Calling All Cars

Calling All Cars are currently one of the hardest working Australian rock bands around, and their hard work is paying off. The group followed up significant air play with a huge amount of touring resulting in support slots for Foo Fighters, AC/DC and a run on this years Big Day Out festival. KYS had a chat to front man Haydn Ing to see what the future holds for the group.

So what's been happening, looks like you have been pretty busy?

Actually right now is probably the most time off we have ever had in the last three or four years. Since Big Day Out we have only played two shows, but we have been doing heaps of writing for the next album already which will come out later on this year.

You guys have some huge supports on your resume which is an impressive achievement, did you ever think you would support AC/DC?

When you are starting out you never actually imagine that one day you will be doing that. Even now just looking back on it, it's really surreal. AC/DC was definitely the scariest, going on first and walking out on to the stage was like "Holy Shit." We actually got to do eleven shows with them which was awesome and we eventually started having fun which was really cool. Then we recently did Foo Fighters so we sort of new what to expect and could enjoy it a little more.

I would assume the Foo Fighters crowd would be a little more accepting than an AC/DC crowd?

Definitely, AC/DC fans are like, if it is any band other than AC/DC they can fuck off. But at the same time it was surprisingly OK for us, they were a lot warmer than we thought they would be, luckily they only had plastic cups so they couldn't throw anything heavier (laughs).

So did you get to hang out with the guys in Foo Fighters and have a bit of a chat?

Yeah man, for the first show we did in Perth with them all the crew approached and said "Here is your passes, you can pretty much go anywhere you want" and that we were actually allowed into their band room if we wanted so long as we weren't dickheads, which is definitely the most chilled vibe we have ever had for that size show. So that was awesome and we got to meet all of the guys afterwards and they are pretty much exactly how you would have imagined, they are everything they are hyped up to be, Dave Grohl is just on ten the entire time, even backstage he is non-stop. In Adelaide he actually rocked up to the show on a BMX. He rode from his accommodation to the venue in like short shorts and a singlet. It's ridiculous dude. The other thing that blew me away is seeing what he does before he goes on stage. We were hanging out and we were just chatting, and they were filming the whole tour to make whatever video came out recently, and the whole time he is just chatting to us and jogging on the spot for forty minutes before he went on stage. We were like "Dude, you are about to do that for like, three hours just chill out." But he was like "Oh man, it gets my blood flowing." He is definitely a fitness freak. It's funny he was in the middle of a story and someone comes up and is like "Dave you gotta go on stage now!" and he is like "Oh, sorry, I'll continue this afterwards" and just runs out straight onto stage and clicks into that mode.

So you also did Big Day Out this year, how was that?

Yeah it was cool, I've always wanted to do Big Day Out. Originally we knew we were going for it and we knew that we had dudes from Big Day Out come and check out a show that we played in Sydney at one point and had a look and we got good feedback but then we didn't actually get booked for ages so thought we missed out. Then eventually we got it and heard what had happened with the other acts being cancelled but it was still awesome.

And one of the most interesting things that happened to you was getting knocked out during you Sydney set?

So we were in Sydney and I told one of my mates from one of the bands that is actually supporting us on our upcoming tour, Strangers, that he should come up on stage with us and play a song so I could just run around. So it was second song of the set and we were playing a cover of Mclusky's To Hell With Good Intentions and it was a real good vibe straight away, the mosh pit was going off and I got a bit over-excited I guess so I stage dived into the crowd and it was going really well and I was crowd surfing but then the crowd opened up and I fell through the crowd and I was on the ground a circle pit formed and I thought it would be bad ass to finish the song in a circle pit, so I'm running around and a guy was running towards me, we didn't see each other and I copped his elbow to my jaw.

So you didn’t get to finish the set?

Na I was actually knocked out cold and I actually woke up in a stretcher in the ambulance and I was like “oh, something has gone wrong.” They had the whole torch in my eyes thing to make sure I was still with it, they asked if I knew which city I was in and I actually had no idea, I was like “Melbourne?” just guessing, and they said “No you just got knocked out playing a show at Sydney Big Day Out” and I was like “Really? Cool, were we good?” (laughs) As we were driving to the hospital everything started coming back to me.

You guys have been touring heavily, would you say you are touring more now than when you first started coming up?

Kinda, we started out touring as much as we could, picking up any shows that we could but at the same time you can’t overplay or people just get sick of seeing your name, so at the moment we are pulling it back a little bit. This upcoming tour however will be the biggest headlining tour we have ever done, biggest venues etc.

And you mentioned before that you are working on new music?

Yeah we have been writing for the next album, it’s still early stages, before we start in the studio we try and come up with fifty songs, that way we can strip it back and hopefully have eleven or twelve really good songs but they are all completely different to anything we have done before.

Can you give us a rough idea of the direction it is heading it?

Not really, it hasn’t even really shown itself to us just yet if you know what I mean. We got four songs that sound like something and four songs that sound completely different.