a secret death

This is one I did at the last minute for Issue #3. A Secret Death are one of my favourite Australian bands, their style is not really similar to most other Australian bands. They have a new record coming out sometime this year, and have recently re-released the Fear Is The Driving Force EP. It's been a long time since I last saw them, so I'm keen to hear the new stuff.



The long awaited album will be coming out soon, how's it sounding and when is it expected to be out?

should be out around July, hopefully, depending on artwork, and all that other shit that surrounds a release. It's sounding sweet, im really stoked on it. went over to Sweden and mixed it at the legendary Tonteknik studios by a dude called Magnus Lindberg (or magdogg as i like to call him) who is the producer and drummer for Cult of Luna.

You've got a tour coming up with The Abandonment, who rule a lot. You've toured with them before, anywhere you are particularly excited to play, and any funny stories from other tours?

Umm pretty excited about playing the enigma bar in Adelaide again. we have played there I think twice before, and every show has been amazing and very memorable (for us anyway). Ahh i think last time we toured with those guys we invented the dick chant, where we just chant dick for ages for some reason. We should have probably never done it again after that tour... But they are great guys, an amazing band, and will definitely keep us on our toes every night.

"Fear Is The Driving Force" came out in 2005. What's changed in the way of influences and the general sound of the band in the last few years in the lead up to this album

"Fear" was pretty much all about playing music that we thought was brutal and tech, but still kinda catchy. That was our whole thing back then, and I think now we just play songs that we like, no matter what style it is, even though there is not a huge variety of styles on the new album. It's still very different from "Fear" though, and its a style I would like to think is our own.

A Secret Death have supported a really wide variety of different international acts. Is the any one, or a few particular favourite moments? When the band started, did anyone think you would be up on stage supporting bands like Converge?

I think playing with sick of it all was a favourite moment for me. watching them sound check, spliting a pizza and talking shit. They are such a huge band, and it was so amazing to see how dudes that big can be so level headed, grounded and pretty much just straight up nice. They would have played with a zillion bands, but they all watched every single minute we played cos they still get off on music, which just totally blew my mind. Yeah, no one thought that only a year of being a band we would have already played with some of our heros and no one would have thought after 5 years, pretty much every band that we'd idolised, we'd been able to play with. Converge are just one of those bands I had on my list of things to do, to just watch, and to be able to actually share a stage with those guys was a huge honour. very intimidating though, Jacob Bannon is a very full on dude. None of us really wanted to get in their way, or look like dicks in front of them so we pretty much just kept to ourselves in front of them, except for Al, he doesn't give a shit, he can talk to anyone, doesn't matter to him, and instantly everyone likes him.

There's going to be a re-release of "Fear Is The Driving Force" coming out shortly. What extra features are on that? Is it something to tide the fans over until the new album comes out?

Its out right now! yeah there is some bonus shit on there, the songs from the split cd we did with from these wounds, and 2 other bonus songs that just never got recorded that we did to chuck on there. Also some different artwork, and some shit inside it. yeah its something to tide people over I guess, and also just so its available again. its been out of print for over a year now, so its good you can buy it again. that's good isn't it?

You've just signed up with Skull and Bones, who are starting to get quite a list of bands signed up. How's that all going?

yeah its going pretty good. They helped us out with some bills, and gave us a place to record for free. We did all the vocals there and were able to take our sweet ass time, which we like doing. But yeah, the label is becoming one of the biggest labels for heavy original music, and they have aa part of it. good attitude, so we wanted to be

You played the last couple of shows The Rivalry did...it'd been a bit of a break from the live setting for ASD, how'd the shows go, and how did the crowds like the new tracks?

Melbourne was not so good. we have been out of the live game for a while now, and the problem has been we don't jam enough, mainly because I moved to Brisbane, and we are all lazy. so the Melb show was horrible cos we were sloppy as all fuck, and no one really organised what gear we were using, and it was just a huge shit fight. The show in Adelaide was insane though, we had brushed off the cobwebs and were totally amped up from seeing how many people were there. I thought we played a blinding set too, was real proud of my guys. the crowd really got into it and showed their appreciation, which is rare as fuck for us. so we were totally stoked, but Adelaide always goes off, I wish more places took a leaf out of their book, got into a band if they liked them and showed it, rather than folding their arms and waiting to see what the general consensus is.

You're not making it to Canberra on the tour with The Abandonment.....any plans to visit the nation's capital once the album comes out?

yeah for sure. next tour will be heading to most of the places we've missed over the years.

What's everyone been listening to a lot of lately?

we all listen to weird shit. I think we all mainly listen to old 80's stuff, such a good time for music. I dunno what the other dudes have been listening to, but I've been listening to lots of the arcade fire, sigur ros and revisiting old indy classics like shellac and mclusky.

Anything else to add or anyone to thank?

has anyone seen my dog?