Heroes For Hire

If you needed any more proof that Heroes For Hire were the best Australia has to offer in the pop punk department, "Take One For The Team" is it. With studio album numero duo done, the band now have their sights set on the road. Kicking off a headlining tour alongside I Call Fives and I Am Villain, we caught up with HFH's singer Brad Smith to talk partying hard and spraying Short Stack with piss.

Hey man, for the record can you tell us your name, what you play in Heroes For Hire and what you think of the new Blink 182 album?

Hey man, it’s Brad and I sing for Heroes For Hire and I’m actually really digging the new Blink album. It’s different but cool.

Heroes For Hire released your second album “Take One For The Team” in May this year. How have you found responses to the new material?

People have really come on board with the new record and it means a lot to us. We worked really hard on it and to have people connect with it and be stoked on it makes it all worth it.

You guys recently put out your video for the song “Secrets, Lies and Sins” which looked like it was bullshit fun to film. How’d you come up with the idea for the clip?

It was actually perfect timing as our drummer Lee was just about to demolish his house, so a few cases of beer and an anything goes mentality and that video clip is what you get when five drunk dudes are given control of their own video.

In July you blokes did a run of dates with your friends in Short Stack. What were the highlights of that tour?

There were a lot of rad shows on that tour and we played to a lot of new people that we wouldn’t usually have played to, playing Festival Hall is Melbourne to roughly 4000 kids was pretty memorable. Other than that, filling Super Soakers with piss and spraying Short Stack in the face with it was up there.

The band has a huge national headlining tour coming up with New Jersey’s I Call Fives and local boys I Am Villain. What are you hoping for from this tour?

We are just hoping a lot of kids come out and have a sick time, some kids may not have been to a small room punk show before filled with stage dives etc. so we will hopefully be their first experience of that. Also we can’t wait to introduce the crowds to bands like I Call Fives and I Am Villain who they may not have heard of before.

For those who mightn’t have seen you guys live before, what can fans expect from a Heroes For Hire live show?

Stage dives, a lot of shit talk and a lot of punk jumps.

The other day you guys hinted at releasing two songs along with a new single over summer to feature some guest vocalists. Can you tell us any more than that at this point?

If I told you that now I would have to kill you, it is classified top secret KGB FBI stuff.

By now you’d be pretty good friends with a bunch of great American bands. Is the band hoping to get over there at any point?

We are hoping to go to the USA and tour next time but not only there. We want to hit up Europe, Japan, South America, Africa, Antarctica ... pretty much everywhere!

Does Heroes For Hire have any particular tour rituals we should know about?

When we go out drinking we have now been associated with drinking drinks out of each other's shoes, I honestly have no idea why or how this started but I suppose you can say that’s a tour ritual.

What five albums tend to get the most airtime on your van’s stereo when you’re on the road?

New Found Glory - Self-titled, Fireworks – "Gospel", Kesha – "Animal", Blink 182 – "The Mark, Tom and Travis Show" and NoFx – "Punk in Drublic".

After the band wraps up the end of the tour in November, what does the rest of the year and 2012 hold for Heroes For Hire?

We will just stay home for a little bit then keep touring flat out and also start writing album number three that we are looking to record mid next year.

Thanks for your time dude. Any last thoughts or shout outs?

Just that we hope to see everyone out at some of the shows on the upcoming Take One For The Team tour and thanks for everyone who has bought the new record or stolen it off the internet since it came out.

Cheers! See you at a show later this month.