BILLY FLEMING and ZACH STEPHENSON of HOCKEY DAD: Not Just Australian Surf Rock.
An interview by Bridie Chetwin-Kelly.
There’s a certain kind of relief in finally releasing an album. The promo is done, the music is mastered and the album is finally out there. New South Wales-based two-piece band Hockey Dad AKA Billy Fleming and Zach Stephenson are breathing a sigh of relief as their highly anticipated third album Brain Candy hits shelves.
“We really took our time writing this album,” says Zach, the band’s lead singer, guitarist and writer of songs. They started by putting themselves in the middle of nowhere, says Billy, the band’s drummer and boss (according to him).
“We rented a place in the middle of nowhere in Bathurst, we spent some time there writing and then flew to Seattle to record at Robert Lane. We spent a lot more time in the studio this time around and we really got to take our time with it,” says Zach.
They also had the absolute privilege of working with arguably one of the biggest rock producers in the world, John Goodmanson. Behind bands such as Bikini Kill, Death Cab for Cutie and Sleater-Kinny, his back catalogue of work is too long to list. John worked with them on their second album, Blend Inn.
“It was a unanimous decision to work with John. We felt so comfortable and able to get properly creative. We also did Blend Inn with John so we were happy to work with him again,” says Billy.
And how you may wonder, did they end up working with someone like John, they simply asked.
“Our manager Dan set it up. He just hit John up and he said yes straight away. It was really another great excuse to go to America,” says Zach.
The album wasn’t about finding a new sound as such or trying to fit into a genre but there was more room to explore and genre bend when they added a bass player.
“We realised pretty early on when we were playing live that we needed a bass player so we ended up kind of writing songs with a bass player. It just kept ticking on and it gave us a chance to go further with our songs and gave us more room to do things differently,” says Billy.
The album crosses over multi genres, surf rock, rock, hard rock, a couple more ballad-like songs, sometimes hardcore and grunge, like on the song, ‘Itch’.
Zach says it wasn’t grunge initially, “Once we got the song into the studio, it changed and John took it in a new direction.”
Although live shows seem a thing of the extremely distant future, the boys are excited to get playing as soon as they can. Billy says he’s looking forward to playing ‘Milk in the Sun’ whilst Zach says playing ‘Keg’ live is a bit different because it’s slowed down a bit.
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Hockey Dad has that iconic Australian surf rock sound that you can’t really find anywhere else in the world, a genre which really kicked off just after they started playing as a duo. It’s an influence to their sound but not the only one they are limited to.
“We listened to everything and anything when we made this album, which helped, a bit of Rolling Stones, Ariel Pink and Thin Lizzy’s Bad Reputation.”
There’s no real rhyme or reason to how Zach writes the lyrics, he says. It just strikes when it strikes.
“‘Tell Me What You Want’ is actually about my dog. He couldn’t figure out what he wanted, did he want to go outside, go for a walk, I didn’t know. And I just said, what do you want? It blossomed from there.”
They were due to play some drive-in shows in Australia but a recent cyclone ruined their plans, there will be live streams and there will be shows, eventually. Especially in New Zealand, one of their favourite places to tour.
“We did Laneway in New Zealand earlier this year and a tour of the USA last year and we did Leeds, we had a pretty good response there. It’s kind of sad we can’t play this album yet!”
Regardless of not being able to play just yet, they say they are already on to the next album anyway. Do not sleep on this band.
Hockey Dad’s latest album ‘Brain Candy’ is available now on CD & Vinyl, and also for streaming via your favourite streaming service.
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