Eddy Current Suppression Ring at Federation Square, where they will play in September.Credit: Aaron Francis
There are a couple of ways a rock band can go about a long-awaited comeback tour.
On the one hand, there’s the Oasis model: enormous hype, a world tour, reams of merch, and, most controversially, dynamic ticket pricing.
Then there’s the approach favoured by Eddy Current Suppression Ring.
The last stand: Eddy Current Suppression Ring headlined Golden Plains in 2016. It turned out to be one of their last shows … until now.Credit: Ty Johnson/Golden Plains
Cited by some music writers as the best live band this country has ever produced, they are about to embark on their first live shows since 2016, with a recently released seven-inch, a sold-out show at Fitzroy’s Night Cat on Friday, and a one-off, free, all-ages gig on grand final eve at Federation Square.
And that’s it.
“When we got asked to do this, we were all pretty excited at the scope of it,” says drummer Danny Young of the gig at Fed Square, a venue that last summer hosted Robbie Williams, Glass Beams, Sun Ra Arkestra and the now-infamous (and frequently misrepresented) Northern Irish rap act Kneecap. “We didn’t want to even have to think about anything else.”
“One thing on the plate is enough at this size,” says singer Brendan Huntley. “And the idea of it being free to anyone at all ages, it’s like, that’s enough.”
The band’s last official live show was at Dark Mofo in December 2016, shortly after headlining Golden Plains. They planned to tour in 2020, on the back of fourth album All in Good Time, but COVID put the kybosh on that.
“And then we lost momentum, and life got in the way,” says Mikey Young, guitarist, keyboardist, brother of Danny, and somewhat reluctant unofficial spokesman for the band.
They all have other careers: Mikey is a sound engineer, Brendan a sculptor and painter, Danny a tattoo artist, and Brad in his final year as an apprentice fitter of sprinkler systems on commercial building sites. And that means they can keep the band as a side project, to which they return as and when the mood takes them.
About 18 months ago, bassist Brad Barry – the fourth wheel in this vehicle that famously emerged out of a jam at the 2003 Christmas party of vinyl pressing plant Corduroy Records – felt the mood and hoped everyone else did too.
“It was, ‘we’ll just have one jam’, and of course, it gets addictive,” says Mikey. “I forgot how much fun it was. And so, most Tuesdays for the last year and a half, we’ve jammed every week, and just written songs, and it’s been this really insular thing with no regard to showing it to anyone.”
But earlier this year, the band started to think about playing some of the new stuff live. They didn’t want to make a fuss, though, so they took up a friend’s invitation to slot into the line-up of a free show at Prahran skateboard shop Snake Pit, under the name Thin Ice.
“We wanted a low-key gig so we could just play the new songs – not that we don’t like the old songs,” says Danny.
But word quickly spread, and a couple of hundred people turned up.
Eddy Current Suppression Ring at Federation Square, where they will play in September.Credit: Aaron Francis
“Someone else let the cat out of the bag,” says Brendan.
“We’ve since learnt that secret shows are nigh-on impossible,” adds Mikey.
“People go, ‘but I only told one person…’,” Brendan adds. “It was still rad, though.”
Two more shows under fake names – the Top Hats and Jimmy and the Ringtones – followed, again featuring only new material. But, says Mikey, “we got heaps of friends complaining, like: ‘Why didn’t you tell us about the show?’ So, doing something like this, that’s big and free, we can just tell everyone to shut the hell up. Everyone can go to this. You won’t miss out on a ticket.”
It’s doubtful there’s a band in the Australian music business less interested in selling out than Eddy Current Suppression Ring. They remain resolutely committed to the DIY ethic that has always informed everything they do. They have never let the need to pay bills be the reason to keep them going. They only want to play when it’s fun to do so. And if one of them thinks it isn’t, they all do.
So, could there be more shows to come after Fed Square?
“I think we’ll just take it really slow,” says Mikey. “Like, ‘let’s book some shows and see how they feel. OK, that was good; let’s book some more’. Or, ‘that didn’t feel so good; let’s go back in our hole and just keep jamming for ourselves’.”
“We’ll just see how this feels,” he adds. “I mean, we had no real drive to be successful [in the past], but I’d say we’ve got even less now.”
Eddy Current Suppression Ring will play a free, all-ages show at Federation Square on Friday, September 26.
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