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ashryn

Homebrewe

Tue 3rd Nov, 2009 in Features

Fresh from an interview on RTR’s Homegrown program, three quarters of Homebrewe ( Kohen, Dylan and Rory ) popped across to the pub for possibly the most informal interview they’ve ever had. Topics ranged from Motorcycle clubs to Kobe beef and Robert Jordan novels, mostly edited out the make space for questions about band’s history and the soon to be released album, My Own Nemesis.

Starting out in Albany several years ago, they quickly became one of the most sought after live acts in the state’s southwest, and moved to Perth in 2008 making it to the NCBC final in the same year. It has been a bit of a dream run since then. When asked for the secret of their success, they attributed it to networking. That they are so utterly lacking in pretence and easy to talk to probably has far more to do with it than they give themselves credit for.

Frontman Kohen Grogan explained that they initially set a lot of goals to try to achieve their ends, starting with the simple one of getting a decent promo picture. After moving to Perth and securing a couple of gigs, they met the crew at the Rocket Room and easily found local distribution through Firestarter and a booking agent in TSK -both of whom are heavily supportive of the local industry through the venue. As well as local success, they were scouted on Myspace and have distribution through college radio in the US as well as being invited to feature on a couple of US compilations of new international acts.

When asked about the sponsorship for the CD, Kohen explained that the Department of Culture and the Arts grant gave them the funds they needed. The application was a lot of hard work, and they had been initially concerned that they would have to censor their songs in order to be eligible for it. As it turned out, all that was asked of them was that they show themselves to be ambassadors of WA music. Rather an easy thing to prove since the boys have been playing gigs all over the Southwest since Dylan was about 14.

The only kind of censorship on the album was a choice made by the band to change the name of one song from Fuck You to Lies out of consideration for their grandmother, to whom they wanted to give a copy.

How did you come to be in a band with your brothers?

Kohen: Well we never really set out to be a band of brothers, we just kind of started playing together at home and then we thought that we should give it a go and play some shows and see what happened.

Dylan: I knew a shit hot drummer, so we got Rory to join and we just started doing some shows.

Who got stuck with bass?

Dylan: Me cause I’m the youngest. Well, you know, I secretly wanted to be Casey because he’s the oldest and so I used to watch what he was doing on guitar and copy him and figure it out for myself, but we needed a bass player, and they said bass was easy, so that was me. But I love bass now.

Your parents must have been really supportive if you started so young.

Dylan: Yeah, they were, I remember Dad coming to all our gigs, working on the mixing desk, making us sound good.

Kasey: We saw some very interesting things playing in pubs that youngÃ¢â‚¬Â¦

Dylan: Yeah, we got some idea of what not to do..

Rory: Ã¢â‚¬Â¦People getting thrown down stairsÃ¢â‚¬Â¦

He must have really loved it, was he musical as well?

Kohen: No, not really, well, both his parents were opera singers so I guess, but he wasn’t in a band or anything.

I guess it must be easier being brothers because even if you fight you know you’ll always forgive each other in the end.

Kohen: We never really fight about the music, just stupid shit reallyÃ¢â‚¬Â¦

Rory: Yeah, it never gets really bad but sometimes they’ll argue for hours and I just have to wait for them to get over it so we can go back to playing.

Dylan: But it’s never about anything big, you know?

Do you have a film clip?

Dylan: Yeah, we just finished making one actually, this guy approached us and said he needed to make a clip to get into a school that helps you to get into the LA film industry, so we said yes, and it should be good, we’re launching that on Friday as well, I hope it turned out well – we haven’t seen it yet!

What’s the next goal for Homebrewe?

Kohen: Well, we have the launch next weekend, then we’re going to tour the album, down south and over east, and then we’re hoping to get onto some of the bigger festival lineups, and maybe tour the US.

It was at about this point that the conversation was derailed by a discussion about meat platters and Kohen’s incredulity that there are cows fed on beer and massaged daily, political discussions about WA Police now being able to search people without reason, and several swapped accounts of police heavy-handedness, Occupational Therapy and Tolkien versus Robert Jordan. It seemed a good place to end the interview, so I wished them luck with the launch and will be keeping an eye out for them in coming festival lineups.

“Check out their brand new filmclip