Outright

20 January 2014 | 7:01 pm | Staff Writer
Originally Appeared In

Melbourne's Outright have spent the past year obliterating stages across the country in support of debut 7" 'Dedication'. With the band playing Australia Day shows in both Melbourne and Sydney this weekend, Killyourstereo.com sits down with guitarist Brad Fulton to chat all things Outright.

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Melbourne's Outright have spent the past year obliterating stages across the country in support of debut 7" 'Dedication'. With the band playing Australia Day shows in both Melbourne and Sydney this weekend, Killyourstereo.com sits down with guitarist Brad Fulton to chat all things Outright.

You guys were fairly busy as far as playing shows and stuff in 2013, how was last year for the band?

2013 was pretty hectic for us and yeah, it was a blast. We played a stack of shows and had a great year. It was a very balanced year for the band, in between shows we all took time to focus on other bands, travel plans, miming for magicians and all the rest. Speaking of other bands, we recently recruited our new guitarist Allan, he plays in a band called Stockades who are incredible. Go check them out. Our drummer Josh plays in a band called Summerhill and sings in a band called Vicious Cycle, they’re both fucking great so check them out too!

You recently re-released your debut 7", 'Dedication'. As far as new material, how far along are you guys with that?


Spot on. The first pressing sold out relatively fast and it took us awhile to commit to a 2nd press but so far so good. As for new material, we’re about ¾’s of the way through writing what will become our debut album.
We’re going to knuckle down post Australia Day and finish that off, record it and then hit the road as much as possible. In fact, I think Australia Day will be our first time playing some of this new material which should be cool.

As far as the songwriting goes on the 7" you can hear this pretty strong New York hardcore vibe and then there’s sort of this metallic edge as well - what kind of stuff influences your songwriting musically?

I feel like every band says this and it’s become a cliché response but I’m going to spew it out anyway. - we’ve never discussed trying to sound like a certain band, album or scene. It’s cool in that we all listen to a lot of different stuff all the time. There’s the core bands that essentially helped bring us together but the sound that we have is just what happens when the five of us and our individual influences get in a room.

You’re playing one of the Australia Day weekend shows at The Reverence Hotel in Footscray this Saturday for the second time I
 believe - for those who might not be aware, did you want to talk about that?

Absolutely! Our friend Tom Jenkins has been running this event for four years now, over that time it’s raised in excess of $25,000 for Oxfam and The Refugee Council of Australia. Essentially it’s just a great way to bring together a bunch of great bands and friends from all over Australia to catch up, hang out and raise some money for an amazing cause. It’s a project we all believe in and back, hoping it can help out in some way.

Something that I’ve always enjoyed and appreciated about your band is a level of social awareness - both in terms of lyrics, and kind of opening a dialogue and using music as a message and a way to try and ignite social change. Is that something you guys are quite conscious about?

Totally. I mean, a lot of that comes back to Jelena, our vocalist, and the lyrics she writes and the things she talks about between songs. That said, we’re all on the same page and we’re all passionate about the range of topics our songs tackle, it’s why we’re in this together. Bands like Propagandhi, Bad Religion, Bad Day Down, Stolen Youth all opened my eyes to the power of political messages in music and it’s cool to be in a band that utilises that tool and platform.

How important do you think that is?


I think it’s important that there’s bands out there that do that, but I also appreciate the bands that don’t.
It’s great to have that message and passion, but I still also like bands that sing about silly relationship stuff and playing snakes and ladders with mates or whatever. Maybe that’s just me, but I need moderation between serious stuff and songs that just make me want to put sunglasses on and flip into a pool.

As well as the show at the Reverence you’re also playing an Australia Day show in Sydney. Both lineups are obviously incredible - and you only really need to take a look at them to see how healthy Australia’s punk/hardcore community is at the moment. What are your thoughts on that?


Ah, what a weekend we have lined up. These line-ups are great and it’s awesome being a part of both of them. I think you hit the nail on the head, I mean, there’s a lot of crap and attitudes and all that but it’s easier to just let that run its course and not stress to much because there are literally so so many great bands worth your time and effort. Every city has a stack of staunch bands that I’m psyched to see whenever I’m in the same city as them. This weekend features a lot of those bands, catch me smiling so hard my head falls off.

Just quickly: We’re actually losing a fantastic punk band this weekend in our friends Cavalcade.
They’ll play their last ever show on Saturday at The Reverence. Thanks Cavalcade, you will be missed.

What have Outright got planned for the rest of the year?


In the remaining 11 months we’ll release our debut album and tour that wherever we can.
Getting the album finished is our priority and main focus right now, we’ll tackle the rest as it comes.

Outright play The Reverence Hotel in Melbourne on Saturday, January 25 with Luca Brasi, Anchors and more - tickets are available here. Sunday, January 26 the band play The Metro in Sydney alongside Backtrack, Iron Mind and more - tickets here.

You can stream debut 7" 'Dedication' here - physical copies are available now.