Airbourne rocking with road rage

FORGET cranking your work in progress through those heavy-duty studio speakers. If you want to hear if a song is working, then get in your car and drive.

airbourne

FORGET cranking your work in progress through those heavy-duty studio speakers. If you want to hear if a song is working, then get in your car and drive.

Airbourne frontman Joel O'Keeffe laughs when asked if the police intervened in the mobile listening sessions when the Aussie hard-rockers were road-testing new songs for their latest album Black Dog Barking.

"You do tend to put your foot down if it's working and, if someone cuts you off, there was a bit of road rage," O'Keefe says.

"So if we put the foot down and got angry at someone else's driving , that would make the album. It's dangerous but it gets results."

There is a lot of anger on album No.3.

While O'Keeffe, his brother Ryan and bandmates David Roads and Justin Street are undoubtedly the band most likely to keep the AC/DC flame burning brightly when the revered Australian rockers finally abdicate their throne, Black Dog Barking broadens their song slate beyond girls and good times.

Airbourne are taken seriously in hard-rock circles around the world and have built an enviable international fan base, particularly in Europe. At home, they can't get arrested.

"Yeah, the title track, it was a hard song to record because of all the anger that has built up after years and years of doing this," O'Keefe says.

"We kept playing Black Dog Barking really hard and would break strings or scream too loud into the mic and it would distort.

"But in rock'n'roll, doing what we do, there are no watered-down singles or ballads."

The bio for Airbourne's new record confirms their perpetual underdog status, referring to them as "scrappy upstarts".

The song Hungry reflects the band's humble heart, keeping them attached to the memories of long drives in crappy vans up the Hume Highway even as they enjoy a more comfortable ride on tour buses throughout the US and Europe.

"Hungry explains everything, four guys in a van versus the world," O'Keeffe says.

"It reminds me of driving from Melbourne to Sydney to play a gig at Spectrum for a guy from Capitol records who had flown over from the US.

"It was going to be a good gig because we were playing with Hell City Glamours.

"We broke down in Holbrook, we had $50 for fuel and that was it and the mechanic wouldn't look at the van until he had finished eating his sandwich.

"An hour later, he tells us it's a broken fanbelt, fixes it in five minutes and we just made the gig in time.

"The guy from Capitol Records signed us the next day."

> HEAR Black Dog Barking, out tomorrow.

> SEE Airbourne: HiFi, Sydney, July 27th; Splendour in the Grass, Byron Bay, 28th July.