Interviews

Luke Boerdom - Violent Soho (audio interview)

Walladmin

Heavy Metal Wordsmith

Mar 9, 2016

7 min read

Where do I start with these boys from Brisbane, well they've certainly had ups and downs throughout their whole entire career (like most bands) but as of today they are a true testament of making sure you stick to your goals no matter how long they take. In the past 10 years since starting out they've stayed true to their original sound, relocated to the States for over a year, got signed by a US Label, moved back home, got signed to I OH YOU (where they still are today) and came close to throwing in the towel if their last album "Hungry Ghost" didn't end up having the success it achieved as front-man Luke Boerdam explained to us:

"It was going to be our last record, our last full effort of going for it. We'd been a band for 10 years and the band didn't break up after the whole American thing because we didn't want it to end on self titled. We didn't want that to be the last record."

And as the saying goes, "Look at them now!" That whole album gave the band the biggest boost their careers had been looking for to make it in the industry and it couldn't have come at a better time either. Having to get "real jobs"to support their musical endeavours, guitarist James Tidswell opted for the fast food approach and worked at McDonalds to make ends meet, but you do these things and work the hard yards, because at the end of the day it's all worth the time and effort going into what you love. Arguably (well, not really) their best song from that album "Covered In Chrome" became such a nation wide loved anthem it even instigated the band's very own catchphrase "Hell Fuck Yeah" which has been adopted by fans and used in their every day lives since.

Fast forward to 2016 and the Violent Soho boys (consisting on Luke Boerdom on lead vocals/guitar, James Henery on bass, James Tidswell on vocals/guitar and Michael Richards on drums) are just about to release their highly anticipated album "WACO" which was recorded in the same Windsor Studios (The Shed) as their previous banger and from what we've heard so far with tracks like "Viceroy" and "Like Soda" we, as fans, know they're onto a winner and they know it too. While most of us would think there'd be so much pressure going into working on their follow up record, the guys seem to be handling the situation with ease as Luke told us:

"If there's any lesson we learnt from Hungry Ghost it was to not worry about that crap [external label/fan pressures] and just be selfish about it and make a record how you want to make a record."

"But there's pressure on us as individuals that we place on ourselves, like the band wanted it done by a certain date, the band wanted to tour this year and that means [we] have to have a record done by December. We built Violent Soho into something we never fathomed it could be and now we want to deliver on it and get another record out better than Hungry Ghost."

And that statement couldn't be any truer to their reputation, we've all seen in this past week their upcoming album tour with DZ Deathrays and Dune Rats had multiple cities sell out in mere hours and continued to do so with the additional shows they put on which goes to show their fans cannot get enough of this Brissie foursome. Unfortunately the news of their sold out shows was marred by the realisation scalpers were buying tickets in bulk and trying to offload them for hundreds of dollars more than what the band had originally sold them for. After picking up wind of this Violent Soho decided to share their honest opinions of the selfish individuals by telling them to "Fuck Off" on their Facebook page.

It’s come to our attention today that some selfish individuals out there are trying to scalp tickets to the WACO tour...

Posted by Violent Soho on Thursday, March 3, 2016

And while scalping has been an issue for concert goes for many years here in Australia with no signs of laws changing, Luke reassured us the guys (who have now unofficially become the faces for anti-scalping in Australia) were looking into what they could do as a band to make sure the real fans get tickets in future:

"We do not want people paying that much money to come to our show just cause they missed out. We can't change the law or make it illegal, but what we did do was we limited 2 for per customer on this next run in an effort to stop it and hopefully the dickheads that do it realise it's not appreciated."

There's nothing better than a band who actually care about their fans as much as Violent Soho have done and will continue to do into the future. We are counting down the days until "WACO" is finally released and until that day comes you know we'll be eagerly anticipating our ears hearing their latest and quite possibly best material to date. Take a listen to our chat with Luke Boerdom below and scream "Hell Fuck Yeah" until your heart's content \m/