Youth Group - Bypassinggrowing pains...

Thu 20th Jul, 2006 in Features

“I’m walking down Wilson Street to Troy Horse for a rehearsal,” says a breathless Patrick Mathews, Youth Group’s bass player.  ”I think we’re all playing that game – you know the one, where I estimate that they will be this many minutes late, so I will be this many more minutes late,” he laughs.

You’d think that Youth Group would be over the whole rehearsal process, after all they’ve just come off the back of a tour with one of the world’s most successful bands – Coldplay.

“Yeah, you’d reckon,” shrugs Patrick “but we’re doing this launch thing on Friday – where we are having a launch for our friends and where we can invite media.  And Jules is showing her photos (photographer Julia Wilson)  – but it’s not really definitive.”  He sighs. “All I can say is it’s a lot of work…”

Not that he minds work – “work is good” – and Youth Group are one of the hardest working bands in the country at the moment – with a new album Casino Twilight Dogs out on shelves this month, the recent Coldplay tour, their own national tour dates and a series of upcoming OS gigs.  So how was it sharing the stage with a band like Coldplay? Did tYouth Group pick up any tips?

“It was really good,” says Patrick. “I would tell you if it wasn’t. I had the feeling initially that it was going to be bad. Because you’re in a big room and they might not put the house lights down and you’re playing with someone else’s PA and playing for people that aren’t there to see you. But as far as arena rock music goes it was as good as it gets.”

He chuckles ” And at least they were young and into the music, not old and own one CD… The audience was really good to us as well as Coldplay.”

So no horror moments where they felt like the third wheel on a hot date? Patrick pauses, “We had a bit of a hard time in Sydney ‘cause it was really big – and it was echo-y and that was what I thought it was gonna be like the whole time but it wasn’t…

“When we played in Burwood Dome – which was twice as big as everywhere else – it’s like playing in a football stadium – well my eyesight isn’t the best – but you can’t make out faces at all.”

 Did the band need to alter their sound then to suit these ‘arena spectaculars’?

“Ya know, it’s funny,” admits Matthews. “It kinda suits Toby’s voice which is the irony. It’s the trade-off really – when you play in a little room the drums usually drown everything out if the room’s too small… One thing we did do differently was we played the same set every night.”

I imagine that could get tedious on a long tour, Patrick disagrees: “It actually feels good, ‘cause you know what you can rely on – if you get into a lull – it’s not the end of the world , you know two songs down it will pick up. So we did a set where we really stacked the end – so it got more energy and better and better.”

I imagine stacking the set also meant hauling out teen favourite, the radio friendly OC track, ‘Forever Young’. Did they find that was the only song the Coldplay audience could identify with?

“Umm, no,” says Patrick. “I suppose there would have been some – and they were kids – the ones at the very front that were Coldplay fans, but were cheering for ‘Forever Young’.”

The OC association has been a mixed blessing for the band; giving Youth Group their first big hit – but their first taste of backlash. Patrick agrees: “I got burnt on the internet, ‘cause I write this blog and we played this show at Sydney Uni – and to me they didn’t look like the regular Youth Group fans… ‘Cause it was mostly for Union members – and they dressed a certain way and looked a certain way – and I said everyone was there to hear one song, ‘Forever Young’ but hey that’s alright.

“And it started this whole big thing…one person wrote in going ‘Yeah why don’t you bloody OC fans just fuck off.’ And then this girl wrote in – she was 14 years old and she said. ‘look I got into Youth Group from ‘Forever Young’ – but I don’t watch the OC and I think Youth Group is a really good band – but I’ve got a lot of friends that watch the OC and hate Youth Group…’.”

“It could get worse,” he finishes “but hopefully in a year we won’t still be: ‘the band that had that song on the OC’.”

For full coverage of Youth Group and to see the video of ‘Catching and Killing’ from the album Casino Twilight Dogs, click here