like growing up there?
It’s a pretty relaxed place, lots of coastline. I think it always had a strain of freaky people who were into art and music from a few generations back so that was always an undertone in the area. We had a few family friends who were artists and activists and things so that was cool.
Did you guys grow up in a musical household; did you learn classical music when you were growing up?
It was musical in the sense that there was always loud music playing through the speakers in the house or in the car, usually from my dad playing The Stones, The Who, or Van Morrison. My mum played a bit of piano but I never really played any instruments until later. I believe Tun (bass guitar) learnt piano from an early age and Al (guitar) learnt some classical nylon stuff.
What are your songs about? Do you have any songs about people less fortunate than yourselves / from different backgrounds etc?
I suppose all of the songs are different. Some are introspective and personal and some are about cultural/societal issues. I don’t believe Jez (who sings/writes lyrics) wants to speak for someone else but there’re certainly songs that people can take meaning from in a sense.
How would you describe your particular sound? How did it develop?
It mainly comes from a strain of rock’n’roll – all aspects of it though, not just loud noise. Growing up hearing all that groovy stuff from the 60s blaring through our house must’ve affected us in some way. I don’t want to nail it down too much because we believe in trying anything we feel like, but we definitely listen to a lot of older music and sonically we developed it beginning from there.
You’re known as a pretty raucous band on stage. What does that entail?
We just go out with open minds knowing anything could happen. Usually how the set goes is 50 per cent feeding off how the crowd feels/responds to the music. We never want our shows to be boring or people to leave and forget about it a week later.
Can you tell us what have been your biggest artistic / musical influences?
That’s always a hard one. I mean there’s 5–7 of us and we all search for music constantly so there’s no real stagnant baseline of influence. I’ve been listening to a lot of standard and psychedelic folk from the 60s and 70s lately and just searching for people who were really pushing the envelope.
You’re coming to play at The Great Northern Hotel. What can fans of yours and people who have never seen you expect from the show?
It’s going to be as fun as we can make it! Hopefully we’ll be pulling out some songs we’ve never played live and people can lose themselves in the sound and energy.
The Pinheads play The Hotel Great Northern along with Blistar and The Unknowns on Saturday 31 August from 9pm. Free.
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