Hailing all the way from Canberra, Australia, Hands Like Houses have generated some solid buzz through their demos “This Ain’t No Place for Animals” and “Lion Skin,” which features guest vocals from Jonny Craig and Tyler Carter. Plans are currently underway to bring the band to the US for a spring tour in support of the new release.
The band recently joined Rise Records and will release their new album “Ground Dweller” on March 13th later on this year.
So with “Hands Like Houses garnering some well deserved attention lately, our own Jordan Small decided to catch up with the band and see how they are handling being a part of the Rise Records family and their thoughts on their upcoming release.
MMN: So tell us a little bit about yourselves.
HLH: “We are a group of six young Australian gentleman; we have grown up together and are like an awesome family with six dads and no sisters or mum.”
MMN: Rise Records mentioned you guys take a lot of pride in who you represent and where you come from; do you incorporate those ideas in your song writing?
HLH: “We’re definitely proud of where we come from (who wouldnt be? Australia rules) in terms of incorporating that in our music; its a little difficult to say. Its definitely a lot harder to break into this market when you are not from America; as it is a lot easier and cheaper for the labels/industry folk to pick up closer bands. So we put a lot of work into our music, our acoustic videos and everything we put out to try and offer something that is first and foremost; something we love, but as well; is something that isn’t ubiquitous throughout the scene. We’re not going to say we are unique, but we definitely do everything we can not to do something that a hundred other bands are already doing.”
MMN: You guys are from Canberra, Australia; have you toured solely around Australia?
HLH: “We have done a fair bit of touring around Australia since forming but also got the opportunity to tour throughout the UK and Europe late last year, which was absolutely amazing! We had a blast and can’t wait to get back over there again.”
MMN: Who are some of the bands that you have had the pleasure to toured with?
HLH: “In Australia we have been fortunate enough to tour with heaps of great bands like Dream On Dreamer, The Bride, We Rob Banks and even more fortunate to be able to tour internationally with The Elijah, from the UK, and Hopes Die Last from Italy.”
MMN: How would you describe your sound?
HLH: “This is always a hard question to answer, we’ve been describe us as a ‘heavier panic at the disco’ or ‘panic meets emarosa’ esque band. We’re quite humbled by these descriptions as we love both bands. I guess we usually just say we’re sort of a heavy experimental rock band.”
MMN: How long have you been playing together? How did you meet, and how did you decide you wanted to make music together?
HLH: “We have been playing together for around two years now. The majority of the band met through out high school and were involved in some pretty horrid bands – but eventually after picking up a few stragglers everything just fell into place.”
MMN: What inspires you to write the kind of music you guys released in your album, “Ground Dweller?”
HLH: “All of us draw inspiration from many different avenues and as this album has been written over the space of two years there have been lots of different ideas, experiences and hurdles that have impacted how ‘Ground Dweller’ has developed. The album hasn’t been written as a whole, it has just been a continual journey. Our musical inspiration would probably come from bands like Thrice, The Receiving End of Sirens, Me Without You and Circa Survive.”
MMN: What are you plans for your music in the near future?
HLH: “Our plans are pretty simple at the moment; we basically want to make sure as many people hear the album as possible and then tour as many places as we can for as long as we can physically handle. We basically just want to be out on the road promoting the album as it’s been such a long time coming!”
MMN: How excited are you guys to be releasing your new album? Would you say that it’s very different to prior albums?
HLH: “We actually can’t express how excited we are that we’ll finally be releasing our album! It’s our debut, so we haven’t got anything to compare it to, but this album has been the most important thing to us for a long time and we’ve poured so much time and effort into it so we’re just stoked that everyone will get the opportunity to hear it.”
MMN: Besides making music, what do you guys do together as a band?
HLH: “We are lucky that apart from being in a band together, we are also best mates. We do host some pretty intense board games nights – if the band ever breaks up I feel it’s going to be due to a backstabbing in Risk, as opposed to anything music related.”
We want to say thanks to Hands Like Houses for spending time with us, Good luck in 2012!
Interview by Jordan Small
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