Violent Femme gets on(surf)board with Midnight Oil

Sat 23rd Jan, 2010 in Local News

With a new wave of surfrock fast gaining momentum through outlets like The Drums and Big D and the Kids Table’s new album, some old-schoolers have joined the party to show the youngsters how it’s done.

Founding Oils members Rob Hirst, Jim Moginie and Martin Rotsey have teamed up with Violent Femmes bass player Brian Ritchie and with their powers combined they are The Break.

Ritchie has been a long time friend of Midnight Oil after the Femmes and Oils shared a US tour manager in the 80s and 90s.

The Break formed over a mutual love of 50s and 60s surf rock and will no doubt bring a classic edge to the pool of hipster-attracting surf bands currently getting attention.

“It just seemed very exciting that we loved this music from our childhood, the surf music, and decided to use all our energies to try to play surf music with a new twist,” the-man-of-a-thousand-bands Hirst told AAP.

The band will release an album, Church of the Open Sky, on April 16 with a sound that will mostly be instrumental.

“We’ve found the lack of vocals opens up all sorts of possibilities in the music that we couldn’t have even imagined in our wildest dreams.” Moginie said.

iTunes will release the album’s first single, Cylinders, on February 9 and The Break will be touring around Sydney and Wollongong soon after.

Hirst told AAP there had been thoughts of taking the tour international to countries with a surf rep.

“Because Midnight Oil and Violent Femmes had an international audience, one idea was to chase down those places of the world where there’s a surfing following, whether that’s South Africa or Brazil or the west coast of the States or wherever,” he said.

“But initially we just want to play in our home town and then around Australia.”