Get yourself into a Panic

Fri 11th May, 2007 in Features

It may seem like it’s been a fairly quiet few years for Perth’s indie-rock prodigies The Panics. That’s because they’ve been tucked away from prying eyes, busily writing and demoing songs from their home studio for the follow-up to album number two, Sleeps Like a Curse. Only having played a handful of shows in ‘07, the boys have been focusing all their energy on making a ripper third album, but they will take time out from the studio to co-headline Brisbane’s Pauhaus Festival this July.

“We’re gonna be in the middle of recording but we thought bugger it, Brisbane has always been good to us and it’ll be nice to take a break from recording,” says frontman Jae Laffer. “We just like going to Brisbane, I don’t know a lot about the festival but I’m looking forward to it, there are a lot of other great bands on the lineup.”

After leaving long-time label LittleBIGMAN records to sign with Dew Process earlier this year, the band has been given the creative freedom to write and record the new album exactly how they please. And needless to say, that’s just the way they like it. “We spend a long time avoiding record contracts,” Laffer says. “We wouldn’t sign with any label unless we knew it was gonna be that way”.

After the release of the album, the band plan to tour Australia and overseas, although no dates have been confirmed yet. “We’ll play in England, Europe, the States,” he says. “We’ll make it happen. Some of the gigs will be good, some bad, some will have a lot of people, some with none. You gotta give it a chance.”

One stop on the international tour will be England, to which the boys are no strangers. “We’ve been over [to England] and realised we have to keep coming over to work on what we’ve got going,” Laffer explains. “We’ve worked on recording over there, we’ve done industry festival stuff and our own gigs . . . Its something we wanna keep doing and keep going back if people like us.”

“It doesn’t take long to spread the word these days if you got the material. In England people respond really well, I don’t know why but it’s nice.”

Back home, there’s not too much to complain about. The band has scored some extra nationwide exposure via the airwaves of Erinsborough and Summer Bay. If you listen closely, you can hear snippets of tracks from their back catalogue sonically perpetuating the tumultuous hysteria and melodrama that constitutes an average episode of Neighbours and Home and Away.

“The publishing company that we’re signed to, Mushroom, has exclusive rights to the music on those shows, so everything you hear will be only stuff from that label,” Laffer says. “Once we signed up it was like… hell we’re on the Bayside Diner in the background while Alf’s fighting!”

“We grew up watching the show too so it’s kinda weird to hear your music on there. It’s a daggy show but at same time it’s very immersed in Australia culture. I don’t know if I like it but I’m amused every time I hear it.”

If you’re keen to head along to Pauhaus to catch The Panics, check out www.pauhausfestival.com for details. The band will be previewing tunes from the new album, which is set to be quite a masterpiece if you ask them.

“We’ve put a hell of a lot of effort into the record and we’re stoked with the songs we’ve got so far,” the vocalist says. “Its gonna be the best thing we’ve ever done and we’re excited to relay the focus, to see what the response will be.”