Throughout the month of February we’ll see some of the best music WA has to offer playing at just about every venue across town over 10 days. The 2007 WAMi Festival also includes the WAMi Awards night at the Beck’s Verandah on February 21, when WA’s top artists will be honoured for their efforts over the past year.

The big names vying for this year’s awards include mega-selling Eskimo Joe, Little Birdy, Snowman and Schvendes. Eskimo Joe cleaned up at the 2005 awards, while last year’s even was dominated by Gyroscope and Schvendes.

Over the next few weeks, FasterLouder will be catching up with a few of the bands to get the lowdown on this year’s WAMi Festival and Awards.



Lloyd Stowe, The Silents

Where were The Silents this time last year?
   Waiting for our EP to be released, writing more songs and preparing for our first tour.

Where will The Silents be this time next year?
   No idea, one thing I love about playing music is you never quite know what’s around the corner, where your next meal’s coming from and how you’re going to pay for fuel to get to gigs. But hopefully we’ll have an album out by then, so we’ll see what happens.

What’s been your highlight in WA music over the past year?
   Watching new bands The Dee Dee Dums, Mink Mussel Creek and Sugar Army.

What local release are you most looking forward to in 2007?
   The Silents, The Bank Holidays and Snowman. I’m not quite sure who is releasing albums/EPs next year though. These bands I know will be putting records out.

Will you be seeing any other bands at this year’s WAMi Festival?
   Yes, I’ll try and catch a few. I’d like to see Sex Panther as I’ve yet to see them play.

Who’s your tip to be the big winner at this year’s WAMis?
   Snowman.

The Silents are nominatred in the Best Rock category and will play the Capitol/Amplifier two-room extravaganza on February 23 with Gyroscope, Red Jezebel, The Volcanics and more.



Roo, The Colors

Where were The Colors this time last year? 
   The Colors were just starting out, playing some cool little shows and meeting lots of new friends! We were also recording a little album at the time which will never see the light. Nevertheless, during that process we learnt so much about one another as people and musicians. It was the perfect foundation for us to build on.

Where will your band be this time next year? 
   If all goes to plan, we’ll be playing some big shows, writing good tunes and sharing our music with lots of new friends of course!

What’s been your highlight in WA music over the past year? 
   It’s been good to witness the continued success of all the ‘major label’ bands from WA. A majority of them released amazing albums last year and it’s nice to see them flying the flag high for WA.

What local release are you most looking forward to in 2007? 
   We’re most excited about the upcoming releases by Institute Polaire, Streetlight and The Dirty Secrets.

Will you be seeing any other bands at this year’s WAMi Festival? 
   We’ll most likely be going to the big show at The Bakery after our set at The Deen. We’ll probably also be checkin’ out the Gyro boys and Institute Polaire at their sets this year.

Who’s your tip to be the big winner at this year’s WAMis? 
   Snowman and Streetlight.

The Colors play the Deen Stage of the WAMi Saturday Spectacular on February 24 with Calerway, Grand Central, The Simian Line and Singapore’s Firebrands.



Steve, Mink Mussel Creek

Where were Mink Mussel Creek this time last year?
   we were a relative new born: a week old four-piece that had but a single gig under our respective belts. Rather inexperienced, very rusty but equally enthusiastic… I think my gut was a tad smaller, too. Some songs have undergone major changes since then, some were untested blueprints, many have fallen by the wayside and some are exactly the same as the day they were created. Comparatively, at least.

Where will Mink Mussel Creek be this time next year?
   I’m hardly the one to write the Les Propheties of our generation, but i’d say we’re going to be in roughly the same place we are now: playing shows, writing music, celebrating each other’s company; all on a more accomplished level, if our luck holds true.

What’s been your highlight in WA music over the past year?
   The chance to watch and play alongside the bands the state has to offer: The Slim Pickins, The Novocaines, Sex Panther, The Kill Devil Hills, Snowman, Streetlight, Cease, Hooper’s Store, Extortion, Okioki, The Dee Dee Dums… The list is enormous and that’s just the start of it. We played a few over 50 shows this year, from house parties to packed shows in front of hundreds of people, shows where we’ve felt we’ve hit and and ones we’ve absolutely fucked up, but we’ve had an absolutely grouse time with all of them.

What local release are you most looking forward to in 2007?
   2006 was a pretty huge year, what with the Drought (The Kill Devil Hills), Degenerate (Extortion), Drunk On a Train (The Painkillers), Ruby (Gata Negra), Six Feet of Snow (One Horse Town), Snowman (Snowman) and more all being released, and numerous EPs and singles from bands such as Sex Panther, Schvendes, Streetlight… every answer of mine seems to end up as a name-dropping routine, but the only upcoming releases i’m aware of are from Capital City, and a possible split featuring Cease, Okioki and Bamodi, which sounds very exciting indeed.

Will you be seeing any other bands at this year’s WAMi Festival?
   We’ll be seeing as many bands as we can, but the one i’m looking forward to most is Rose Tattoo.

Who’s your tip to be the big winner at this year’s WAMis?
   The BIG winner? I’ll join the bandwagon of overusing the phrase “I think this could be anyone’s year”, as the added ease of voting and greater exposure that comes with using everybody’s favourite vice, Myspace, as the voting medium may level the odds.

Mink Mussel Creek are nominated for the Favourite Newcomer and Most Promising New Act awards and will play the PICA stage at the Saturday Spectacular with Schvendes and The Kill Devil Hills.



Mark Di Renzo, Gigantic 

Where were Gigantic this time last year? 
   Locked in the recording studio recording our album (though we did pop our heads out to play a fun WAMI show). 

Where will Gigantic be this time next year? 
   Hopefully touring overseas somewhere – our album is coming out in Europe and North America later this year so hopefully we’ll get to play to some overseas audiences by this time next year. 

What’s been your highlight in WA music over the past year? 
   It has been fantastic to watch Eskimo Joe get bigger and bigger after all their years of hard work and persistence. Seeing them play live at the ARIAs was awesome. 

What local release are you most looking forward to in 2007? 
   The Bank Holidays’ debut album. Their latest single Two Questions is a killer so I can’t wait to hear the rest of the album. 

Will you be seeing any other bands at this year’s WAMi Festival? 
   Of course – so many great bands to see in such a short time – the hard part is deciding where to be so as not to miss out on anything. 

Who’s your tip to be the big winner at this year’s WAMis? 
   I think the Eskis boys are gonna be eating a lot of WAMington.

Gigantic play the Bakery Stage at the Saturday Spectacular along with End of Fashion, The Panda Band and Eleventh He Reaches London.