Angelas Dish

 

The Central Coast has been the birthing ground of many great Australian artists and over the past eight years, Angelas Dish have been frontrunners in the rock scene alongside the likes of Something with Numbers and After the Fall. Sean Frazer caught up with Chris Allison to discuss the new record, its national reception and an intriguing insight into some darker tracks on the album.

I received Walk into the Sky in the mail the other day and have given it a few spins on the stereo, what can you tell me about the time you guys spent writing and recording the record?
It was definitely one of the most extensive things that I have ever been a part of. I joined the band in 2009 and almost straight away we began work on this record, writing songs, I was thrown into the deep end right away. We spent a solid year just writing songs in Josh (guitar) and Michael’s (vocals) Mum and Dad’s garage, we had about 30-35 songs written and then had the task of picking which ones would be right for the album.
When you guys have written so many songs that you’re happy with, it must be difficult deciding which ones will be on the cutting block and which ones make the “best 13”.
It is tough when you have written double the amount of songs needed for a record, so we all sit down in our own time and listen to each track and pick our favorite 15 or 20 songs. After we’ve picked our favorites, we discuss the ones we want on the album. If there are disagreements within the band, we talk about the positives and negatives of the tracks to decipher if they are worthy of making the cut. Our producer had his role as well; he put his two cents in after our discussions and helped us decide.
How has the reception been for Walk into the Sky?
The response has been fantastic so far, the online reviews that we have been reading have been amazing. It’s still early days, so not as many people as we would like, have heard it. We are really proud of the record and hopefully as word circulates, more and more people will get a listen and enjoy it just as much as we enjoy playing the songs.
Angelas Dish have a few NSW shows lined up, which is great for us, but is there a national tour expected to take place soon?
A national tour is currently in the pipeline at the moment, we’re looking at heading interstate in August. I think we are hitting Melbourne, Adelaide, Brisbane and a few other places and we’re trying to get things happening by around that time.
  

The band has made quite a name on the Central Coast. When you guys head down to Melbourne or up to Queensland how are you guys received up there?
It’s definitely a different kind of scene, I mean the boys have been playing music on the Central Coast for about eight years now and we feel pretty accomplished with where our name is at on the coast. Our manager and record label is based down in Melbourne so, in a way, it’s like our second home, we have a fairly decent following down there that come out and almost religiously come and see us.  From my experiences travelling up north, there are a fair few hardcore fans that always come and see us play some shows, it’s definitely still building but we are quite happy with the reception we receive when we head to these types of places so far from home.
I’m intrigued to know about the song ‘Have You Around’, it seems to be quite a dark way to end the record.
Yeah, Josh wrote that song himself, about an old neighbor of his, whose daughter committed suicide. The song is about the feelings Josh felt every time he would see his neighbor’s face – the hurt and the pain his neighbor was feeling. We sat down with two Psychologists for a few hours and recorded their understandings on the subject of suicide, these are the voices that you hear at the end of ‘Where did you go?’ and leading into ‘Have You Around’. It was a really good discussion on a topic that has been researched for years.