9+1 Q&A with Lucid Hoops

What inspired you to first start making music? And how did you come to be in your current incarnation? Or if you prefer, a brief bio about you.

Ash: I have quite a musical family and I’ve always been surrounded by it since I can remember. When I was 5 or 6 my parents enrolled me in singing lessons and I haven’t stopped singing since. Music school was essentially my after school care and the place where my passion was nurtured. As I entered my later years of high school I knew I wanted to pursue music and ended up studying it at university where I met my beautiful band mates.

Connor: I honestly can’t remember what exactly inspired me to start making music, I just know that I started writing when I was 12, and at the time I loved the music of Ozzy Osbourne.

Jack: I was first inspired to start making music from watching musicians play on programs such as ‘Video Hits’ and ‘Rage’. Powderfinger, Silverchair and the Foo Fighters in particular made me want to be in a band and start to write rock music. I would not be in a band at all without the help of an Inner West extra-curricular musical program called ‘School of Rock’, which teaches kids how to play together in a band and how to write songs. From that point on, I have been in several bands, including this one.
I and the other members of Lucid Hoops all met at our music college, the Australian Institute of Music. Connor and Ash had been in a band already which broke up before I joined, and Luke was introduced into the band later on by our manager and friend Lucas. From then on we’ve been making and playing music and honing our sound.

Luke: I found music by singing in cars with my mum. She always used to sing and it came naturally to me to have music in my life. When I started getting deeper into music past the enticing melodies I started seeing the raw power it can show. It helps understand everything people are thinking. From the folk artists telling their stories to the contemporary hip hops artists and punks singing about their feelings of society.

Provide us with some info about your latest release…

Ash: Something To Earn is the fourth song we’re releasing off of our debut EP Diviner. It’s a real heartfelt song about someone who is questioning if they deserve love. The song is a necessary breath in amongst the other high energy songs on Diviner.

Connor: “Something To Earn” is a ditty that speaks about my perception of love. It talks about the desire to find love and feeling as though I’m not good enough to feel love.

Jack: Our latest single, “Something To Earn” is the fourth of five songs we have and will continue to release in rapid succession. It’s the softest and most sombre of these singles and is a nice song to sit down and reflect with all the spare time we now suddenly have.

Luke: Something To Earn is a fantastical ballad directed to oneself. The lyrics are a creative expression and journey of someone going through the process of figuring out they don’t need to do anything to be loved, everyone deserves to be loved because they are. It’s a great journey into the hardship and mind of our guitarist, who wrote the song. I love him, it really shows his process and he expresses his thoughts in ways I could never even think of. He’s very passionate about the song and when recording it you could see his heart being poured into every tiny detail!

Which ones would you consider your main influences both music-wise & non-music-wise?

Ash: These change all the time but at the moment my three main musical influences are Jeff Buckley, Radiohead and the Smashing Pumpkins. I’m really into art as well and I’m super into Surrealist art, my three favorite artists of that art style are Salvador Dali, Max Ernst and Rene Magritte.

Connor: My musical influences are ever-changing, but currently they are Melvins, Mike Patton, Freddie Mercury and Tosin Abasi. My non-musical influences are negative experiences. Nothing fuels me and my music more than my complaining about life. Most of my music (Lucid Hoops or not) speaks in a negative tone, because I find there’s more to talk about in the negative aspects of life than positive.

Jack: Music-wise, my main influences personally are Silverchair, Powerfinger, Pantera, Straitjacket Fits and Eskimo Joe. Apart from music, most of my influences have been fictional. I adore the hyper- realistic, yet only spiritual mindset of Nate Fisher Jr. from ‘Six Feet Under’ and somewhat aspire to be like John Carter from ‘ER’.

Luke: I love everything that is true and forward. I love the punks of the 70s and 80s singing about how they hate the society they live in, through politics or societal norms set on them. I find the stories being told through any medium to be as powerful. Visual art, photography, movies, dance and especially music all show raw emotion that can’t be expressed anywhere else. I think I love being in this band so much because we all know how important the things that surround the music is. We really try to help include and give respect to our artists, our photographers, anyone who helps us out at the sametime trying to give them their artistic freedom to shine through.

In what way does your sound differ from the rest genre-related artists/bands and why should we listen to your music? In other words, how would you describe your sound?

Ash: I think the main thing that differentiates our sound from other bands in our genre would be our palpable energy. We also explore a bunch of different genres under the rock umbrella because each band member has their own unique tastes in music. The combination of all of these genres is really present on Diviner and each song is unique.

Connor: I believe we are more spread out in our genre margin. We are a bit more eclectic than other artists.

Jack: I would describe our sound as bipolar, for one of the better words. We don’t really like to stick to one dynamic, some of our songs are loud and aggressive and some are delicate and grungy. We also incorporate a lot of effects into some of our songs for a psychedelic quality. All and all, if I could summarise our sound in three words they’d be bipolar, grungy and aggressive.

Luke: We all come from different roots of the culture. My band mates all listen to such different sub-genres than me. We push these together and we can come out with the awesome amalgamations of music. I think get me out of here shines with that where we take the heavy energy of hardcore punk, combining it with the powerful fem vocals that came through on the 90s and have even more influences from our contemporary’s that surround us.

Please name your 3 desert islands albums, movies & books…

Ash: My albums would be: Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness by Smashing Pumpkins, Folie a Duex by Fall Out Boy and By The Way by Red Hot Chili Peppers.

