Make no bones about it – Violent Soho greet your ears with a full-frontal sonic assault. Hailed as the second coming of grunge’s teen spirit, it is hard to believe this rock juggernaut has four unassuming lads from Brisbane at the helm. Having conquered the US, gaining extensive airplay and touring with the likes of Dinosaur Jr. and The Dead Weather, Violent Soho will make a triumphant return to our shores in July.

The band are playing a number of East Coast dates to celebrate today’s release of their self-titled second album, out on Thurston Moore’s Ecstatic Peace label. Violent Soho’s ferocious sound, honed through numerous EPs and first album We Don’t Belong Here, is only aided by the crisp production of hard rock luminary Gil Norton (Pixies, Foo Fighters). FL sat down with the band to discuss tours, Thurston and why Jesus stole their girlfriend.

So first off, tell us a bit about how you recorded the album.

We flew out last June to Rockfield Studios in the small town of Monmouth, Wales. It’s a beautiful old studio, very simple and homely and comfortable to be in. It’s surrounded by rolling grass hills that are covered by cute little bunny rabbits, who mostly all have myxomatosis. We lived there and recorded for around five weeks. The place has an amazing history to it; for example, the piano that Bohemian Rhapsody was recorded on is in the same studio that we recorded all our guitars for the album. Pretty much all of Black Sabbath’s albums were recorded there… loads of shit has gone on in this place. Anyway, it was just an amazing place to be in. The rooms we recorded in had such a classic sound in them, and the mixing desk was this big piece of work from the 60s. It was all just very much legitimately old school and real.

You mixed and produced Violent Soho alongside people who’ve worked with Muse, Pixies and the Foo Fighters. How do you think this has helped your sound?

Well, it definitely allowed us to tap into a larger sound. Gil Norton has a huge ability to create space between the parts he’s recording, while allowing everything to also just flow together so well. The entire sound of our songs just seemed to come to a much fuller level with Gil, and having Rich Costey mix the album obviously didn’t hurt. Working with Gil in the studio was a great learning experience for us. We’ve never spent so much time in a studio; we were living there the whole time so we were really living the album 24/7. It gave us the opportunity to work deeply on the entire sound and feel of our songs, and our instruments, more than we ever have before.

The new album’s lead single is Jesus Stole My Girlfriend – is that a real life tale?

Luke wrote it when he broke up with his fiance over religious differences. Apparently she wanted to go to church more and he didn’t.

You’ve signed a deal with Thurston Moore’s Ecstatic Peace label in the US… congratulations, by the way. How did that come about?

I’m still not sure how he heard our music. He basically gave one of our managers a call a few days before we were playing a show in New York, and said he was coming to one of the shows. It turns out that he was telling the truth, because sure enough this tall person walks into this small bar in Manhattan that we were playing, and started head banging to our set. We went to dinner with him and got to talk to him about different types of music, from Striborg to Lil’ Wayne. He was just the raddest dude and asked us if he could put out our album on Ecstatic Peace! We were like “Hell yes!”

What do you think of Thurston?

Pretty much the raddest dude of all time.

Do any of you have a favourite track off the album?

It sort of changes all the time. We don’t really listen to the album over and over again, but focus on what we like to play live mostly. Recently I think Muscle Junkie or Here Be Dragons have been favourites for me. I think we all just like all of our songs anyway. You could put it that there isn’t a song on the album that any of us don’t like.

So whereabouts are you guys living at the moment?

We’re living in an apartment in Prospect Heights in Brooklyn, New York. It’s pretty slummy but has a ridiculous view.

How do you hold it together when you’re touring so wildly and extensively?

I don’t know.

You’ve played alongside Dinosaur Jr., Built To Spill and The Dead Weather, among others… who’s been your favourite band to share the stage with?

All of those have been ridiculously rad for us. We’ve been able to do some incredible tours… Dinosaur Jr. was a real dream come true for us. Those guys truly are our heroes. However the national tour we just did, playing between Mariachi El Bronx and The Bronx every night, was certainly the most memorable touring experience we’ve ever had. The Bronx possibly hold the medal for the world’s best live band, I think. They can switch it on like nobody else’s business.

The number 4122 has showed up in plenty of images surrounding the band – what’s that about?

It’s a Brisbane postcode. Our moral heritage circles around this area. We thought it was funny to make a thing of it a while ago.

So where did your band name come from?

It came from just mixing words together. We thought those two words sounded pretty cool when you said them together. We weren’t wanting a band name that really meant anything, necessarily.

And lastly, what’s it like when you do come back to Australia, after all your successes overseas?

Well we haven’t come back yet, so I’m not sure. Hopefully we will have endured some real success when we get back. I’m not sure what that could be. We’re incredibly stoked to be playing Splendour in the Grass. That’s something that we’ve been wanting to do forever. I can just imagine that playing there is only going to be the best fun ever.

You can catch Violent Soho’s explosive live show later in the year, at the following dates:

Thursday 22nd July – Northcote Social Club, Melbourne
Friday 23rd July – Annandale Hotel, Sydney
Saturday 24th July – The Zoo, Brisbane
Friday 30th July to Sunday 1st August – Splendour in the Grass, Woodford, QLD

Violent Soho is out now.