Hey Dean, I’ve gotta know, where did the band name come from?
We kind of just came up with it one day and then it kind of stuck. There was no real deeper meaning or anything behind it.
You guys are working your way up to releasing a new album the end of this year?
Yeah, sort of. Well we released the first single a couple of months ago, which has been sort of doing the rounds on the radio and stuff and we’re hoping to release the album early next year.
What was it like working and recording the album with Wayne Connolly?
He’s amazing to work with. He’s sort of become like our personal guru, I guess now. He’s an absolutely brilliant guy, and his producer credentials are amazing. He’s a very accomplished producer and he’s done some really great things. So we were lucky to befriend Wayne.
How did that meeting come about?
It’s funny actually, it was all sort of set up for us. We were negotiating our publishing contract with Albert Music. They knew we were looking for another producer and a place to record our album so they said we should come down to Sydney and work with Wayne. We took that opportunity and it worked out so well because we really ended up connecting with him. But it turned out, weirdly that he had been a bit of a fan of our first album, he had been doing the music for Qantas and had put some of our tracks on the in flight entertainment menu.
So you guys went to Berlin to mix the album? How’d that turn out?
Well, we went to Berlin for a little bit, we played around with a few tracks but we ended up coming back to Sydney to mix and master. We spent a week in Berlin and had an amazing time. It’s a really interesting place, such a relaxed atmosphere, world’s apart from a place like Brisbane or anywhere in Australia.
Did you guys end up playing any shows while you were in Europe?
We did a quick little stop in Holland, called Pinkpop which we’d been booked to play after our first album got released in Europe and we’d been getting a bit of play on 3FM which is like the Dutch equivalent of Triple J. We just sort of went there with no preconceptions of what it would be like and it turned out to be massive, a big deal. We had no idea at all.
It’s been a whirlwind ride for Hungry Kids of Hungry going from winning Unearthed in 2008 to playing festivals in Europe. Do you have to pinch yourself sometimes?
Playing to a massive crowd in a country where we’d never been too before was definitely one of those “pinch yourself” moments, yeah.
Is there a big national tour planned for the release of You’re a Shadow?
Yeah, there will be something next year for the album release. We’re about to kick off the single release tour for ‘Sharp Shooter’ which kicks off tonight in Brisbane. So that will just be a few dates down the east coast. I imagine the touring schedule next year will be pretty full.
Anything planned for more overseas touring?
Yeah, well hopefully that kind of thing will come calling. Yeah more overseas stuff happening for sure. We’re already talking about getting back over to Europe, the UK and maybe even getting to the US as well.
I know musicians hate this question but how do you think your second album holds up to your first?
I think it’s infinitely better (laughs). Yeah, I like it a lot more. We didn’t have any problem with any of that second album syndrome stuff. We didn’t struggle with that. The first album too came pretty easily to us in a musical sense. It’s all turned out as we hoped it would. The only difficult I guess is we kind of dropped off the map a bit for a year when we were making it and now we’ve got to get back into that lifestyle of touring it, supporting it and all that kind of thing. A year away is a lot longer away then it seems.
What’s the songwriting process for the band like?
Kane and I both tend to sing lead on different songs and usually sort of write our own songs separately and then bring them to the band to flesh out. We wrote our first song together on this record, which might not sound like a big deal but it kind of was and it’s turned out really well. It’s probably one of my favourite tracks on the album.
Catch Hungry Kids of Hungary in Brisbane (Oct 18), Sydney (Nov 1), The Eden Whale Festival at Snug Cove (Nov 3- free entry), Melbourne (Nov 5) and Adelaide (Nov 10). hungrykidsofhungary.com
