Melbournes The Avenue take stadium rock and wrap it up in a pillow of synthy haze and 80s new wave angular guitars. They release a brand new EP and head out on tour to support it. We had a chat with them about their unique sound and new release.
Your sound has been described as synth pop and alternative rock. But on your video clip there’s no synth player. How do you translate your music live?
When we play live we actually use a synth that Sanji, Kyle, and I all alternate playing depending on the song. We also use a sampler that Brandon simultaneously plays while playing drums. So that pretty much covers the majority of our synth parts while we fill the rest out with our guitar effects and the synth at the front. I’m looking forward to expanding our onstage setup to include a couple more synths and maybe a small sample pad in the future which could be really cool and add another layer to our live shows.
In the video though, we chose not to use the synth simply because of the tenacious and ruthless aspect of the song that we wanted to convey with the video. It just seemed a bit too risky to have it sitting on a stand somewhere while theres three guys with guitars and a camera man running around in a small confined space.
How is your live set different from your recorded material? Are there songs you only play live or never play live?
There are a fair few songs we play live that we are yet to release, but will be recording for our next two EP’s. Generally we’ll write a heap of songs, play them live and perfect them, and then maybe a year or a year and a half later we’ll record and release them. But with that being said we have never played the opening track to our new EP ‘Always.Always’ before and that is the most recent song we’ve written. I’m really looking forward to debuting it on this tour we have coming up though.
What are some of the things you love about playing live?
The people, the atmosphere, venues that have a big stage, the riders.
You’re about to go on tour - Have you toured much before? What are you most excited about when touring?
We’ve only ever gone on kind of a pseudo tour once last year, when we went up to Sydney to play at the Unisounds comp. It was our first experience with touring and it was definitely a lot more luxurious than most bands first experiences, considering we had a decent travel budget which Unisounds was kind enough to give all the participants. But this year will definitely be a different experience considering it’s a four date tour instead of one, and we’ll be doing shows in Brisbane as well as Sydney and Melbourne. I’m looking forward to playing in a few venues we’ve never done before and seeing how non-victorian crowds react to our music.
What are some bands who’s live show you wished you could emulate?
I really love Prince’s live shows from the Purple Rain tour in like 1984 and 1985. Theres some footage of them on youtube and I used to watch them on VHS as a kid. I love everything about the way he constructed his band and the stage props and backdrops. Everything is so perfect and encapsulates that part of his career so well. I guess its not really the specifics I’d like to emulate but rather getting to the point where we can do some things that people view as a really defining part of our identity as a band. Same thing with Nirvana from the Nevermind and In Utero tour’s. There’s something about seeing them on stage from that era which is completely synonymous with what their music meant at the time. Thats what I feel is something to at least aspire to.
- Sam Thomas