Short Stack - The Burning Comeback We've Been Waiting For
A lot can be said about Short Stack during the early years of their careers (especially about that hair WTF) but one thing that hardly gets a mention is why these boys were treated like outcasts by a scene they were involved with and supported, simply because they wrote mainstream pop anthems?
These days, no one criticises artists like Post Malone or Lady GaGa for their appreciation of heavy music - I know it's a big call to compare them with the boys from Budgewoi but hear me out - But at the end of the day, if you're a legit supporter of the alternative scene, surely it shouldn't matter what you do for a living, because we're in this together!?
With that in mind, we're stoked to talk about Short Stack officially announcing their comeback today via the dropping of a new song titled 'Burn You Down' AND the icing on the cake is that they've signed to UNFD, where they'll finally be able to release the music they want!
To celebrate the news, I caught up with frontman (and long time friend) Shaun Diviney to discuss their return, the struggles they faced with their old label and their newfound motivation to 'be the band that we’ve always wanted to be.'
"We haven't released a song like six or seven years, so we're like 'oh fuck it', we just want to do something that we're really really into and super proud of. Not that we're not really proud of the old stuff that we were doing, this is just really indicative of where we are at the moment"
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Short Stack & Browny (2009)[/caption]
And if you're still questioning the early years of where their musical journey started, Shaun was more than willing to dive back into that era for the naysayers and explain it further:
"We kind of grew up listening to heavier sort of music. Not like ridiculously heavy shit... All our friends that were in bands were in heavier bands too... it was just us that were super pop, everyone else we hung around [with] were kinda, they were actually in cool bands... We grew up playing shows with [Tonight Alive] them, the boys in Hellions when they were The Bride, we played shows with them."
"Yeah, we were very much kind of in it and then we sort of just split off from it, especially [after] our second record [when] we had a bit of comercial success and we sort of just went down a pop route..."
But without a big time label pushing them to make pop anthems for mainstream audiences, they've finally found a home where they can release the music they've had growing inside of them, since those early years.
Evidence of this can be heard in the lads' new song 'Burn You Down' which features a very rough scream yell from Diviney and what I'm going to call an entry-level breakdown that'll certainly raise a few eyebrows in the meantime.
When quizzed about the kind of influences the boys have been listening to of late, the synth-driven heavy sounds of Bring Me The Horizon, The Amity Affliction and Architects not only played a part in their new direction, but for their signing to UNFD:
"When the chance came to sign to UNFD, they championed Architects and Amity pretty hard, we were like 'well that's pretty sick', that's kinda where we're drawing a lot of influence at the moment"
"...the beauty of being signed to UNFD [is]... this is the kind of record I always wanted to make and it's awesome I get to do it with them"
But, does this mean we'll be seeing circle pits open up at future ShortStack shows? Well, don't hold your breath just yet as Shaun was a bit hesitant on the idea:
"I don't know if we're quite that heavy. That seems like a lot of work hahaha"
For a true and honest look back at where these boys came from, all the way to where they are now - and the no-holds-barred truth behind why they got kicked off a national tour supporting UK one-hit-wonders TheVamps back in 2015 (Spoiler: It was all Andy's fault), then jump in below and dive back into the world of ShortStack!
Words by Paul ‘Browny’ Brown
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Stream 'Burn You Down' here
