Left Of The Dial

Having developed from the psychedelic prog sounds of The Boris Pink, singer-songwriter Stav Milonas' new group, Atomic Bliss, while much more pop/rock-oriented, still show traces of something slightly more, well, freaky. RADIO, the second single from the band's self-titled debut album, due in December, bears this out: impossibly catchy and fun, while also edgy enough to present as quite obviously more than your standard sing-along number. According to Milonas, this was kind of the plan all along, and the release of the single was a well thought-out affair.

“Without sounding too proud, I think there's three or four tracks out of this bunch of 11 or 12 songs that could potentially be singles. This one, to be honest, has a lot to do with timing. RADIO's got a fresh feel to it, a little bit of brash energy to it. We thought it would be a good time of year to get it out. It just has that kind of energy. And the producers, you know, the Swedes, [Pelle Henricsson and Eskil Lovstrom] had a lot to do with that. They had a bit of a claim to fame with that record by The Refused [The Shape Of Punk To Come]. They just really captured the energy of the song really well. We thought it might be a good way to get the ball rolling.”

And the Swedes weren't the only producers involved with the album: a veritable who's who of the recording world lined up to get involved. “Yeah, look, we were really lucky. I'd tracked it with a dear friend of mine, Jimi Maroudas, who's won a couple of ARIAs with Bertie Blackman. I just did some rough mixes myself, which I over-compressed and made them sound a bit punky. There were some producers who I just loved, like David Kahne [The Strokes, The Bangles, Paul McCartney]. I just basically contacted him and Sylvia Massy [Tool, Johnny Cash] and Tony Visconti [Bowie, T-Rex]. I asked David how much it would cost and he said it wasn't about money for him: it's more about him enjoying the music. Tony Visconti was the same. I was actually shocked that these people were keen enough to do mixes on spec. We were really lucky. It sounds like a bit of a toss, I suppose – like I'm dropping names left, right and centre – but it isn't supposed to, it actually all happened.”

Despite the production of the record being, quite obviously, world class, there's an energy and cleanliness to RADIO that makes one feel it will also be excellent music to see live. Milonas says this was always at the forefront of his mind.

“The reason I made sure that the mixes had the energy they did was because I really wanted to capture that live sound. There should always be a bit of an X factor when a band plays live. The reason I went with the Swedish mix was because I was sure it was a better reflection of what we're like live. They captured that sort of pop punk energy.”

When it comes to what punters can expect at the single launch, it seems that you can take the boy out of the prog band, but not the prog band out of the boy… “Mate, if I could borrow the early Kiss pyrotechnics, that would be brilliant, but not at this stage,” he says. “We can't quite afford the exploding stage show. Hopefully by the time we release the album we'll be able to get something like that happening. Having said that, punters who come along on the night are in for something pretty special: we've got some great support acts and a pretty killer lighting show.”

Atomic Bliss will be playing the following shows:

Saturday 11 October – Revolver Upstairs, Melbourne VIC