The Next Round

Nine Sons Of Dan have had something of a baptism of fire. Since the release of their debut EP Landslide in 2010, the Gold Coast rockers have performed at the Big Day Out, supported Good Charlotte, topped the AIR Charts and taken out the coveted national New Artist to Radio award in 2011 – beating out over 300 other acts to have their single She's So Fine added to rotation on radio stations around the country.

“Actually, I think that's given us more confidence than anything else,” vocalist Jay Bainbridge reflects of the band's immediate success. “You know, it's kind of given us the go ahead to do what we want to do. I just wrote those songs for the fun of it. There was no ambition or intention to write a hit or be popular or whatever. So, to have people embrace those songs in such a big way has given us a big boost of confidence.”

Forming at university in 2008, Nine Sons Of Dan didn't begin with any specific ambitions. Yet, they currently find themselves striving to maintain the considerable momentum of their debut release. With follow-up EP The New Kids, the band have attempted to take each aspect of their sound to another evolutionary level – from songwriting and energy through to production and mastering (even enlisting US producer JR McNeely).

“All we really wanted to do was make music together. Of course, we all had dreams of making music our life and touring the world but, really, all we had in mind was having fun,” Bainbridge muses of the band's formation. “We were all just good friends who liked to surf. Music actually kind of came second, originally. We just kind of formed the band for fun.

“When we started to get better at playing music, we kind of thought we should at least try and make a career out of it,” the vocalist laughs. “This EP was almost easier to write because, when we wrote the first one, we had no idea what we were doing. With The New Kids, we had proof that we could write songs that people could actually really like, you know?”

That said – the real struggle for the band has yet to truly begin. Nine Sons Of Dan are both strengthened and disadvantaged by their oddly unique sound – highly polished, pop-heavy and heavily indebted to US trends (Bainbridge himself being from California), their sound stands apart from the glut of rising Australian bands. It's shinier – more earnest and more heartfelt. Bainbridge is aware that his band are outsiders in Australia.

“Yeah, we've definitely had a lot of backlash. At first, I took it really personally. We're just innocent dudes making music. There was never any master plan to write really commercial music and sell heaps of records and take over the pop scene or whatever,” the vocalist reflects. “But, then I saw a video of Dave Grohl doing some joke, and somebody was writing him off.

“I thought to myself; 'Well, if Dave Grohl – frontman of Foo Fighters, drummer of Nirvana and one of the nicest guys in music – still gets it, I suppose it's just inevitable'. I haven't worried about it too much since,” he smiles. “I think the best thing for us to do is just to stay honest about the music we want to make and let our music do the talking for us. I'd like to think we're just going to keep evolving and get better and better as musicians.”