They started out as Collusion at high school, and two and a half years later, Melbourne band Skybombers have begun taking on the world. With their debut album having just been released, a tour of the States and a shared stage with the Foo Fighters under their belt, one can’t help but wonder where their journey will take them.

After about a 20-minute delay, I finally get through to Hugh Gurney, Skybombers’ frontman. He’s just as confused about the delay as I am, and has been sitting around drinking tea with his girlfriend Hannah. Getting the small talk out of the way, we get down to business.

It seems that the Skybombers boys were noticed completely by accident, not long before they cut their first demo, and eventually that demo ended up in the hands of an LA DJ. “We got lucky,” Hugh says. “There was a chance meeting and someone passed our demo onto this DJ on Indie 103 in America, which is apparently a big radio station in Los Angeles. And he started playing us on his show, and it ended up that people started requesting the song, and it ended up getting to number 4 on their chart. So that’s where all that kind of American interest started.”

Soon after their music hit American airwaves, the boys headed over to LA, where they managed to sell out a show at the famed Viper Room. It was a great birthday present for drummer Scott McMurtrie, and Hugh excitedly tells me that he met guitar legend Slash. “It was kind of a 3-in-1 for excitement. That was a really cool evening. But my favourite thing, meeting [was] Slash, I would say. It was pretty scary; I didn’t know what to say to him. But he was really nice, so…”

The travelling can get to them at times. But it’s always nice to have someone to look after you while you’re not at home. Says Hugh, “You get sick of it. You miss your bed, you miss your friends, you miss your family back home, I guess. We were away in the States for eight weeks, and it was the longest we’d ever been away for. You get sick of hotel rooms. But we had some people looking after us who looked after us well, the girls, The Donnas. One of their mums kept looking after us, giving us all this food and giving us stuff to keep us healthy. So we had home-away-from-home treatment.”

Hugh and bassist Ravi Sharma both have girlfriends. Does not being with them while they’re away take its toll? “Yeah. But, I dunno…I guess technology can kind of make it easier. Even if you can’t speak, you can text or email or Skype, and I guess it kind of makes it a little bit easier, but it’s definitely very hard.”

For the Australian Open this year, the boys’ song It Goes Off was picked for the commercial. Hugh has no idea how this happened. “It has nothing to do with our tennis skills, because we’re all very bad at it,” he says, “but I don’t know exactly how. I think somebody from the Australian Open tennis board heard it and they liked it. Then it kind of went hand in hand, because we’re from Melbourne, and we’re a local band, and we’re all sort of youngsters, so…I think it kind of just went with the theme that tennis was trying to get across, so I guess that’s why it got chosen. It was pretty exciting when it came on the TV. Hannah always pays me out, ‘cause apparently I did a funny face whenever the ad came on the TV.” He calls out, “Isn’t that right, babe?” And Hannah says, “YES.”

It seems the embarrassment factor has affected all of the boys. Hugh tells me this story. “Scottie, our drummer told a really funny story that he was going shopping for TVs and he was in Harvey Norman with his mum and dad, and suddenly every TV in the shop came on with that ad. So there was about 60 TVs all playing our song. He said that was one of the weirdest things. Surrounded by your own song…it’s like, ‘Oh my god.’ And your mum and dad were like, ‘Everyone look! It’s my son; it’s my son on TV!’”

Hugh doesn’t believe he’ll be a rock star for the rest of his life. “We’re willing to rock n’ roll as had as we can and, until we’re not having run anymore, I guess we’re gonna try as hard as we can to rock n’ roll. As for the rest of our lives, I can’t see myself as a Keith Richards figure in 60 years time.” What, no rockin’ out in a nursing home? “None of that. No falling out of trees or snorting my dad’s ashes. I’ll just leave that to Keith Richards.” He adds with a laugh, “My brother calls Keith Richards ‘The man that death forgot’.”

Even though they’re doing well overseas and have a tour planned for later this year, Hugh tells me there’s nothing like playing at home. “The main thing we wanna do is really play the Aussie audiences and get the Aussies into it. It’s so much more fun just playing at home and a lot easier. When you’ve got other commitments at home, it’s way easier to be playing shows at home rather than having to go overseas, if you know what I’m saying.”

Skybombers are touring their home turf over the next couple of months. Catch them at the following venues:

9 Jul – ANU Bar, Canberra

10 Jul – Cambridge Hotel, Newcastle

11 Jul – Oxford Art Factory, Sydney

12 Jul – Oxford Tavern, Wollongong

15 Jul – The Pub, Bendigo

16 Jul – Barwon Club, Geelong

17 Jul – Enigma Bar, Adelaide

18 Jul – Karova Lounge, Ballarat

19 Jul – ’BANG’, The Royal Melbourne Hotel, Melbourne

23 Jul – Great Northern Hotel, Byron Bay

24 Jul – Sound Lounge, Currumbin, Queensland

25 Jul – Sands Tavern, Maroochydore

26 Jul – The Zoo, Brisbane