By James Murphy
While the pandemic and personal health struggles brought Slowly Slowly’s promotion of their third album, Race Car Blues, to a screeching halt, the Melbourne pop punk four piece has been busily linking together a run of shows since the release late last year of their follow up, Daisy Chain. At Groovin the Moo on the 21st of April, front-man is looking forward to “prancing around on stage”, then capping off the evening by enjoying a set by the man who has soundtracked many a tour van journey, Fatboy Slim.
In January 2020, Slowly Slowly made their first Hottest 100 entry at 57 with ‘Jellyfish’; a month later, Race Car Blues was released, just as the world began to awaken to the threat of COVID-19. Not fortuitous timing. After a two year forced hiatus, Ben is grateful for the return of normality.
“As much as we’ve blocked out that period, you get these little bursts of memory: I can’t believe its back and this is happening, shows are happening consecutively without the concern of cancellation. It feels like the world is right again. For whatever damaged reason, I feel like I need to prance around on stage to feel like myself so it’s nice to have that available to us”, Ben says.
Daisy Chain isn’t just a return, though; it’s an escalation, with the band collaborating with emo pioneer Chris Carabba from Dashboard Confessional on ‘Moving Trains’ and Oz-Rock royalty, Tim Rogers, on the film clip to single ‘God’.
“They say don’t meet your heroes but my experiences with both of them has been contrary to that. We loved working with Chris; it was probably the easiest song on the record to put together. He just got exactly where we were going with the song and our voices seemed to work well together. His vocals were just perfect”, Ben says.
“Working with Tim was just a really special experience. In person, just hanging out on the video clip day he was such a charming, curious person who was so humble about his amazing discography of works,” Ben continues.
While both Rogers and Carabba are heroes of Ben’s, on the band’s recent Triple J Like A Version, the band paid tribute to their greatest influence: punk-rock jesters Blink 182.
“Blink 182 was probably the seminal act of my teens that ties together the other members of the band as well; we all had our Blink 182 discovery moment. Being able to age with that band and see them move and push the envelope they were put in, of dick jokes and power chords, and then being able to push out like ‘I Miss You’ with double bass and that strange swung drum beat. I love that they were able to carry who they were through different aesthetic periods.”
On single, ‘God’, Ben, pushed beyond his own boundaries by lyrically exploring religion and spirituality.
“I didn’t really have much of a religious background other than the standard Catholicism of growing up Italian. I grew up with mainly an atheist ethic, I guess just being a negative teen, and then my dad had an awakening later in life that coincided with the passing of my step-mother and that forced me to have a look at that.”
“As I’ve grown older, it’s really hard as a musician and a creative to not have some sort of agnostic standpoint because a lot of the time these songs are arriving to you pre-written and often you don’t feel responsible for the creative work that you’ve done but you receive the accolades for them. A song like God is a giant sub-conscious rambling that happened in ten minutes; all the lyrics spewed out.”
With all that has passed in the last two years, you can be sure that Slowly Slowly will be channel their excitement and energy during their Groovin the Moo set. With a line-up that includes Fatboy Slim, Alt-J, Amy Shark, Denzel Curry, Sophie May, Confidence Man and much more, you better get moo-ving and grab those tickets.
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