I’m Going in Blind.

Press Club’s Frank talks to Luke about This week’s Not Fest, tragedy in the studio and big plans over summer.

Luke: Hey Frank. Can you tell me a little bit about Press Club?

Frank: We’ve been together for about a year and we all came together because we were just a bunch of mates that have been playing in bands together before and yeah, we decided that we should try this new thing.

Luke: Beautiful. Can you tell me a little bit about the band’s style and influences?

Frank: Well, you’d call us punk rock, so influences are obviously in that vein. You know, The Saints, The Clash, The Replacements, but we’re also influenced by other more modern bands. You know, like Cloud Nothings and Japandroids, who we played with last year, which was awesome.

Luke: Sounds great. You’ve only got the one song out as far as I know, which is Headwreck, an absolute belter. I’ve given it a lot of spins on the old Spotify. Can you tell me a little bit about how that tune?

Frank: Okay, so that song we wrote on a day in Melbourne. Our bass player, it was his brother’s 21st the night before, so he’d gotten absolutely mashed, so from the start of the session he was kind of a bit lost, but then for some reason he seemed to kick in with this, like, second wind. We ended up writing three or four songs that ended up making it into the shortlist for the album. And Headwreck was one of them. It was just one of those songs that kind of came out pretty much done when we first rehearsed it. So we went into the studio that was the first one we recorded. And kind of went off without a hitch really. Actually, no. It wasn’t without a hitch completely. Our guitarist Greg, who’s also our engineer, ended up deleting the first vocal track that we did, so we came in the next day and there was no vocals on it. Yeah. But, it’s all right. Nat just went in and smashed it. She just went in and smashed it the next day and we went on with recording. You know, it wasn’t a huge hitch, but it was pretty stressful when we realised that the song didn’t have any vocals.

Luke: So you mentioned you’ve been working on an album. When can we expect the next action?

Frank: Next single is going to be really soon and the album is going to be sometime next year hopefully.

Luke: This is your first year playing Not Fest. What have you seen of the festival so far and what are your expectations for it?

Frank: Not a lot really. We’ve looked at the line-up and it looks pretty great. A lot of good, local, Australian bands. We’re sort of going in a little bit blind on Not Fest. A couple of the other dudes were saying that they had been a couple of years ago, but me, I’m going in blind. I’m hoping it’s going to be mad.

Luke: Yeah. You’ll have a blast. Any bands on the line-up you’re really keen to see or share the stage with?

Frank: Oh, there’s heaps… It’s going to be a mad gig. Bukowski in particular sounds great.

Luke: I haven’t seen them before, looking forward to it. Any upcoming touring plans?

Frank: Yeah. Well, we’re doing a bunch of festivals over the Summer. We haven’t got any kind of solid, locked in tours of our own coming up. We’re kind of a bit hesitant to go on … You know, like I think a lot of bands end up touring too early and end up playing to no one in Australia. I mean I’ve seen that before and I’ve done that before in bands, so we’re kind of really conscious of not going out there too early and touring. But we’re looking at some really good supports for next year.

Luke: Great. Can you tell us some of the other festivals you’ll be playing over the Summer?

Frank: We’re doing Festival of the Sun and Fairgrounds in New South Wales. We’ve also just been put on the line-up for Marion Bay Falls. The last one is we’re doing New Year’s Eve on the Hill on the 31st. So we’re looking forward to all of them and we’re really excited.

Luke: Sounds fantastic. Thanks for your time, Frank.

Frank: You too, dude.

Check out Press Club at this year’s Not Fest. A limited number of discounted weekend passes available at http://bit.ly/2yLpE1d. Their work is available at pressclub.bandcamp.com.