Violent Soho’s fifth album drops amid pandemic lockdown

Brisbane rockers Violent Soho couldn’t have timed it better as their at-times-dystopian fifth album dropped in the middle of a pandemic lockdown.

Show the children empty lots/They can dance a bunker waltz

Brisbane quartet Violent Soho couldn’t have anticipated how apt the title track of their long-awaited fifth album Everything is A-OK would be by the time it dropped, in the middle of a pandemic lockdown.

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“If you listen to some of the lyrics of that song, it’s that kind of delirious, ‘Hey, everything’s OK, we’re just gonna keep wandering through, we don’t really have to face these harsh realities,’ ” frontman Luke Boerdam says.

“And since making this record there’s been insane bushfires, there’s been floods, and now there’s obviously this coronavirus.

“It’s kinda surreal the album is coming out during this period.”

Violent Soho have unleashed their long-awaited fifth studio album. Picture: Sean Pyke

Their latest video too, for the single Pick It Up Again, should probably carry a social-distancing warning: It shows the band members doorknocking around Brisbane, giving residents a taste of the new album.

“That video came about cos we’d actually all doorknocked at some point in our lives,” Boerdam laughs.

“So it was like, imagine if you rocked up with records and actually tried to sell them records.

“It was a lot of fun doing that, but yeah, I wouldn’t advise this for other bands now!”

The album cover, too, is distinctly outer suburban Brisbane.

“The title track Everything is A-OK is obviously kind of an ironic statement and the cover; we were driving down Newnham Rd one day - which is where we grew up - and there was this ’50s house with an Australian flag dwindling, and for some reason that aesthetic sums up a bit of that song,” Boerdam says.

“The thing that blows my mind is that it was a different world about a week and a half ago.

“And imagine what’s gonna happen in another week and a half, and imagine three months from now.

“It’s very scary, very scary.”

The cover of Everything is A-OK features a Brisbane landmark.

After a hectic schedule recording and touring two albums in quick succession, Violent Soho were left wondering if they really needed to do it all again - hence the longer gap since 2016’s gold-selling No.1 Waco.

And Everything is A-OK comes on the back of the band scoring No.4 on triple j’s Hottest 100 of the Decade for 2013’s Covered in Chrome.

“It was just a four-year journey this time,” Boerdam says.

“It’s defining, well who are we as a band, and is there a point to making another record?”

Greg Wales was their first and only choice for producer, even though he was mainly experienced in live production. He’d previously worked with the band for their triple j Like a Version rendition of Silversun Pickups’ Lazy Eye.

“Some producers get into a technique in how they record, and it’s just cookie-cutter, go go go,” Boerdam says.

“We wanted a guy who hadn’t done a recorded record for a while, so his approach to it would be interesting.

“When we did our Like a Version years ago, the guitars and the drums sounded amazing.

“I was like, man if you can do that in a room with a few mikes, imagine what you could do on a record!”

The band feel the results speak for themselves.

Everything is A-OK is out now on I Oh You