Violent Soho

It’s been said “You can expect great things from people with passion” and these guys hit the proverbial nail on the head. I’m talking of course about Brisbane based suburban punk rock band Violent Soho. With an on point grungy sound, killer guitars and an infectious punk rock attitude these four boys from Mansfield Brisvegas are pulling crowds like never before. GC Mag had a chance to chat to James recently about tours, label signings, big day out and sandwiches.
No strangers to the stage, Violent soho have been shaking up and rocking out venues for the better part of a decade now playing gigs ranging from Ric’s bar and Coolangata hotel, to more recent festivals such as Big Day Out and Falls Festival. Their growing popularity evident in the enormous crowd they drew to watch their set at Splendour In the Grass this year with one of the largest audiences of the weekend, a crowd of 20,000 strong, all chanting the bands chorus to the breakthrough single ‘Covered in Chrome’ “Hell F@#k yeah!”
When asked if he prefers small gigs or festivals the reply was a mix of both with a particular soft spot for being invited to play Big Day Out at Metricon stadium earlier this year. The band is excited to be headlining at the upcoming 10th anniversary of ‘Festival of the sun” in Port Macquarie this December alongside acts such as The Jezebel’s and Shihad.
September 30 marks an exciting occasion for the boys with the release of their album ‘Hungry ghost’ (which debuted at #6 in the Aria charts) in the US. Signing with the Iconic LA punk Label SideOneDummy, who has represented greats such as Mxpx, Flogging Molly and Andrew Jackson Jihad is definitely a career highlight for Guitarist James Tidswell being a childhood fan of many of the labels artists. He said at 12 he wasn’t allowed Dookie (by greenday) as a child because of the inappropriate references, but instead was given a copy of Mxpx’s “Life in General” by his grandmother and his interest in punk rock grew from there. “So it’s all from an MxPx CD that my grandma bought me and now I’m singing to SideOneDummy and it’s fricken awesome”
James also recently appeared in a documentary titled “The truth about money in music” by director and friend Dan Graetz in which he gives the public a bit of insight in to the reality behind Australia’s Music Industry ”There’s just not enough room these days for people to make music and it isn’t because they want to “make it”, it has to be, purely ,because you want to make music and it’s just clogging up the pipeline for people that are stoked to play in front of 50 people, so I was just sorta trying to encourage people to not be in a band, if their doing it for any other reason than you want to play music. Because if you just wanna play music then, you know, a show at your mates party is gonna be sick. So that’s the kind of people we need making music, that are stoked to be there.”
Violent Soho certainly don’t disappoint on that front, their music is passionate, their live shows electric and their sound is like no other. These really are boys who play music for the love of it, “For those about to rock, I salute you”.