Stone Parade

Fri 20th Mar, 2009 in Features

Waiting for Juke Kartel to hit the stage, I watch Stone Parade take on their set for the first time with no expectation. They delivered an impressive set that not only complimented the headliners well, but also gave them a run for their money. On stage you can see how much this band believes in themselves. Their songs and marketing material is rather professional for an independent band.

Frontman Greg Byrne is keen to do it all over again. “We had a really awesome time with the Juke boys. They’re really loose characters. So it was kind of a natural progression from the last tour that we decided to share the stage again, this time on a larger scale.”

Stone Parade has also supported similar types in Maroon 5, Hoobastank and 3 Doors Down, with these experiences showing the singer how good it would be to achieve at that level. But instead of complaining about how tough the gig can be for Australian bands, Byrne attempts to manage the impossible. “It’s a hard balancing act but you’ve got to be in it to win it. You’re a bit poor but you stay humble. It allows you to write good songs.”

With their song Somebody Will Miss You being the fifth most added track to radio a few weeks back, Stone Parade are building momentum. It was this song from the band’s album Chase The Setting Sun that out-shone 1500 others to take out an International Songwriting Competition. As Byrne explains, the winning track was inspired by the band’s previous drummer. “When we came back from America I think he kind of reassessed his life a bit and decided it’s not always fun and games being in a rock band. So the song was about losing a good friend and drummer at the time.”

The time they spent in the US working on the album had its fair share of ups and downs, including being evicted from where they were staying. “We were pretty much in the hot part of Hollywood and what we tried to do and what we did do was have 8 people in a studio apartment at one time, purely for the fact that we were trying to do everything on a low budget because we’re a struggling band. And it was almost comical, like a movie, how the events unfolded to ensure we eventually got evicted,” Byrne recalls with a laugh.

They weren’t very good at hiding out either, with situations arising that made it difficult to go by unnoticed. “Our drummer had a panic attack and there were three big fire trucks that rocked up. They ran up to the room and saw mattresses all over the floor. And of course just at the time when the ambulance offices came in, the owner of the building came in.” On the bright side to eventually getting the boot, they got a good song out of the experience. “It was a classic.”

But if that wasn’t enough, they were also dealt what seems like the producer from hell. “Walking blindly into a situation where we had no idea what she was like as a producer was kind of concerning to begin with. Little did we know that she would turn out to be a psycho control freak! A few of the band members at one stage were actually banned from coming into the studio as their honest outside opinion was not welcome.”

While chatting to Byrne it seems Stone Parade have more than enough stories to share. They range from “The Adventures on Moosewood Farm” that found the band “amongst the cows with a few bottles of red wine, jamming till all hours on a quest for brilliance…I don’t think we ended up keeping any of that batch [of songs] but it sure was a wicked experience,” to “The Road Trip from Hell”, involving travelling through torrential rain while on their first major support back in 2003 for Killing Heidi.

But it seems that through it all has emerged a band that can actually create something worth listening to. “Because we were so hard on ourselves to come up with great songs and great music, we came out with something I’m really proud of – we’re all really proud of.”

Stone Parade hit the road this month with The Juke Kartel for an extensive run of shows.

21 Mar – Mona Vale Hotel, Sydney
22 Mar – Hotel Gearin, Katoomba
28 Mar – National Hotel Geelong
29 Mar – Ruby’s Lounge, Belgrave
1 Apr – Oxford Tavern, Wollongong
3 Apr – Cambridge Hotel, Newcastle
4 Apr – Gaelic Club, Sydney
12 Apr – Enigma Bar, Adelaide
17 Apr – Amplifier Bar, Perth
18 Apr – Prince of Wales, Bunbury
19 Apr – Newport Hotel, Fremantle
22 Apr – Hoey Moey, Coffs Harbour
23 Apr – Great Northern Hotel, Byron Bay
24 Apr – Step Inn, Brisbane
25 Apr – Bon Amici Café, Toowoomba
26 Apr – Coolangatta Hotel, Gold Coast
30 Apr – Torquay Hotel, Torquay
1 May – Inferno Nightclub, Traralgon
8 May – The Espy – Gershwin Room, Melbourne