Featuring members of The Hollowmen, Helvelln, the Vanda’s and Flicker, Blackbirds FC play their own brand of alternative country rock inspired by the Go-Betweens, The Church and Wilco.
Originally an acoustic folk outfit operating on the no drummer/ no drama principle, in 2018 Blackbirds recorded a demo that attracted the attention of Scott Thurling from Popboomerang who released it as the Life Sciences EP later that year. The EP broke the ice for the band and garnered airplay on 3PBS, 3RRR, 2SER, Radio FBI, Indigo Fm, Three D Fm, Main Fm, 3MDR as well as warm reviews from blogs such as Come Here Floyd and MP3 Hugger.
After releasing the EP, the band picked up a new rhythm section with Julien Chick (bass) and Phil Campbell (drums) and set about refining arrangements, demoing songs and saving money for the big push.
That came in September 2019 when the band released their first album Field Recordings, produced by Cameron McKenzie (Horsehead, Mark Seymour). Launched at a sold-out gig at St Kilda’s Memo Music hall in September 2019, Field Recordings was played around the nation on stations such as 3RRR, 3PBS, 2SER, 2BBB, and Three D FM as well as getting international coverage through syndicated shows such as the Music Authority.
2020 saw plans to record a new album shelved and the band hunkered down writing and recording demos for 30 new songs. This opportunity to just focus on the songs without all the other busy work of being in band turned out to be wonderful silver lining for an otherwise disappointing year.
“There is an unmistakable antipodean blood flowing through the veins of this song – drawing in the wide sweeping landscapes created by The Triffids and The Go-Betweens, the sparkle and energy of The Church and the themes and story telling of Paul Kelly.”
Arun Kendall (Backseat Mafia)
Erm going from lockdown in 2021 the band returned to stages and the airwaves with a new single ‘Island of the Dogs’ and a sell out show at the Memo Music Hall’s Ember Lounge in February. Now they’ve just released their first video in June and will put out another another single ‘Transport Planes’ in July.
‘Island Of The Dogs’ received a great response upon release, with an online premiere on Backseat Mafia, a world radio premiere on Stuart Coupe’s Wildcard show on FBi Radio in Sydney and airplay right across Australia, including 2SER, 3RRR, PBS, Radio Adelaide, Henry Wagons’ Tower of Song on Double J and more. The song debuted at #10 on the AMRAP Metro charts.
The single follows the Victorian quintet’s 2019 debut album ‘Field Recordings‘, a collection of alternative country rock songs receiving acclaim from respected Australian music journalists and broadcasters such as Stuart Coupe, Noel Mengel and Paul Gough.
“A great song lives beyond your time and mine. You can find 12 of them on Field Recordings, a record to treasure when many of this year’s next big things are forgotten”
Noel Mengel (Music Trust E-Zine)
Now in 2021 they’re back in the studio recording their second full-length album and the first fruits of their labour arriving in the form of the lush melodies and chiming sounds of single ‘Island of the Dogs’. Inspired by the teenage memories of songwriter Jeremy Gronow, the song transports the listener back to summer nights at Phillip Island in the 1980’s.
“I’d sneak out of the motel and go across the road to the Isle of White Hotel beer garden. I’d stand there listening to the older, cooler kids partying to ‘Do Ya Think I’m Sexy’ and ‘Come Said the Boy’ and desperately wishing I could get inside. After the pub closed there would be people doing burn outs in Sandmans and utes out the front until the cops came,” reminisces Jeremy. “I thought it was all the best thing ever.”
Musically, the band continue to weave nuanced and intelligent indie rock into their cosmic and baroque, country and folk-rock sound. Jeremy reveals that “on ‘Island of the Dogs’ we were also drawing from a mutual love of The Police, Talk Talk, The Pretenders and XTC. All bands we never left behind from the 1980’s.”
From the same decade, one can also hear the ghosts of bands like The Triffids, Prefab Sprout and The Go-Betweens exchanging sonic pleasantries with current contemporaries such as Halfway, The Church, Paul Kelly, Iron & Wine and Wilco.
“Listening to Melbourne’s Blackbirds FC’s potent folk rock synthesis on their latest “Island of the Dogs” and I couldn’t help but think of the late 70s to around ’93 as a broad sweet spot of music when there seemed to be so many styles of indie rock converging.”
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