Central Coast band Elliot the Bull have kept their rocking feet busy, having only been together under a year, the boys have already hit the road twice, recorded a tour EP and played alongside Lydia on their farewell tour. The five piece rock outfit are destined for bigger things this year with your ears in their sights.
Sean Frazer caught up with Justin Hyland for a chat.
You boys have just finished an intense national tour with the boys of Lydia and have set
off for another tour with As Tall as Lions. How’s life on the road with the boys of Elliot the
Bull, and how has the tour been so far?
It's been great man. As Tall as Lions are an amazing band to see live, I've been seeing them play
night after night and I can't get bored of their set! Life on the road is a really good thing for the
band, not having to work our day jobs and just driving from town to town playing music, it gives
us all time to appreciate what we have with the band. It reminds us why we put so much time and
money into it.
You guys aren’t new to playing music – having played in plenty of other bands
collectively before ETB. This must have really helped you guys progress quicker than
most bands that are just starting out. Did you guys gel pretty quickly when you first got
into the jam room?
Yeah, we've all had a lot of experience in previous bands and we've all been really good friends for a
long time. There are two sets of brothers in the band, so we all understand how each person works.
Having your brother in the band makes it easier to compliment what they would like added to the
sound of their work. There's a really good chemistry in the jam room and it has been like that since
day one.
I’m intrigued to know what the song ‘Silver Liquid’ on the tour EP was written about.
Silver Liquid is a song my brother Matt and I co-wrote. It's a song about anxiety, about breaking
free from thoughts that you planted in your own mind. The chorus lyric; “Sometimes I wonder if the
palings on my fence just keep me in, caged up wonder curiously looks out, but then stays in” means
that you’re so comfortable with your surroundings and so used to being at home doing the same
thing every day and every weekend that you tend to get in moods where you don’t want to go out
with your friends to the pub or to a party. In the back of your head you know that once your there
you'll have a great time like you always do, but it's about getting out of your own head and not giving
into the feeling of anxiety.
Do you guys work together when writing the material?
- whether it’s Matt, Jake or I - then it’s brought into the jam room and that's when we all work on it
as a band. The more input, the better, once the base of the song is written, we then begin to add all
the spices to it. That is how we write all our songs, we never just work off a riff or something little in
the jam room and try and write a song on the spot like that. Too many inputs or too many “chefs” as
they say, just causes a mess of different ideas which won’t flow too well in the end.
The genre you guys play isn’t the typical sound that’s circling the coast at the moment,
what inspired the sound for ETB?
We all grew up on a lot of punk and hardcore, eventually branching off into different stuff. For
example; my favorite artist now is Conor Oberst (Bright Eyes), anything he's involved in really, the
guy is an amazing lyricist! We all have that punk background that seeps through in our songs but
artists like Radiohead, Nick Cave, Bob Dylan, Elliot smith etc... Play a big part in inspiring us to play
music.
Can we expect some more material released soon?
We're currently working on new material for a release date late this year. I can't say it's going to be
an album, I'd like it to be, but we'll just wait and see how well the EP we just released goes. I can say
that it will be in the back half of the year and it's going to be supported with another tour. I'm sure
we'll hit the road again before then and play some shows it's our favorite part of being in a band.
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