FOREST HALL ARE AUSSIE ROCKERS WHO LIVE LIFE ON THEIR TERMS AND ARE RISING FAST TO THE TOP OF THE INDIE GENE POOL. THEY'RE NOW READY TO TAKE ON THE WORLD, BUT ARE YOU READY FOR THEM?
Forest Hall are garage rockers based near Sydney, Australia. For six years they’ve been growing, steadily, releasing some excellent tracks along the way, culminating in their excellent debut album. “You’ll take on the world’. We caught up with them recently to scratch beneath the surface of this gently bubbling, soon to be giant.
For those who don’t know yet, could you give our readers a bit of background about the band?
We started about maybe seven of eight years ago and are all Sydney based. The band now consists of two sets of brothers, so very much a family affair! Forest Hall, the name, is something that jumped out at us for few reasons. Firstly, we love bands like The Vines and the evoking of nature it conjures, secondly we wanted a name that was somewhat stylistically vague, so through out our career we can weave in and out of any genre we want. A name that doesn’t box us in musically and genre-wise.
How much do think your homeland has played in shaping the vibe of the band?
Australia is chocka full of a long history of great and inspiring music. I think your environment shapes you whether you like it or not so, I’d say it’s inspired us considerably. The suburban streets, boiling hot summer’s, the beauty of the nature that surrounds us, I’m sure has inevitably seeped into our music to some capacity or another.
Australia has quite some legacy for producing some great rock bands from AC/DC through to Tame Impala, have any of them influenced your style. Do you think that there’s an ‘Oz’ gene to tap into?
For sure. Tame Impala is one that defiantly inspired us upon the inception of the band, particularly Albums like Innerspeaker and Lonerism. I think a band like AC/DC is as Aussie as a Four n Twenty, it’s so ubiquitous. Right now there is a great Underground Aussie music scene that is very inspiring, band like R.M.F.C, Misso, GeeTee, Shady Nasty, Verge Collection. The Local scene is very inspiring right now.
There’s no hidden sex fetishes locked away in there a la Michaël Hutchence that we better watch out for?
Michael Hutchence had hidden sex fetishes? The 80’s sounds like it was a pretty wild time eh?
How would you say your sound has progressed from the Broke Forever single through to this years ‘You’ll take on the world’ album?
Pretty significantly I’d say! In the early days we really were inspired by bands like Wavves and The Ramones, and it was reflected through songs like Broke Forever. Whereas You’ll Take On The World we really fanned out our style and explored some other influences. We’ve got some Bossa Nova, we’ve got Instrumentals, A lot of clean jangly guitars – the title track is the one we’re most proud of, we started experimenting with Midi, drum loops and synths. It was a fun new direction for us.
What’s your favourite track from the album and why?
Defiantly the title track as just mentioned before. It was just fun to go down some different, cool musical rabbit holes for us. We’d never messed with strings, synths and drum machines before so it was really exciting for us. It’s also such a dynamic song the way it builds ands builds to it’s crescendo. Defiantly a personal favourite. (Click the link at the foot of the page to play).
There seems to be a myriad of influences in there from Beach Boys harmonies in the titular opening track through to Jesus and Mary Chain darkness in ‘Summer’s Coming’, but who would you describe as your influences?
Those two examples are defiantly up there! Good call! Otherwise, to be honest everyone in the band is so well versed and has such eclectic tastes it really varies a lot, but let’s see, to name a few Wavves, QOTSA (pretty much anything Josh Homme has ever done to be honest), defiantly early Tame Impala, UMO, Mac Demarco, Homeshake. We also have been recently super inspired by some local talent, Sydney’s Shady Nasty and Adelaide’s Bad Dreems. Bad Dreem’s record Hoo Haa has been on repeat for us since it was released, for Aussie Rock N Roll, it can’t be beat.
What significant moment made you pick up instruments? And where did the desire to form a band come from?
We’ve all been obsessed with music from early on. Everyone in the band learnt instruments from an early age and had their own journey. Personally for me I learnt the violin from Kindigarden, but the desire to start a band probably began in year six when I first heard Chocolate Starfish by Limp Bizkit. Or possibly some Blink 182 album. It was the style at the time!
What’s the journey been like so far? Any obstacles along the way?
To be honest the logistics of trying to make music as a career isn’t easy. There’s defiantly been a bunch of hurdles along the way. If you can imagine it, it’s probably happened – musicians aren’t the easiest people to organise and wrangle, but we do it because we’re music obsessives and we love making music together, so ultimately all the roads blocks every band inevitably run into are worth it to play like and record the music you love.
What’s been the most ridiculous situation that you’ve found yourselves in?
Compared to many, we’re pretty tame for a rock n roll band to be honest. Once, when we were driving down to Melbourne to play our album launch show lighting nearly hit right next to our car and started a small bush fire on the side of the Highway we were on…that was pretty ridiculous. The beaten up old Honda Civic we took down there too began ago fall apart piece by piece the further drove. Somehow, we managed to get it back to Sydney after the tour though, Ha!
What would be your ideal venue to play at and who’d be on the bill?
Oh man. I mean, The Enmore is pretty iconic for us as locals. Coachella? Hahaha. I don’t know man, we’ll play anywhere. Bill-wise we’d probably put on Dress Theque (another great local band), maybe ask RMFC and…hmmm. Queens of the Stone Age? Oasis? Ha ha.
If you could possess the body of anyone (living or dead) for 24 hours, who would it be and what would you do with the power?
Now, there’s a question. Maybe Buzz Aldrin? I’d love to go to the moon. Yeah, I’d been Buzz Aldrin, go to the moon and eat some Tang.
Any plans to break out of Oz and tour the world?
We’d love that. We sometime talk about having a crack at the UK or the US but, we’re also happy to be in the Aus music scene. I think we need to make some more music and then down the line, who knows?
What’s next for FH? What’s the ambition?
We are currently about half way through our new record which we are very excited about. Ambition wise, apart from world domination of course, we have a solid three record plan and we want to keep playing as much as we can. We’d love to play more spots around the country, and a show overseas would be epic! We just want to try and make the best music we can to the best of our ability and really try to push oversells into making truly interesting art. That’s the ambition. Everything else is a bonus!