My movies would be: School of Rock, Step Brothers and Kill Bill

My books would be: Scar Tissue by Anthony Kiedis, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck by Mark Manson and some good old Harry Potter

Connor: – 3 albums: Faith No More’s “The Real Thing”, Pantera’s “GreatSouthern Trendkill”, Melvins’ “The Maggot”.

– 3 movies: “Bionicle: Mask of Light”, “Bionicle: Legends of Metru Nui”,
“Bionicle: Web Of Shadows”.

– 3 books: “Miles: The Autobiography” – Miles Davis and Quincy Jones, “Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life” (Autobiography) – Eric Idle, “Let Me Off At The Top!” – Ron Burgundy

Jack: My three desert island albums are:
Silverchair – ‘Diorama’
Powderfinger – ‘Internationalist’
Slipknot – ‘Slipknot’

My three desert island films are:
‘Man Up’ – Dir. Ben Palmer
‘Network’ – Dir. Sidney Lumet
‘Bruno’ – Dir. Larry Charles

My three desert island books are:
‘The Green Mile’ – Stephen King
‘The Book of Daniel – From Silverchair to Dreams’ – Jeff Apter
Any ‘Guinness World Records’ book.

Luke: I have to say Minor Threat – First Two Seven Inches. That album really pushed what I am today. Refused – the shape of punk to come. That’s my favourite writing on any album ever. I know it’s a contrast but A Tribe Called Quest – People’s Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm. I don’t think there is a single bad note on that album

Do you prefer studio or performing live and why?

Ash: Both are super fun and obviously rewarding but I think I prefer performing live because it’s so in the moment and you get to interact with your band mates and the audience which I feel makes the stakes higher and elevates your performance.

Connor: Definitely live!! It’s where I get to be intimate with those who like what we do. It’s also the only circumstance in life as a very careful sort of person where I’m afraid of nothing.

Jack: I would definitely prefer performing music live. Even though there isn’t really a lot of room for really vast intricacy in song arrangements like there is in the studio, the feeling I get from performing in front of a crowd is one of the most exhilarating I have felt. There’s a lot less waiting and sitting down and being bored if I’m being perfectly honest.

Luke: Live for sure. This band has so much energy it’s such a spectacle to be up there with three other people whom I love so much that just get every crazy motion I’m doing. We hit together, fall together. We fuck up all the time but it doesn’t matter because I’m up there, with my friends, going absolutely crazy and having the best times. I’ve had moments where I’ll see something in the audience that would really upset me, then I look over and Connor fly kicks his mic stand down or something and I realise we are on cloud nine.

Is there any funny-unique story you would like to share with us, always in relation to your music ‘career’?

Ash: We were playing at a really crowded bar called The Townie in Sydney and after we played people kept coming up to me asking me if I was Lucy Hoops. I guess it was too loud to actually hear me announce our name, it’s now my bandmates favorite thing to call me. Another highlight would be us all dressing in Sailor Moon costumes on Halloween and absolutely packing out the venue.

Connor: I wish there were, but there isn’t. Sorry.

Jack: I’m pretty uninteresting, I don’t really have anything funny or unique to tell you about my ‘career’ so far, sorry.

Luke: This band is fucking crazy man. The amount of times we’ve had to stop rehearsals because we’ve gotten too into the music and someone ends up kicking something over, someone breaks 2 stings in 1 solo, we rip cables.

Which track of your own would you point out as the most unique and why?

Ash: Get Me Out of Here is the most unique track on the EP. Production-wise it’s quite different to the other songs as we really turned up the distortion and explored some cool vocal effects. The energy on this track really reminds me of our live performances and really captures attention. It really is a whirlwind of a song.

Connor: I can’t give an answer, because no two of our released songs sound the same. They are all equally unique.

Jack: I’d say that our most unique track would have to be one called ‘Porcelain Skull’. I would call it unique because of the effects that we put on the guitar and bass, as well as the slightly apocalyptic-sounding vocal arrangements. A lot of the parts of individual instruments don’t sound like they belong together theoretically but do when put into practice, which makes it sound a little more unique. I personally hope to record it one day.

Luke: It’s hard to say. Our songs are a combination of all our love of music. I think our recent release has the most unique lyrics on it. When our guitarist wrote it, it was just pure thoughts. I’ve never heard someone say the words he does. I think it’s something special, he blew my mind when I first saw them. It’s complemented by the ballad he wrote to accompany it. I’ve never felt someone so set on the song. It’s really his shining moment on the album, watching him record it you could tell how strongly he felt about it.

Would you like to share with our readers your future plans?

Ash: Our plan is to keep creating and eventually get back in the studio and record and make some new music! Our first releases have taught us so much and I can’t wait to apply what we know now to what the future has in store for us.

Connor: I plan to build a cosmic shrink ray and shrink the entire world’s population, as to slow the rate of running out of the world’s resources. And then I’ll take this act of altruism and ruin it by being the only full- sized human on Earth, and I will rule the world with an iron fist!

Jack: All I can say about future plans is quite broad. Like I’ve said, our latest single is the fourth of five singles to come out three weeks apart, so we obviously still have one more single to release and promote. Apart from that, we will still be continuing to write more music which I hope personally we can really make our own rather than sounding like something else, not that I’m saying we’re copying someone’s style now. We’re really, like most other bands probably, really irking to play live, really, really irking!

Luke: We just want to push our sound and energy going forward. Getting crazier, writing better songs, recording so much more. We have the taste of what it’s like now, It’s only motivation to push us to do more and more. I’m excited for it.

Free question!!! (Ask yourself a question) you wish to answer and haven’t been given the opportunity…

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Photo credits: Sam James Photography

Curated by: Christos Doukakis

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