Hungry Kids Of Hungary

Tue 8th Sep, 2009 in Features

Coming off a national tour with Bertie Blackman, Brissie bright sparks Hungry Kids Of Hungary are bracing for an even busier September. Next weekend, the four-piece will set up camp at Blueprint Festival in Ararat, Victoria, before opening for Little Birdy around the country. FL chats to Dean McGrath in a rare moment of downtime.

You released your sophomore EP Mega Mountain earlier this year; what’s the response been like? How many new cardigans have you been able to buy with the profits?
I have not bought any cardigans since MM was released, but I did buy a nice warm coat that’s been keeping me snug on tour. Actually, all the money we make goes straight back into the band, so there’s been no wild spending.

Plans for an LP any time soon?
We’re in Sydney in two weeks to record a new single and start laying the foundations for a few album tracks. The rest will most likely be done early next year.

You guys are currently on the road supporting Bertie Blackman, then you are heading out with Little Birdy and somehow in between you’re hitting up Blueprint festival and Sounds of Spring…do you sleep?
Not enough! We get really bad cabin fever if we’ve been on the road for an extended period of time. We all get overtired and our brains do strange things. Our conversations start to get pretty weird, and a little depraved. It gets pretty hilarious.

What’s the best part of being on the road constantly? And the worst part?
Best part is not having to front up to work every day. The worst part is airports and being kept awake by snoring bandmates.

You’ve said you’re heading out on your own headline tour, when can we expect this? Or, when do you have time?
We’ll be playing some headline dates around the place in November, by which point we’ll all have died of exhaustion and there will be no original members of the band left. I’m sure they’ll choose okay replacements though, so your readers should still attend.

Do you prefer festivals or club shows?
We have limited festival experience, so it’s hard to say. I predict we’ll enjoy the festivals immensely though. We love attending them so it stands to reason we’ll have a blast playing them.

Bee Gees tribute show! Tell us about it!
Haha. Our wonderful friends the Boat People invited us to join them for a Bee Gees tribute as part of the QSong Awards. We had one day to arrange and rehearse a 10-minute medley of Bee Gees classics, which included a dirty, stompy, indie-dance re-imagining of Stayin’ Alive. It was a hoot. At the end we dragged a whole bunch of friends from various bands up onto stage to rock out…it was certainly something.

Is there something in Brisbane’s water? So many kick-arse bands just keep coming out of there. Favourite new Brissie band?
There’s a heap of amazing bands up here, and what’s great is most of them are really nice to boot. My current favourites include Ball Park Music, Tim Carroll and Skinny Jean.

Which one of your songs would you most like to see covered? And who would you want to cover it?
I’d like to hear Weird Al Yankovic have a crack at our song Good Times. I’m curious to know if the lyrics in his version could possibly be more ridiculous than the original, improvised lyrics from when we first started rehearsing it. Its working title at the time was Termite Bites and Illegal Mice Fights. We’re not normal.

How much truth is there that one of you esteemed gentleman were in the Muay-Thai movie Ong-Bak? If it is true, how did you get involved and is it because you’ve got sweet martial arts skills? If it isn’t true, what action movie would you guys most like to star in?
Hahaha…it might have been Benny. I have heard him claim to have some kind of ninja training. Wow, I didn’t know this rumour existed. We’re not fighters at all…but if I had to choose an action flick to be in, it’d probably be some crazy old school sub-titled Kung Fu film like The Magic Blade.

You’re playing the Blueprint Festival in Victoria this September as part of a stellar all-Australian line-up. Are you looking forward to some time in the great outdoors?
Of course! Hopefully it’s nice and sunny and the insane Victorian weather has settled down so everyone can enjoy the festival.

Are you planning to stick around and catch any of the other bands?
We are. I’m not sure yet which bands are on the same day as us but I’m really keen on catching The Fauves and the Panics. Oh, and the Jebs, of course – it’ll be great to see them again and re-live some high-school memories.

Hungry Kids Of Hungary play Blueprint Festival in Ararat, Victoria from 18 to 21 September. Check out the festival website for all the details.